The Story Behind the Fisher Girl Statue

Here is a short post about Zhuhai’s iconic Fisher Girl. The Fisher Girl Statue is the symbol for Zhuhai and you will see it on every city advertisement. Of course, there is a myth around it.

Legend says that once upon a time an angel descended to earth and was amazed by the beauty of the earth. She wanted to stay and became a fisher girl. She earned her living with fishing for precious pearls and she used her powers to help the villagers. One day, she fell in love with a young fisher named Hai Peng.

Upon hearing some bad accusations, Hai Peng forced the fisher girl to give him her bracelet which was magical in order to prove her love for him. She told him that the she received the bracelet from the eight palace mistresses when she was the daughter of the South Sea Dragon King. Its purpose is to protect her against the thought of abandoning immortality. If she removed it, she would die. Unfortunately, Hai Peng did not believe her and removed the bracelet. She died immediately.

Hai Peng was so sad, he went to the Jiu Zhou Huan Elder to ask what he can do in order to bring his true love back. The Elder told him that he needs to go to the Jiu Zhou Island to get the Resurrection Grass which then must be fed with man’s blood. Hai Peng succeeded to find it and grew it with his own blood. It took years for the grass to grow and finally, when it was ready, he was able to revive the fisher girl with it. She became a true mortal. When they got married, she found a gigantic and magical pearl which she gave to the reverent Elder as a thank you.

Isn’t this a nice story? The Chinese tourists think so as well. This is why there are always many tourists around the Fisher Girl taking pictures. Very close to the statue, there is also a nice park with beautiful flowers and a lake with small boats that you can rent. When the weather is nice on weekends, there are also some street musicians. This park is worth a visit as well.

Two of the Theme Parks in Shenzhen

Window of the World, Splendid China & the Folk Culture Villages

As mentioned in my last post, we visited 3 different parks of which one was combined. On our first day in Shenzhen, we went to the Window of the World. It is a theme park in which they replicated the world wonders, famous historical sites and natural landscapes of the world. Some of them are built at the ratio of 1:1, others of 1:5 or 1:15.

We started our journey in the Asian district which was quite big. Then we passed India and Australia and made it to Europe which buildings were very familiar to us. I liked how they rebuilt Venice’s San Marco Square. How they imagine the Netherlands was funny (see image with the many orange wind wheels). Africa was basically represented by Egypt with its pyramids and the Sphinx statue and by many wild animals.

When we came to the American continent, the sun slowly went down. It was kind of weird to see all the different sights from the US in such a small area. I especially liked how Cristo Redentor from Rio de Janeiro was now looking over New York City. You probably noticed that this city version still has the Twin Towers.

At last, we walked up the Eiffel Tour. It wasn’t as high as the real one in Paris, but we still had to walk up around 300 steps. The view was really cool. We were not only able to see over the entire park but we could also see a part of the city of Shenzhen.

Overall, it was really interesting to see the world in just a couple of hours. We walked around for over 2 hours and probably did not get to see everything but we were quite exhausted afterwards. We tried to guess where the different sites were located for real. In the European and American area we did very well but none of us has traveled much in Asia, so there our guessing was pretty bad. However, I saw some places that I definitely want to visit in the future. 

Splendid China & the Folk Culture Villages

On Sunday, one of my friends and I wanted to visit the Splendid China while the rest of the group preferred a relaxing day at one of the parks.

The Splendid China is a huge miniature park of all the famous sites and landscapes of China. The Folk Culture Villages represent the 25 minor Chinese ethnic villages that were reproduced. A couple of years ago the two parks got united and now you pay 180 RMB for visiting both. It is one of the largest theme parks in the world. There is a train, even a boat and other transportation means to make it easier for visitors to visit the park. We went for the option of walking, because in this way we could do everything at our own speed and had time to take pictures.

We started at the Splendid Village, because it was the main reason for choosing this theme park. In that part of the park there are supposed to be 82 miniatures and a bunch of tiny clay figures (about 50,000) are placed on the different sites.

The Great Wall was going through half of the park which showed how impressive it really is. There were also many other sites from the Beijing area. I’m really looking forward to going there…

After 3 hours of walking around the Splendid China, we finally made it to the other the Folk Culture Villages where they have many shows and performances. We started to watch an Oriental Show and looked at some of the ethnic house. After we watched the “large horse war show" about the Mongolian culture which attracted a lot of people and is probably one of the highlights shows.

We could have spent more time at the Folk Culture Villages and learnt more about the different ethnic groups. It is just a huge park and we have already done so much walking.

In both parks they had those yellow and orange fish and I was really wondering what the story is behind them. I found out that they are koi fish and that there are many legends around. Koi fish have an ability to swim against currents and upstream. Therefore, they are often associated with good fortune, success, ambition and courage. Depending on the color of the fish, they symbolize something else. For example, a silver colored koi stands for success in business. The Chinese also used to raise them in their rice fields, because they provided fertilizer and during hard winters they survived by eating the fish. So, it is also a symbol for prosperity. In Feng Shui it is tied to the yin yang symbol which you can recognize on the picture below. The black and white tear of the yin yang are supposed to be two koi.

