Friday Night Lights, Guangzhou, China

Guangzhou is a big city in southern China just a few hours drive north of Hong Kong. Because I had to wait for my Chinese visa to be issued in HK I had a very limited amount of time in Guangzhou, but the thing that is really striking about the city is the way it is lit up, as though the entire city takes part in a celebration of light when the sun goes down.

I’ve been told that Guangzhou is very a-typical for Chinese cities and that it is a very new city, in fact the part I was photographing was less than a decade old and partly still under construction. Perhaps this is a testament to China’s relatively new foray into capitalism and they want to shine a beacon on it.

In the very short time I was in Guangzhou, I learned very little about the city or the Chinese people. But one fact was unmistakeable: the road between Hong Kong and Guangzhou is about 170 km (105 miles) and what I thought might at least partly be a ride through Chinese countryside was one solid mass of humanity. A megalopolis of manufacturing, mid-rise offices and tenements stretching from one huge city to the next.