Sloppy services bode ill for Guangzhou's Asian Games

• Source: Global Times
• [22:09 November 29 2009]
• Comments

First, the taxi service. In four days, taxi drivers rejected taking me and my friends at least 10 times. It became a little annoying at first, then depressing.

We found that taxi drivers in Guangzhou change shift around 4 pm, which meant our chances of getting a cab after lunch were dim. We did catch the attention of a few drivers, but were left where we were after telling them our destination was the Guangzhou Opera House, a newly-built structure located in the city's Central Business District, which is still predominantly empty.

So we walked for about 40 minutes, tried our luck on the way and failed. By the time we got a taxi it was already an hour after lunch, close to rush hour in Guangzhou, which begins from 4 pm.

The city is also a dead zone for English. I took the subway on my second day on the way back to my hotel from Fangcun Station on subway Line One. The entrance is hidden under a department store and it's hard to find, even for Chinese.

Along my way, I noticed that there were no English signs about this station, and hoped, for the sake of fellow tourists, that the area is taxi-friendly.

The language problem can be found not only in the subway but also in restaurants. I was dining with my colleague at a famous Cantonese restaurant. The waitresses were very friendly but, to my surprise, none of them could converse in English.

For a city that is expecting to host millions of visitors during the Games, a basic level of language training for restaurant staff is a must.

Shouldn't these very basic services already be available to ordinary tourists? Their absence does not match up with the city's image as a modern metropolis, the third largest in the country behind Beijing and Shanghai.

Eating habits are another problem. Cat-eating is a culinary practice that almost every resident in Guangdong is familiar with, but which has caused protests by animal lovers around the country in recent years. It originated from a theory that eating cat meat can help the human body guard against humidity and increase sexual potency.

Last year, an article published by Chengdu Business Daily claimed that people in Guangdong eat 10,000 cats a day. While the number may not be accurate, it's clear that this cat-eating culture is rampant in Guangzhou.

The best soup restaurant in town near Beijing Lu serves dun lao mao, or "stewed old cats," a popular dish among customers.

A fleet of restaurants in Panyu district are famed for a dish called long hu dou, or "Dragon-Tiger fighting," which is cooked with cats and snakes.

When a Russian delegation under Khrushchev was served this on a state visit in 1959, two of the Russian secretaries fainted and the rest refused to eat it.

Cat-eating could be a major problem for Guangzhou's image, as dog-eating was for Seoul during the 1988 Olympics and 2002 World Cup.

Hiding this, and fixing the city's transport and language problems, should be a priority over the next year.

The author is the editor of China Sports Review