This was a great cultural experience. We’ve learnt about the history, the culture, the art of China – and this in a fun way.

Weekend Trip to Shenzhen

This past Monday was a holiday in China –  the Quingming Festival or Tomb Sweeping Day. From that day on the temperatures are supposed to rise and the rain period starts which indicates the ideal time for sowing. It is not only an agricultural holiday but on that day Chinese people also pay respect to the dead. Tomb sweeping is the most important custom of the Quingming Festival. Many Chinese go back to their hometowns to pay respect to their ancestors. They clear away the weed around the tomb and plant new flowers or just bring a fresh flower bouquet.

For me, this meant that I did not have to go to work. Although according to my boss usually these holidays have to be compensated on a Saturday. Luckily, he did not insist on that, so I do not need to go to work this upcoming Saturday.

Me and some other interns used this long weekend to visit another city. We decided to go to Shenzhen which is just an hour ferry ride away from Zhuhai.

Shenzhen is located above Hong Kong and has over 10 million inhabitants. Only 30 years ago this big city used to be a fisher village called Boan Country. In 1979 it was given the name Shenzhen City and the first Economic Zone in China was established there in 1980. Today, it is also called the Silicon Valley of China due to the many technology companies that are based in the area. There aren’t many historical sites or beautiful landscapes but there are several amusement & theme parks. I guess that’s their compensation. I will talk about the ones we visited in a separate post.

From the ferry port Shekou we took the subway to our hotel which was located in the Luohu District, at the other end of the city. It took us over an hour to get there but the subway was air-conditioned and the cheapest transportation mean.

We stayed at the Sunon Hotel which was supposed to be a 4-star hotel, although I would classify it as a good 3-star hotel. Without knowing we chose a great location, because there are many shops and restaurants in the area. After the check-in we enjoyed lunch at one of the street food places. We ordered different dishes and shared them. My favorite was the honey bread.

The Dongmen Pedestrian Street is supposed to be the No.1 shopping center of the city. As you can imagine that attracts tons of people. The shops are small and typical Chinese, so bargaining is highly recommended. I felt a little bit overwhelmed by all the different shops and I didn’t even know what to buy, so we just walked around. You could see many fake products, some of a better and others of a worse quality.

My friend and I wanted to get our nails done. We let a Chinese girl in the streets talk us into it and followed her to a complex with many small shops. At one place you could even get colorful hair extensions and wigs. We sat down in the pink seats and then tried to tell them what we wanted. We were afraid that they would give us fake nails. Instead, we figured out after some time that they wanted to sell us the more expensive gel nails and massages. With much effort and a call to a friend of theirs who knew some English, they understood that we just wanted regular nail poslish. They did a really good job in filing our nails. My nails were done by a man which surprized me a little. The painting part was less pleasing. The polish must have been quite cheap…Nevertheless, it was a fun experience.

Before taking the ferry to go back to Zhuhai on Monday, we went to Sea World for lunch which is very close to the port. Sea World has nothing to do with the American Sea World. It is another attraction park but there is also a plaza with many Western-style restaurants and other entertainment spots. There is a big ship in the middle of the area which probably gave the area its name. We had Mexican food at the Tex-Mex while a thunderstorm suddenly came up. But the food was good and a perfect end for our trip.

Hello Kitty Café – A Must Go in Asia

I thought the best way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, is going to the huge Huafa Mall in Zhuhai and looking for the Hello Kitty Café I read about somewhere.

At the Huafa Shopping Center you can find Italian fashion brands like Patrizia Pepe as well as American brands like Tommy Hilfiger and of course many interesting Chinese brands. As every large mall they also have a cinema and a lot of restaurants and cafes.

It took me a while to find the Hello Kitty Café and I almost gave up. They do have a map of the shopping mall and it indicated that the café is located on the ground floor. I walked through the entire ground floor twice but I could not find it. When I was about to leave, I noticed that there were some restaurants on the outside of the mall. I finally found it and by looking at it is hard to walk by. There are pink chairs surrounded by beautiful pink flowers in front of the café and a big Hello Kitty sticker is smiling at you from the window. 

The Bonbon Hello Kitty Café has created a real Hello Kitty world. Hello Kitty is a popular icon in China. I have seen many teenager and young adults walking around with a Hello Kitty bag that you would give to a 5-year old. I guess whoever came up with the idea of this restaurant knew how many fans such a theme restaurant must attract. The décor includes a lot of pink and cream yellow. Even the furniture is in Hello Kitty style. The tables are oval and some look like cookies. The pictures speak for themselves… 

It is not a cheap restaurant but it was lunch time when I was there and I was hungry, so I decided to get the seafood spaghettis and a watermelon juice. It wasn’t the best seafood pasta. That is not the reason why you go there, but it was definitely not bad. Eating spaghetti out of a plastic Hello Kitty plate made me feel like a child again.

I was curious how the cappuccino would look like. Would they be able to create Hello Kitty design with the milk foam? Yes, they were. And of course it came in a Hello Kitty cup.

Taking a picture with the cartoon cat is a must:

I wasn’t the only one in the restaurant. There were two mothers with their kids and they ordered huge ice-cream bowls. It looked yummy. 

This is for sure a highlight for every girl, not matter of what age. J