From Guangzhou to Zhuhai to Macau

[Update at end]

I have not posted during the past couple days due to some travel. It started in Guangzhou where I took a 40 minute subway ride to Guangzhou's South Train Station, one of several train train stations in Guangzhou and one of the many mammoth new train stations that can be found in a number of cities in China.

When I arrived I first sought out these machines to purchase a ticket:

ID is now required to purchase tickets. Unfortunately, the scanning system for the machines appears to only read Chinese Resident Identity Cards and not passports. After discovering this fact I went to the old fashioned ticket windows in a different section of the station:

Anyone familiar with Chinese train stations will appreciate my relief in finding such short and well defined lines. The scene would be very different in many other train stations in China. Even with the short wait, though, the train I wanted to ride had sold out since I had checked it on the automated machines. Fortunately, a few first class seats were remaining on the train departing only 30 minutes later. Some high speed rail lines in China have reported low ridership numbers. All I can say is that with trains departing every 15-30 minutes this line appeared to be very busy that day.

After purchasing the tickets I entered the sprawling main departure hall:

If only I had roller blades with me.

And after passing through security I was in the waiting area:

But there was no need to wait and I headed directly to the train:

While the train line I rode is sometimes referenced as "light rail", the trains do not in fact fit that classification. So, I will call it by its more proper name: the Guangzhou–Zhuhai Intercity Railway.

Traveling at speeds up to 200 km/h (124 mph) I arrived in about 50 minutes at the terminal station -- Zhuhai North Station. Apparently the line will someday extend to a more central location in Zhuhai. One can only hope. As it stood, after paying just 44 RMB (about US $7) for the train ticket I paid almost double that for the long taxi ride into town. City buses were available for only 1 RMB but they did not go exactly where I wanted and included many stops. Also, they were already full with recently arrived passengers, and I was not sure there would even be space for me when the next ones arrived. While I enjoy trying to ride "local" in China, this was a time where I decided to take a pass. Fortunately, I got my money's worth as my taxi driver apparently had aspirations to be a Formula One driver.

The day after arriving in Zhuhai I went to Macau. Similar to what I explained in my post about the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, you must pass out of mainland China through immigration in Zhuhai and then take a short walk before going through immigration once more to enter the special administrative region of Macau, despite it being part of China. And like Hong Kong, mainland Chinese need a special permit to enter Macau while many foreigners, including myself, only need a passport. From the time I left my hotel, walking to the border, going through two immigration channels, and finally arriving in Macau took less than one hour. It was even faster when I returned to Zhuhai due to shorter lines.

So, as you can see I've been busy moving about. No complaints from me though. The food in Macau is great:

African Chicken Macau Style

And pretty decent food in Zhuhai can be very inexpensive:

Squid, fish, vegetables and rice for about US $1.40

I share all of this not only to provide a "taste" of some of my recent meals but also of some of the travel experience one can find in China. The high speed train ride was certainly a very different world from many other travel experiences I have had, such as a horse cart in Xizhou, Yunnan province.

More posts, including some about Guangzhou, Zhuhai, and Macau soon.


Update (July 25, 2012): For more about the extension of the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity Railway see the newer post "The Future Intercity Railway Station at the Macau-Zhuhai Border".

Hong Kong's Border: A Barrier for Many Chinese

Yesterday, as I walked on a bridge over a small river I took this photo:

The bridge is significant because it connects immigration checkpoints for Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. When I took the photo I had just passed through immigration in Hong Kong and was on my way to immigration in Shenzhen. In short, I needed my passport to depart Hong Kong, and yet again needed my passport, but with a Chinese visa, to enter mainland China. While Hong Kong is part of China, experiences such as this one can make it feel otherwise.

