l| a time to be silent and a time to speak |l

9 July 2010
Adventurous Shantou

Taking a coach from Shi Jin costs 200RMB per person and includes a buffet lunch. The 4-hour journey was pretty smooth. My mom kept commenting how it feels like we were on the way to Genting Highlands and didn’t feel like we were overseas. I take it as a good sign – at least it’s not uncomfortable. I was concerned that they might not be able to take the bus ride and had wanted to hire a minivan (to no avail and would have cost more than double).


Now, the adventure began when we were dropped at the expressway leading to our destination – Cheng Hai（澄海）(one of the five towns in this Shantou province). I think they weren’t supposed to do that to us but realisation came too late. And anyway, it’s part of the adventure of a free and easy travel – battling the unknown!

So, we were told not to get onto illegal cabs and were careful to avoid them. But within a minute, we were approached by 2-3 such cabbies who drove up to us. One of the cabs even trailed us as we walked towards a hotel-lookalike building, and I think both my mom and aunt were under duress for a while. Ha. I told them not to reply the cabbies and pretended not to understand mandarin by speaking in English – ‘Don’t want!’ while praying under my breath…

Thank God when we approached the building (some real estate office), there was a lady standing at the entrance. After telling her that we needed a taxi and not convenient for us to take public bus with our luggage, she invited us in to the lounge to take shelter from the sun and even served us tea while her colleague helped to call for a taxi. Whoot! What a nice hiatus from the hot sun and persistent cabbies out there. I’m thankful that it wasn’t actually a hotel because it would be quite shameless of us to ask for help to get to other hotel. Haha.


After about another half an hour, we finally arrived at our hotel, 澄海花园酒店, which turned out to be pretty comfy. My cousin (daughter of the only son from my grandma’s first husband in China) and her 11-year-old son were waiting anxiously for us, and it was kinda awkward meeting them for the first time. We had initially met over Skype only once. Interestingly, my cousin’s son resembles my niece of a similar age back in Singapore. Very cute! (My niece's pix posted here for comparison.) In fact, I think his lope-sided grin and way of speaking also vaguely resembles Jay Chou… wahaha. Even cuter. ;)



Dinner was outdoors at a small seafood restaurant, where tables were set on grass patches. Food was not bad.


After dinner, we went to my cousin’s place. Unlike the ‘town mouse’ Xiamen relatives, my grandmother’s descendents belong to the ‘country mouse’ category. My cousin is one of the few who left the village to eke out a living in the city (about 1.5 hour’s drive away). She's also the one who looks most alike to my grandma. Her two-storey house is located in the corner of a dark street, with half the area on the first storey cordoned to be the workshop for producing toy parts. The place is unkempt and quite filthy, and seeing that this is where they raise their two kids and work makes me feel for them. But their kids are bright, and I guess growing up in such an environment kinda toughens them. Singapore’s prize kids would hardly survive in this place.




It makes me wonder how my life would turn out if I were born in such an environment… thank God my grandma came to Singapore to make a living!