The White Swan Hotel

When photos are back on again, I'll upload a couple of photos, first of the liquor and glassware cabinet in our room at the White Swan Hotel, and second of Linda, smiling ear -to-ear across the street from "Linda's E-Gallery", one of the many shops in front of the hotel.

We managed to have the worst meal of our trip so far, at "Lucy's" bar and grill, which serves American food (mostly). Linda had a hamburger; I had "Lucy's special fried noodles", and Joyce ordered a fried rice. 180Y (about US$25) later, we decided to stick with Chinese food for the rest of the trip.

The White Swan is quite a nice hotel, even by US standards. I'd put it on rank with the Ritz Carltons I've seen--vigilantly clean, high-end shopping in the lobby, lots of services, professional and helpful staff. Paul and Christine rented a suite and sound quite impressed with it; I haven't yet been to see it, but they report that the room comes with silk robes to wear. On the other hand, we're also paying US prices--room service with a bowl of congee for Juliet and a plate of French Fries for the adults came to 168Y, which is about US$20.

There seem to be large numbers of adoptive families at the White Swan. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that 80% of the people eating at the breakfast buffet were adoptive families. I wonder whether that's because the adoptive family deal includes breakfast coupons, or whether in fact most of the hotel guests are adoptive families.

The White Swan hotel is located on Shamian Island, literally next door to the American Consulate (convenient, eh?). I'm not yet sure what to make of Shamian Island. On the one hand, everyone speaks English. On the other hand, it seems rather like an American Enclave and Tourist Trap(TM), like Cancun in Mexico, which is more of an outpost of Die Homeland than a part of the country in which it occurs. There are piles of street vendors, and there are many store fronts with various "Chinese" wares inside--silk, paper cuttings, clothing, luggage of unknown provenance, scrollwork, and little fired pottery things. On the gripping hand, I have no doubt that the enclave follows from the consulate and the hotel--it springs from their business activities.

I think I might have preferred to have stayed in a hotel in the working part of Guangzhou and commuted to the consulate, to get more of a sense of how people actually live and work. The Majestic hotel in Nanning had this sort of feel. Even if I didn't understand how the department store could afford such a large staff, I could see people going to work, moving things (on bicycles sometimes), and carrying on as if a real economy were in action. Here I feel like the economy is very artificial and tourist-driven.