Perhaps this is no more strongly felt than by some of China's own citizens. While entering Hong Kong is simple for me as a US Citizen, with only a passport I'm granted 90 days visa-free upon arrival, it is very different for many people in mainland China. For example, here is an excerpt of some of the polices for citizens of mainland China as posted on Hong Kong's Immigration Department's web site:

Visit relatives

6. Mainland residents who wish to visit their relatives in Hong Kong are required to obtain an Exit-entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao with an "endorsement for visiting relatives (Tanqing)" from the relevant Public Security Bureau Office.

Group tours

7. Mainland residents who wish to come here for sightseeing may join the group tours organized by designated Mainland tour companies. Group tour members need to obtain an Exit-entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao and an "endorsement for group visit (Tuandui Luyou)" issued by the Public Security Bureau Office. As group tour visitors, they must arrive and depart together as a group.

Individual visits

8. Mainland residents from Guangdong Province and 28 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Taizhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Jinan, Shenyang, Dalian, Nanchang, Changsha, Nanning, Haikou, Guiyang, Kunming, Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Changchun, Hefei and Wuhan who wish to come here for sightseeing purpose in individual capacity are required to obtain an Exit-entry Permit for travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao and an "endorsement for individual visit (Geren Luyou)" from the relevant Public Security Bureau Office.

Business visits

9. Mainland residents who wish to make business trips to Hong Kong in their private capacity are required to obtain an Exit-entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao and an "endorsement for business visit (Shangwu)" from the relevant Public Security Bureau Office.

To be clear, even if someone from mainland China has a passport they can be denied entry to Hong Kong if they have not applied in advance for a permit. And just because someone can apply for a permit doesn't mean they'll receive it. Also, people in different parts of mainland China are not treated equally. For example, point 8 only offers residents in select locations the opportunity to visit Hong Kong for sightseeing purposes if they're not a part of a group tour.

I recall one time in particular when a Chinese friend received a permit to visit Hong Kong and she was eagerly awaiting its abundant shopping opportunities (some international goods are cheaper or more available in Hong Kong than in mainland China). Unfortunately, upon getting off the bus in Hong Kong she had to immediately return to mainland China for work-related reasons. Although she wanted to return to Hong Kong the next day, she couldn't because her permit was only valid for a single entry.

A couple of months ago Su Gengsheng wrote a blog post detailing her own eye-opening experience of being denied an entry permit for Hong Kong by local police in Hunan province. A translation can be found in the post "Is Hong Kong really a part of China? Emotionally no." by Annie Lee on ChinaHush. While Su blamed a "chaotic management system" for her problems, Lee mentions another post with a different perspective:

After reading Su’s blog post, Netease certified columnist Nan Qiao commented the subject matter in his post “When will HK return to China”. He went on HK government site to check out the rules set by Hong Kong and concluded that Chinese are being discriminated from the fact that residents from 53 foreign countries such as the US, France, Japan, Britain can enter and stay in HK for up to 90 days visa-free; and residents from 11 other foreign countries get the visa-free stay for 30 days such as Costa Rica, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait etc; and some 17 other countries’ passports get 14 days visa-free stay. Of course China is not the only one that is keep out by visa, there are a bunch of other countries too, including Afghanistan, Albania, Cambodia, Congo, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya and so on.

“In HK and our central government’s eyes” wrote Nan Qiao, “are we Chinese family fellows the same as people from Afghanistan, Burundi, Cuba, North Korea, Iraq etc? People may think that these restrictions are reasonable considering mainland’s super large population. Then why Indians get to have 14 days visa-free stay in HK? Does India have a small population?”

Based on the conversations I've had, thoughts on whether and how the policy should change can vary quite a bit, particularly if comparing those of people in mainland China and Hong Kong. Whatever the justification for the policy, Nan's later comments at the end of his post touch on a broader point: what impact does the policy and its application have on how other countries treat or perceive China and its people? The answer to that question may matter more to many in mainland China than whether they can visit Hong Kong without needing to apply for a permit.

