Thanks for the memories: landmark Guangzhou hotel attract nostalgic crowds
Sentimental locals flock to Guangzhou's White Swan Hotel to relive their happy memories as it reopens after a three-year renovation
Liang Dalun recalls vividly the day he set foot in Guangzhou's White Swan Hotel 33 years ago. It was his first contact with modernisation, he said.
"Everyone was eager to see what a five-star hotel was like even if they could not afford to stay in it," Liang said of the 34-storey hotel that sits against neat rows of European-style houses at the tip of Shamian Island overlooking the Pearl River.
At the time, cars, air-conditioning and even the telephone were all still quite foreign to him - and most Chinese people, for that matter.
Yet three decades later, luxurious living is no longer such an alien concept for the affluent Chinese of today - testament to just how far the nation has come.
"My grandfather gave me my name. It means 'to achieve the standard of London'," Liang said. "It was the dream of many Chinese people then for China to become as developed as Britain and the United States."
The last three decades of hard work have also paid off for Liang as the 56-year-old revisited the newly renovated hotel this week - no longer as the impoverished youth he once was, but as a successful logistics businessman.