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Better by far is the Tung Fang (meaning Eastern) Hotel hi Canton, China's southernmost big city, the commonest point of entry and sole destination of many Foreign Friends. The Tung Fang is a bustling, 2,000-room place with a new air-conditioned whig. The rooms ($12.50 for a double) are larger, more comfortably furnished, mattressed and ant-less. At the Tung Fang it is even possible to obtain a few ice cubes, and the laundry service is Chinese-immaculate and cheap (a shut well ironed for about 50). The hotel has also recognized the F.F.'s paramount problem: What to do after 9 p.m.? Its cavernous eighth floor has been designated Cafe-Bar. Therein until midnight the visitor can eat watermelon or sherbet, sip his choice of poison, from tepid beer to fu-te-ka (vodka), and yak until yawn. Sorry, no floor show, dancing or Hangchow-panky, though such dubious distractions are doubtless only a few short years away.
Canton is sassy, sophisticated — and shabby. Its 3 million people are uniquely exposed to the outside world. Within hiking and swimming distance are British-ruled Hong Kong, where many thousands of mainlanders have relatives, and Portuguese-administered, anything-goes Macao. The twice-yearly Canton Trade Fair lures swarms of foreign wheeler-dealers, from Macy's and Neiman-Marcus, Fiat and Hitachi. Yet Canton is no showcase. The Cantonese do not radiate the physical vitality of most urban Chinese; many are poorly clothed. There are more people milling aimlessly and noisily around than in other Chinese cities. The Pekingese call the Cantonese "shrike-voiced barbarians."
A" "he same time, the Cantonese have he most attractive zoo (more than 200 species, with four show-stealing pandas); one of the world's most renowned botanical gardens, Yueh-siu Park, with more than 100 varieties of orchid; the exquisite Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, built circa A.D. 480; and the nearby Temple of Brightness and Filial Piety, built some 2,400 years ago. A short air hop from Canton is tranquil Kweilin, a delicate beauty spot on the fabled Li River, ringed by eroded limestone peaks that could have been assembled by a stage designer.
Wherever the visitor goes, he is charmed and intrigued by the place names. A limestone peak in Kweilin is called Piled Silk Hill for its varicolored layers of rock; the structure at its top, up 400 (count 'em) stone steps, is the Cloud-Catching Pavilion. A little pleasance in Wusih has been known for 470 years as Leave Your Pleasure Garden—ever since the man who built it was summoned to high office in far-off Peking and, not being able to take his heart's delight with him, bequeathed it to the populace. The spectacular park in Soochow bears, after 41/2 centuries, the sardonic name of Humble Administrator's Garden; the grounds were constructed over 16 years by a corrupt official who was anything but hum ble. After his death it was gambled away by his son hi one night. A mountain on the Li River is called Elephant Trunk Hill be cause, with only a slight squint of the imagination, it looks like a mighty pachyderm slurping from the stream. An adorn ment of Peking's Summer Palace is called the Jade Belt Bridge; it might well girdle a goddess.