Bing Maps and Google Maps: The China-India Border

In my earlier post, I pointed out that both Bing Maps and Google Maps appear to explicitly indicate China's border surrounding the regions of the South China Sea and Taiwan in their China-based versions but do not do so in their US-based versions.  Leon White, who is working on his master's degree in international relations, commented on another disputed border of China that shows a similar pattern in how it is represented, but with a slight twist:

"I am currently writing my thesis on the 60 year old China-India border conflict, and the images of whole China at the end struck me as interesting...

... my main reason for writing is to highlight the differences in how these different mapping services portray the disputed border between China and India. The area most sensitive to China is the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as Southern Tibet. China has not exercised control over this area since it briefly advanced to its own claim lines in the border war of 1962 - the current Line of Actual Control (LAC) runs along the controversial McMahon Line, which connects Bhutan to Myanmar starting just north of Tawang town, roughly at the north-east point of the roughly rectangular shape of Bhutan.

All of these mapping services show the border according to China's claim, i.e. at the SOUTH-east point of Bhutan's border:
http://ditu.google.cn/?ll=27.176469,92.60376&spn=7.979828,14.27124&z=7&brcurrent=3,0x3761317e9c4a2cc1:0x1fc12c628413da99,1%3B5,0,1

http://cn.bing.com/ditu/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=25.681137~95.515137&style=r&lvl=5&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=7&tn=B_NORMAL_MAP&c=9855441,2907956&cc=&s=tpl%3ACity&sc=0

China does NOT actually control this territory, and both parties recognise it as under dispute!

Bing appears to be trying to have it both ways, according to their Indian mapping service:
http://www.bing.com/mapindia/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=26.951453~95.756836&style=r&lvl=6&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Only Google Maps US, which loads sporadically for me here in Beijing with the VPN off, is honest about the border dispute. Note the second part of the dispute in the west, confused up with the whole Kashmir issue:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=china&hl=en&ll=28.767659,94.152832&spn=16.273866,28.54248&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=58.076329,114.169922&z=6

And, just for laughs, the Chinese government's official mapping service:
http://tianditu.cn/

Because every mapping services needs a flashy splash screen. I couldn't seem to find a link function on that site, but it did kindly provide me with a little red car in the middle of Sichuan for some reason. Reshma Patil, the correspondent for the Hindustan Times in Beijing, had the following to say about this service:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/restofasia/China-s-Google-Earth-rival-claims-Arunachal/Article1-616619.aspx

http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/middle-order/2010/10/24/borderline/

Sorry for the barrage of links. I suppose the conclusions to be drawn from this are fairly obvious. In order to operate in China, you must toe the line on where the government says the borders are, even though there is no hope in hell they are getting all of that territory back, just as India will never control the Aksai Chin under dispute in the west. Most academics and even the press in China realise this, although Tawang (birthplace of the 6th Dalai Lama and potential reincarnation site of the next one) is still under serious dispute."

Based on what I found before, I'm not surprised by the variations in representing the disputed border between China and India.

That Google Maps US clearly represents this border as disputed but does not do so for Taiwan or the South China Sea is worth notice.  I suspect at least part of the reason is due to how Google Maps US represents the borders for islands that have no internal international borders - for example, Taiwan, Madagascar, and Hawaii.  In short, there is nothing explicitly indicating whether islands are part of another country or independent -- for example, no country border lines around Madagascar and no dashed line to explicitly show that Hawaii is part of the US.  However, one could infer Hawaii is part of the US due to it being labeled with its state abbreviation (HI) at certain zoom levels similar to other US states.  One could also infer that Taiwan is not a part of China according to Google Maps US.  At a zoom level where China's provinces are only labeled in Chinese, Taiwan is labeled in both Chinese and English (it is peculiar that Google Maps US does not provide the names of China's provinces in English).

The details provided by Leon White regarding the disputed border between China and India brought to mind something I've been pondering recently.  What is the difference between censoring information according to government rules and providing maps of disputed regions that conform to government rules?  Both can have great impact on how people see the world around them.  I'll share some of my thoughts on this topic later.