Kaiping watchtowers a curious legacy of overseas Chinese wealth
A swathe of Guangdong stands testament to the successes of the overseas Chinese whose remittances have furnished the landscape with cultural curiosities, writes Cecilie Gamst Berg
How would you like to live in a town called Anus? That is the fate of the fine and, I have to say, good-looking, citizens of Jiangmen, in Guangdong province.
"What? Jiangmen has nothing to do with 'anus'," you say, pointing out that the characters that make up "jiang" and "men" mean "river" and "gate/door/opening".
Ah, but that's because you didn't take my advice and learn Cantonese! In Cantonese, "river" is pronounced " gong" (as in Cheung "Kong", which should be spelled "gong" and which means "long river", the Chinese name for the Yangtze). So Jiangmen becomes Gongmuhn, which sounds exactly like the medical word for that celebrated back door, the anus opening.
"Waaaaah," cry the people of the town thus maligned. "Can't we call it a different name? How about 'City of Overseas Chinese'? Then perhaps we won't have to suffer any more indignities like the cheeky colon-cleansing service that wished 'the people of Gongmuhn to have happy anuses …'"
That's a splendid idea, for who would want to live in Anus, even if it's purely in a homonym way? The new name is an apt improvement, for overseas "Chinese-ing" has shaped this town and vast tracts of the area around it like few other activities.
and I venture into Guangdong by ferry instead of train, seeing as it's National Day and the Lo Wu crossing is bound to make being in a tin of sardines feel like camping by yourself in the Sahara. Zhongshan ferry pier looks like a provincial post office from the 1970s and there are no other foreigners at the passport control.
There are also no taxis, but we remember from other trips that the trusty bus No1 will take us all the way into Zhongshan city centre, with its beautifully restored treaty port architecture and endless riverbank promenade shaded by trees.