Go with Henry: Cycling in and around Liuzhou

Tuesday 2 May 2006

Cycling in and around Liuzhou - A taste of rural China

English Teacher in China

Liuzhou

January – April 2006

The story…

In 2006, I taught ESL (English as a Second language) at a college in Liuzhou, Guangxi province, China for a 4 month period.

I originally left South Africa in June of 2003 to go and teach ESL in Taiwan. I stayed for 18 months in Taiwan and then decided to experience mainland China too.

I stayed a period of 19 months in China, mainly working for one company called Delter-Telford International Business Institute. I was fortunate to move around China with them, staying and teaching in 4 different provinces: Nanjing, Wuhu (Anhui), Liuzhou (Guangxi) and lastly Shanghai.

In Liuzhou, Delter-Telford arranged for the teachers to stay on the Railway college campus in apartments, literally right next to the teaching block.

I had wonderful colleagues and fellow adventurers. We bought bicycles and cycled in and around Liuzhou to explore rural China.

I also used this as a base to travel to other scenic spots in Guangxi province, such as Nanning, Guilin, Yangshuo, and the Longji rice terraces.

In this post, I focus on my experiences cycling in and around Liuzhou, with an off the beaten track view of life in rural China.

Exploring rural Liuzhou by bike

About China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. It’s the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing.

It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing) and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). It also claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Hong Kong.

It covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometers. China is the world's second-largest state by land area and either the third - or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement.

China has a vast and diverse landscape, ranging from the Gobi and Taklimakan Deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir, and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia.

The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, respectively, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long (Wikipedia).

Rice paddies in rural Liuzhou, Guangxi province

About Liuzhou

Liuzhou has a history of more than 2,100 years. The city was founded in 111 B.C. Liuzhou is a prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, of the People's Republic of China.

The prefecture's population was 3,758,700 in 2010, including 1,436,599 in the built-up area made of 4 urban districts. Its total area is 18,777 km2 and 667 km2 for built-up area.

Liuzhou is located on the banks of the winding Liu River, approximately 255 km from Nanning, the regional capital.

Swimming in the river is a tradition of the city. The river is normally green, but sometimes in summer, floods from the mountain areas upstream bring sediment which colors the water yellow.

Liuzhou's population is made up of around 30 different ethnic groups. As in China as a whole, the majority are Han Chinese. However, around 40% of the population is made up of various minority groups, with the Zhuang minority being the largest (Wikipedia).