Foshan

You know, just to remind your listeners, it's called SARS-CoV-2 because we had a SARS-1 in 2002.

It emerged from China at a wildlife market from Foshan City, Guangdong Province.

And it's not contested, largely because we found animal zero, the animal civet, a cat-like or weasel-like creature, from the market that contained the early form of the virus.

So it's not contested.

But as early as November 2010, the first section of the Guangzhou-Fuoshan metro already began operation, making it the first metro line in Chinese mainland to cross a prefecture-level administrative boundary.

So that one connects, it seems like it connects two cities, but actually it's bringing a lot of convenience to people from the individual cities because within Guangdong, the intercity railway linking Guangzhou and Shenzhen has already gradually adopted a more metro-like operating model, indicating that in the following years, even for their local railway building, they're also following the example given by the Guangzhou-Foshan metro line.

So we can pretty much say that their provincial intercity railways are becoming more subway style.

Yeah, and they were allowed to use the tap for the ticketing.

Business owners and economists see a combination of shrinking demand, the collapse of China's property market, depleted governmental resources and finances, shifting export orders, and the tighter bank lending is squeezing companies' cash flows and leaving some businesses with few options other than judicial bankruptcy.

The pressure is particularly acute for manufacturers, according to a businessman surnamed Liang in Foshan, China, who said that many companies are struggling to collect payments while having to pay suppliers up front.

Quote, many who have operated businesses for over a decade have technology that is among the best in their industries, but upstream materials and chip manufacturers have been squeezed, forcing them to pay cash and then wait in line to pick up funds.

Downstream export orders have shifted to Southeast Asia, with local governments tightening their finances.

And he ended up building a couple of those projects.

So I think for, there was a course called Jade Lake in Beijing and another one Foshan down in the South of China.

you know, there was a lot of work to get to the start line on those projects.

So as an office, we would have done, you know, in the 30s and 40s of master plans and just to get that opportunity to break ground over there.

Back to Hong Kong.

But they were in Foshan.

Yep.

And which we, again, great friend of the show.

Japanese forces had been positioned advantageously since autumn of nineteen forty-one.

The twenty-third Army was already stationed west of Guangzhou, with contingents scattered across Foshan Town, Zhuhai, and other locations on the Pearl River Delta.

Upon orders for war on December the first, they faced minimal distances to cover.

The army regrouped at Humen, Shaileng Town, and Guangzhou, staging areas for the invasion.

Oh, there's one other thing here I wanted to mention.

Here, when he went to teach over there in Foshan, which is a city in far southern China, he went over to teach in a city really, really far from Beijing, really far from Tiananmen Square.

As one of the first American teachers at the school in Foshan, which is just a short distance from Hong Kong, he was afforded small luxuries like an air conditioner and a monthly salary of around $80.

$80 at that time would have been about $600 or $700 Chinese dollars.

which would have been decent for 1989, 1990.