| I have lived in this
part of the world for many years. My first journey to this
area of Asia was nearly 20 years ago.
I arrived at my destination of
Macau on February 7, 1984 after spending a night in Hongkong.
I had come not as a tourist, but rather with the intension
of living in Macau, perhaps for several years. While I
hadn't cared much for Hongkong (and still don't), I immediately
felt an affinity for Macau. Maybe it was the air. That
first experience lasted for 8 and half years. Two years
later I returned to the area, but this time to teach in
Zhuhai. 2 years and 8 months later, I once again found
myself departing from this region only to find myself
once again back in Zhuhai just 8 months later and have
kept my residence here ever since. Some people have accused
my of being more Chinese than American. I don't know about
that, but I can say that just as China has changed, so
have I.
It is really quite amazing how much
this part of the world has changed over the years. My first
trip to Zhuhai happened just a few months after arriving
in Macau, in April 1984 I had made friends with a woman
who was about to return to Canada after a year in the Southeast
Asian region, but had never been to the mainland. As I was
still unemployed, I agreed to join her on a tour from Macau
to what I now know as Zhongshan. At the time things were
so new and Chinese names so strange, that I couldn·¯t remember
most of what people told me. In fact, I hardly remember
anything of that trip. We did go to the Sun Yat Sen memorial
and school which was not so beautified as it is today. And
we spent the night at the Hot Springs Resort which was quite
new at the time. Of Zhuhai, I only have a few vague images.
I seem to remember that upon arrival into the zone, through
the original immigration building, before a separate entrance
was set up for foreigner, that there was an open vegetable
market to the east. I must have been very near the water,
but I don·¯t remember noticing any water. I also remember
seeing the small 3-wheeled all purpose utility vehicles
which are now illegal in the city proper. I also seem to
remember passing by Jiu Zhou Chang and the Jida department
store, but that may have been a later trip.
I lived for 8 ? years in Macau,
I only went to Zhuhai 3 or 4 times. Once I think was to
Pearl Land, but all my memories are so uncertain, I·¯m not
even sure they are right. In my early years in Macau it
was not so easy to go to China, even Zhuhai. It was more
reasonable to go to Hongkong whenever my Macau visa ran
out at that time. By the time word got around that things
had changed at the Zhuhai border and new arrivals could
go to Zhuhai when their visas ran out rather than to Hongkong,
I had a work permit for Macau and it was no longer necessary
to take the monthly or bi monthly trips out of Macau. In
fact I had some friends who went to Zhuhai fairly regularly
because it was a safer and more fun place to ride their
bikes. I wasn·¯t interested in joining them, so for many
years, I lived beside Zhuhai, but knew it not.
Little did I know that only 2
years after leaving Macau, I would get an offer to teach
in a school in Zhuhai. Despite having lived so close,
for so long, I was not quite sure what it would be like.
However, once I arrived I knew it was the place to be,
much the way Macau spoke to me when I first arrived there.
Do I like Zhuhai? How could I
possible live here for so many years and give any answer
that a heartfelt yes.
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