Business Casual: Spring Conference in Guangzhou

Yale-China has a Spring conference every year. This year, it was at our Guangzhou site. Guangzhou is a mere two hours from Hong Kong, and there are a lot of big city similarities. The conference was only three days long over the weekend, but we had a few productive discussions. The rest of the time was devoted to experiencing Guangzhou culture and spending time with the other fellows.

Our first lunch together was a typical Guangzhou-style meal, it seems. They ordered potatoes, which are my favorite! We also had a variety of meats and other vegetables. Egg plant was a favorite, as usual.

After a four-hour discussion and panel with NGO directors (from Doctors without Borders and a leprosy-awareness and prevention organization called Handa), we went to dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant. The interior design, including a chic, tropical fish tank, was a good mood-setter for the meal.

That night, we went to a bar called The Loft in what seemed to be a very isolated place. The bar itself was nothing like its surrounding quiet residential block.

The next morning, we had dim sum!

My mom called me, and of course, Chris was there to answer.

We went on a tour of exotic (illegal?) animals' markets. The first market was fish. The markets are all meant for selling animals as pets. We hear that not all of them end up being pets though...

There were adorable little puppies left and right in the dog market. This one that I'm petting was only 300 kuai! What a deal!!

They also had huskies!

Next was the turtle market. They had turtles from all over the world, including some from Mississippi, I think!

We also saw many beautiful birds, like this incredibly beautiful peacock. Many of the more abundant birds are used as ceremonial symbols, and they are released into the wild. Unfortunately, many of the birds cannot survive on their own...

After the market tour, we went to the Guangzhou Museum of Art. It was a contemporary museum with traveling exhibits. It appears that they have no permanent collection.

This exhibit features the photographs of Zhang Dali. The interesting theme of this exhibit is the display of Dali's original photographs with the published (and doctored) versions, either in newspapers or magazines. It was amazing to see what they were able to do several decades ago without Photoshop!

For this picture, they spliced Mao Zedong and the background of a mountainous scene together.

For our last lunch, we had ramen (拉面), but with fresh noodles. It is the mac-n-cheese of Chinese food. Chrissy and Jenny are playing with Ruth, our Medical Fellow's daughter.