Baby's First Culture Shock

Shower, breakfast, bus to Canton Trade Fair.

Decked out with our ID badges and our blue Capilano polos we dispersed into the Canton Trade Fair. I had expected to see mind-blowing innovation in a few small but quality booths. Instead I was exposed to something that looked more like multiple airports joined into one. The merchandise for sale was mostly fairly standard things. The workshop for the world had to supply the dollar stores of the world too!

The food, the metro, the people, the language, the toilets, I could handle that, but the Global Stew in me crumbled into culture shock at the Canton Trade Fair at the expansive of stuff. I was completely overwhelmed by it size and scope. The map felt more and more useless and I felt time running out to gather information for the assignment. They dealt in bulk orders, and a  lot of the booths were really just supplying fairly standard thing, setting themselves apart more by low cost and quality, than by design or functionality. I could rock a public finance class but I felt like a fish out of water at the Canton Trade Fair.

Still, it was an incredible experience, definitely not something I wouldn't never have encountered myself doing outside of the field school. It was meaningful as the fair is really and economic world wonder of my time, and I'm thankful for being there.

Next Iain broght us to The Fake Market  made famous for its cheap knock offs. Again I found myself in a market environment I'm not often exposed to. It's no wonder my backpack came from Guangzhou, in fact I'm sure many of my things came from Guangzhou. The city is a story of economic market success. From the Canton Trade Fair to the tree lined parks, Guangzhou is a real example of prosperity.

The subway hoe was much less devastating than the previous day. However Sally and I preferred to keep it simple and have ice cream, Guava juice, dumplings and chow mien for dinner rather than adventure back into the city for a big dinner.