Lol this feels kinda way to specific and personal. But fine:
白云区
Do you speak Cantonese?
Yes, but I only speak it at home, haven’t exactly developed much volcabulary/lexicon. Like… I can’t speak it well enough to have a political debate, for example, because I don’t have the words to articulate my argument.
What do you like and dislike the most about GZ, if you remember it.
I was a kid, didn’t really really have rigid concept of “likes” and “dislikes” yet, but I guess, some of the things I think I enjoyed was: I remember the McDonalds, I think I remember being happy every time my parents took me and my older brother there for food, and I remember the icecream there. I remember being at a restaurant and had 云吞 and 小笼包. I remember a KFC, but not sure if we ever ate there. I remember a Pizzahut, but this part is mostly from my mother’s account, according her, the pizza was small and its relatively expensive, and I guess they could charge that because it was new and foreign stuff that people wanted to try. I don’t remember it because I think we only had it once so it didn’t from any long lasting memories.
I remember at home watching cartoons like 猫和老鼠 (Tom and Jerry), 多啦A梦 (Doreamon), I think Mr. Bean, and that’s about all I remember. I remember playing around with my dad’s morotola phone, and getting SIM PIN thing locked. And he got mad at me lol, the phone store was like I think 20-30 minutes of walking to get there, so I basically wasted his time. I remember there was a weird Ninja Turtle game on the phone, but it automatically incurred charges on his phone plan, so he got mad at both of us, but it was my older brother tricking me to click on it, so it was his fault lol
I remember exploring the 白云山 (Baiyun Mountain) with my father and it was kinda creepy there, but there are others also taking walks there so I guess its not exactly like some wild jungle. I remember being scared of like bugs and they fenced off some areas, I guess its for power generation or whatever. I remember being afroid of touching the fence and getting electricuted, so I never dared to touch the fence. I think they had this tall metal structure that my dad said it was to redirect electricity so lightning doesn’t shock things nearby.
What I didn’t like was school. I mean, I guess every kid didn’t like school. Mandarin always sound like it has this “serious” tone to it. I mean, I guess its because the only time I hear Mandarin is during school and from classmates so it sounfs very “formal”, Cantonese felt more comfortable, because well… its reminds of home. They also did weird raising the flag ceremonies in the school yard like I remember its either Weekly or Monthly, but I hated standing in the school yard, sometimes when the sun was directly shining on me. I hated that. Its kinda like the equivalent of being in the school auditorium in the US, and they have people talking about a bunch of BS that nobody ever listens to.
And um… what else I didn’t like about Guangzhou is, well, this was not exactly a Guangzhou problem, but I remember having a fight with my older brother, so I kinda got scared, and ran away from home. So um… yea I kinda wanderd around for a bit, all alone. I still remember how scared I was that day. Luckily I didn’t get kidnapped lol. My mom told me kidnappings were common, but IDK if its fearmongering to get me to not “misbehave” or if its actually a problem. And oh, my mom kinda blamed me for the incident, even though my brother was literally chasing me around the apartment and trying to hit me and I was a kid, what was I supposed to do? I was like 5-7 around this time. I can’t think properly, my brain was thinking: there is danger inside the house, so kid me decided to run out the door. So this PTSD memory is just permanently attached to my memories of Guangzhou, and just Mainland China overall.
Also, I didn’t learn of it at the time, but I later on, I learned about the Hukou System and Guangzhou’s local government didn’t allow us to convert the Hukou, so couldn’t go to public schools, so the school I went to was privately-run school that migrant parents had to pay for and its lower quality than public schools, so that was probably why I hated school so much.
Lol this feels kinda way to specific and personal. But fine:
白云区
Yes, but I only speak it at home, haven’t exactly developed much volcabulary/lexicon. Like… I can’t speak it well enough to have a political debate, for example, because I don’t have the words to articulate my argument.
I was a kid, didn’t really really have rigid concept of “likes” and “dislikes” yet, but I guess, some of the things I think I enjoyed was: I remember the McDonalds, I think I remember being happy every time my parents took me and my older brother there for food, and I remember the icecream there. I remember being at a restaurant and had 云吞 and 小笼包. I remember a KFC, but not sure if we ever ate there. I remember a Pizzahut, but this part is mostly from my mother’s account, according her, the pizza was small and its relatively expensive, and I guess they could charge that because it was new and foreign stuff that people wanted to try. I don’t remember it because I think we only had it once so it didn’t from any long lasting memories.
I remember at home watching cartoons like 猫和老鼠 (Tom and Jerry), 多啦A梦 (Doreamon), I think Mr. Bean, and that’s about all I remember. I remember playing around with my dad’s morotola phone, and getting SIM PIN thing locked. And he got mad at me lol, the phone store was like I think 20-30 minutes of walking to get there, so I basically wasted his time. I remember there was a weird Ninja Turtle game on the phone, but it automatically incurred charges on his phone plan, so he got mad at both of us, but it was my older brother tricking me to click on it, so it was his fault lol
I remember exploring the 白云山 (Baiyun Mountain) with my father and it was kinda creepy there, but there are others also taking walks there so I guess its not exactly like some wild jungle. I remember being scared of like bugs and they fenced off some areas, I guess its for power generation or whatever. I remember being afroid of touching the fence and getting electricuted, so I never dared to touch the fence. I think they had this tall metal structure that my dad said it was to redirect electricity so lightning doesn’t shock things nearby.
What I didn’t like was school. I mean, I guess every kid didn’t like school. Mandarin always sound like it has this “serious” tone to it. I mean, I guess its because the only time I hear Mandarin is during school and from classmates so it sounfs very “formal”, Cantonese felt more comfortable, because well… its reminds of home. They also did weird raising the flag ceremonies in the school yard like I remember its either Weekly or Monthly, but I hated standing in the school yard, sometimes when the sun was directly shining on me. I hated that. Its kinda like the equivalent of being in the school auditorium in the US, and they have people talking about a bunch of BS that nobody ever listens to.
And um… what else I didn’t like about Guangzhou is, well, this was not exactly a Guangzhou problem, but I remember having a fight with my older brother, so I kinda got scared, and ran away from home. So um… yea I kinda wanderd around for a bit, all alone. I still remember how scared I was that day. Luckily I didn’t get kidnapped lol. My mom told me kidnappings were common, but IDK if its fearmongering to get me to not “misbehave” or if its actually a problem. And oh, my mom kinda blamed me for the incident, even though my brother was literally chasing me around the apartment and trying to hit me and I was a kid, what was I supposed to do? I was like 5-7 around this time. I can’t think properly, my brain was thinking: there is danger inside the house, so kid me decided to run out the door. So this PTSD memory is just permanently attached to my memories of Guangzhou, and just Mainland China overall.
Also, I didn’t learn of it at the time, but I later on, I learned about the Hukou System and Guangzhou’s local government didn’t allow us to convert the Hukou, so couldn’t go to public schools, so the school I went to was privately-run school that migrant parents had to pay for and its lower quality than public schools, so that was probably why I hated school so much.
Sorry if its non-coherent.