Anime Convention and Tomb

I never made it to the Baiyun Mountain beautiful food festival, since it began raining on the day I was planning to go and didn’t stop for two days. The rain was definitely worth it though, because today’s sky is the bluest of the year. All hail high pressure systems! Before the downpour, I managed to get to the ACG (Anime Comics Games?) convention at the big convention center near Yuexiu Park and the Western Han Nanyue King’s Tomb Museum.

My original plan was to go to the GZ “The One” street dance competition, but when I got there I discovered it was part of a much larger convention devoted to anime, comics and video games. What street dancing has to do with anime, I’m not sure. Since it was still Golden Week and no one was at work or school the place was mobbed. I figured it must be interesting if so many people were willing to pay the 25 yuan entrance fee, so I bought a ticket.

The convention looked like what I imagine an ACG convention would look like; the ground floor had colorful booths by big companies like Bandai displaying gundam models and manga artwork. The second floor was filled with little booths that sold cosplay costumes, key chains and lots of hats with bunny and cat ears on top. On the mezzanine, a bunch of teenagers in full cosplay costumes primped themselves. The main difference I noticed between the Guangzhou convention and a similar convention, say, in America was the crowd that attended.

I felt that something was missing, the level of nerdiness was way too low. Yes, there were people in costumes, scrawny kids with glasses glued to the pages of their recently bought manga books and even teenage guys buying body pillows with their favorite female anime characters printed on top. However, in China this isn’t nerdy, it’s pretty normal and dare I say cool? Generally speaking, anything cultural that comes out of Japan is at the height of cool in China, especially in Southern China. This was more of a commercial convention than a social one.

The whole draw of comic/sci-fi/fantasy/star trek conventions in the states is the comradery and the chance to completely nerd-out with other like minded people. Maybe this is because many Americans look down on those part of these sub-cultures, so a convention is like a few days of freedom where they can do as they please and not be judged–even the furries. I may just be romanticizing the whole American geek convention thing because I like Star Trek (got a problem?), but I can’t deny the fact that most people who attend such events are insanely friendly to strangers while they are there.

Anyway, the dance contest was lame. I thought it was going be literally on the street, since the advertisement said “street battle.” Boy was I wrong… It was on a stage with flashing lights and a smoke machine on the second floor of the convention hall. There were so many people crowded around (video cameras too) that I couldn’t see, so I went up to the second mezzanine only to be shuffled along by a security guard. I caught a few glimpses of awkward hip-hop dancing and that was enough for me. Next on the stage was the cosplay. I haven’t seen much cosplay, but I was hoping for the performers to put on skits and mimic the characters they so faithfully dressed up as. However, it turned out to be somewhat like the dance competition with the addition of lip-syncing anime songs with worse dancing. There was a little stub at the end of my ticket that I could use to vote for the best cosplayer, but I couldn’t stand through the whole thing. Even the huge crowd of curious onlookers that lingered after the dance battle broke up after the first few acts.

The convention was a bust, but the Nanyue King’s Tomb was amazing! Who would have thought there was a real ancient royal burial chamber in the middle of Guangzhou? I had passed the tacky facade of this museum numerous times, but never went in because I was turned off by the fake rock “tomb” style exterior. Little did I know that inside the courtyard behind the first building, under the ground, was the actual burial complex of this king! The best part is that you can walk right down inside and check it out for yourself. I wonder if they give visitors as much freedom in Egypt’s tombs…

Aside from the rooms dedicated to the artifacts that came out of the tomb, there was a lot of museum space dedicated to a giant collection of ancient ceramic pillows from the Song dynasty that a Hong Kong millionaire donated. Some looked genuinely comfortable while others I am hoping were only used as decoration. There were a few “pillows” that were only as big as my fist. Did anyone actually sleep on those? I wonder what the benefits of sleeping on a rock hard pillow are.