the plane flight to guangzhou on southern china airlines is so much better because they shove me in business class because i asked for stretching room for my gammy leg - the food isterible, the movies unwatchable, he vegetarian food never appeared but the seat is luxurious - end up sitting next to d. a chinese real estate agent from inner west of sydney - he was born in guangzhou and came t live in australia when he was twenty but regularly goes back to the mainland - his story is "from 1949 to 1979 china went hungry and we had very hard times - now we have had 30 years of trying to stabilize the country 'and fill our stomachs' - we do not talk politics now as politics only caused us trouble - now we are just busy making money and because the country is growing at 10% everybody is happy with this government that opened its doors in 1979 - we have to build up our health and education and ten we might start talking about democracy - probably in about 10 years - it is was not bad, it just was" - i will have coffee with him when i get back - for the rest of the trip i read karen smith's the real thing: contemporary art from china which is a catalogue for an exhibition held at the tate liverpool this year - at guangzhou airport i pay $6 for a coffee and watch two very tough young attractive russian girls smoking very thin and long cigarettes - they treat the chinese waitresses like shit and have total attitude - f course i think their high class russian hookers heading to beijing (at beijing they pick up 8 huge suitcases all the same all black) - i desperately help them with their bags naturally and they give me a very condescending smile - in the airport bus the mobile phones radiate a warm glow and the plastic hand grips shine like cut crystal glass - everything and everyone is so dark. over on the plane we fly past surreal hong kong where the huge white apartment blocks stand like planet of the ape relics, cuissinaire rods measuring 10,000 people a time - the sea looks like tundra frozen in space - the driver is waiting in beijing to take me to the cafe with sign saying bobo - i am very happy.
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