Remembering Guangzhou in the late 1980s and early 1990s

Returning to Scotland my dream was someday to return to China but I never expected that five years later it would be for a year, to Guangzhou! The Strathclyde Region, my former local government, had established a twinning relationship with Guangdong province. Having been to China and subsequently developing a deep interest in the country, I was selected to be part of an exchange program with the Provincial Education Bureau and would be based at Guangdong Foreign Languages Normal School in suburban Guangzhou.

Unlike today, in August 1992 very few international flights served Guangzhou. I transited via Hong Kong, although my bulk luggage was flown directly into the city via Indonesia!

Earlier that year Deng Xiaoping had undertaken his now historic journey to the south of China. A large poster commemorating that visit rose above an entrance to the city’s Liuhua Park. However, rapid development also brought problems. With the region growing economically at a rapid pace, many people were enticed by the prospect of improving their living standards and moved to Guangzhou and its surrounds. Between 1987 and 1992 the city’s population grew from 2.5 million to 3.5 million. Today, it's about 13 million. Inevitably the numbers put considerable pressure on both resources and transport, particularly railways. Infrastructure development, as I would observe, was top priority.

I was based in what were the northern suburbs at Yuangang. Outside my apartment window I looked across extensive semi-rural areas of intensive vegetable cultivation, along with chicken, pig and duck rearing. In 1992 the district where I lived underwent regular disruption associated with highway construction. Directly outside the college gates an elevated expressway that would eventually link Guangzhou with Shenzhen and Hong Kong was going up. Meanwhile Yanling Road, a principal route into the city, was undergoing a major upgrade. For me, it was easier to walk! The college’s location, my colleagues informed me, was originally chosen for its tranquility! Actually, so comfortable was the campus and life there that it would have been easy to simply feel settled and not try to go downtown, but I was always restless and wanted to discover more. Today the district, urbanized, is connected by excellent roads and metro with downtown.

Guangzhou’s urbanization has been partly dictated by topography. The city does not have vast spreads of unbroken flat land, for example, as around Beijing. Mountains press down from the north while the southern alluvial lands are broken up by many water courses.

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