Where Opium Played a Part...

Canton harbor (Huang Pu) from our balcony at mid-morning.

It sounds romantic to say you are cruising on the South China Sea.  At least, it does to me.  But what we found when we docked in Canton, China, was thick thick smog.  Canton is the largest province in China and is probably one of the biggest manufacturing ports in China as well.  It is at the mouth of the Pearl River, one of the three most important rivers in China.  Why important? Because these three rivers carry a lot of the goods made in China to market, rather than trucks on roads!! The other part of the Canton area is Macau nearby.  Macau was originally owned by the Portuguese -- these southeast Asia islands were originally "owned" by a pollyglot of nations!  And Macau is a huge gambling area.  Gambling is forbidden in China, so, if you have the desire to lose your money, you just go the hour to Macau -- between Canton and Hong Kong.  And there are casinos, casino boats galore, all sorts of ways to gamble and/or do illegal things.  Because the Chinese really do love to gamble!  Anyway, to go on....

Canton is no longer called "Canton" anymore though.  Now, as a Chinese province, it is called Guangzhou.  So, if you are reading the newspaper (or internet) and they say Guangzhou, you'll know where they are talking about!  Anyway, as part of your today's history lesson, (and the part I find most interesting!) is this is the location of the two Opium Wars.  Now I had no idea what the opium wars were, although I had heard of them.  They occurred, #1: 1839-1842/ #2: 1856-1860.

It seems Great Britian had a lot of opium (from Afghanistan) and they found a very ready market in China.  In the 17th century, the Chinese, who already knew about opium, learned how to mix it with tobacco to smoke it -- and it was a big hit!!  So big in fact that by 1858, the Chinese were consuming 4,480 tons a year!!  Well, the emperor at the time, in year 1838, was distressed by this -- lost work time, "drunk" Chinese everywhere, lost tax money as well.  So he passed an edict that it was against the law to sell opium in China and arrested all the opium dealers.  The Brits were, obviously, very unhappy about this, so they sent an army to fight the Chinese and won, culminating in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 -- which made China open to opium and other trade things and ceded Hong Kong to Queen Victoria, whom I am sure had no idea where it was or what it was!  The Chinese call the following century, "The century of Chinese humiliation." The second opium war opened even more China and the Brits got Kowloon, a kind of suburb of Hong Kong, as a prize!

 And it stayed that way until 1997, when Britian's "lease" on Hong Kong ran out and China took over.  Personally, I remember the fear I read about as the international companies, who had enjoyed the British rule for over a century, worried what would happen with China.  Fortunately, they had nothing to worry about! In fact, China allowed Hong Kong to become a SAR, Special Administrative Region, which means they have a lot of privileges including a different set of laws that the rest of China does not have.  I imagine that has to do with the booming economy in Hong Kong and the tax dollars generated there!

At 2:00 pm

In any case, history lesson over.  Smog still there.  Eyes burning, throat sore, we left Canton and its industrial aspect, to sail to Hong Kong....and my views of Hong Kong next!