There was a firework display at that night and I heard it was very much impressive. I found a set of well taken photos by one of the members (???? || ?? ) in Ezeem Forum “. After granting his permission, I would like to share it here. It’s exciting for me to see such a beautiful night light of Shantou!

Chenghai, a Shantou satellite community and industrial area, has established a cooperative operation with CCTV to produce toys based on CCTV cartoons, according to an agreement reached on February 28th.

As a famous toy production base and one of the most important export cities in China, Chenghai gained the designation “Chinese Toy City” in 2003. Companies have been encouraged to strengthen ties with cartoon makers from all over the world, said the Chenghai government. Chenghai was chosen as the partner because it has stable toy industries and paid lots of attention to toy creation and brand, said the related-project manager of the CCTV cartoon limited company.

For promoting their cooperation, the Chenghai government will devote eighteen million yuan as special funds to support the cartoon industry.

Source: Shantou Daily

You can find it here: www.shantou.gov.cn/en/main.asp

Of particular interest I thought was the “Investment Project” link on the lefthand sidebar — it lays out a variety of different projects in the works or underway. (My favorite is “Robot Noopy for software learning.”)

Unfortunately, the “Investment News” section doesn’t seem to have been updated in the last few years.

According to the People’s Daily, a Chaoshan airport project plan was passed on Oct 23, 2007, meaning that a new airport in Chaoshan will be built in the future. The recent Shantou Airport in the town of Waisha will be replaced after the new airport is built.

The Chaoshan Airport is located in Jiedong county in Jieyang city, which is the center of Chaoshan. Jiedong is 20 kilometers away from the downtown of Shantou, Jieyang and Chaozhou.
According to the provincial newspaper Nanfang Daily, the government is planning to invest an about 3.8 billion RMB in this new airport and finish the project in 2020.

Related report on People Daily(in Chinese):

http://house.people.com.cn/GB/98386/6422512.html

Related report on Nanfang Daily(in Chinese):

http://news.southcn.com/gdnews/nanyuedadi/content/2007-09/28/content_4252278.htm

Sponsored by the Guangdong Provincial Government and jointly organized by Shantou Municipal Government, the 2007 Guangdong- Taiwan Business Fair for Economic Development, Trade and Technology will be held in Shantou from Oct 30th to 31st, according to the Shantou government.

The Fair aims at strengthening economic and trade cooperation between Guangdong and Taiwan and attracting more Taiwanese businessmen to invest in Guangdong. It is expected that 2000 businessmen and officials from Guangdong and Taiwan will come to the fair this year.

The fair will be held in Linbaixin International Exhibition ? Conference Center. According to the plan, there will be trade discussions, symposiums and speeches during the meeting. These activities will be followed by a golf competition, an orchid exhibition, and a Taiwanese businessmen gathering and variety show.

It is the 7th Guangdong (Taiwan) Business Fair since the first one held in Shenzhen in 1999. It has become a major platform for Taiwanese businessmen interested in investing in Guangdong.

Home page of the fair (in Chinese):
http://www.investgd.com/2007twfair/index.html

Related report in Shantou Daily (in Chinese):
http://www.dahuawang.com/localnews/showlocal.asp?no=94921

Mostly, I was impressed that I could get five or six good-sized plants for about 120 kuai.

Most of these plants were unrecognizable to me, except for one which may be some variety of fern.

The market — Huamu Shichang, I believe, in Chinese — is off to the right of the last roundabout as you drive out toward the airport. It is on a long street that is called (please double check my Pinyin, this is from memory) Hengshan Lu. Actually, I’ve heard there is at least one more such market on this street.

The market itself is a huge outdoor space, the size of a football field at least. A rough, eyeball estimate would put the number of shops there at 30 or so. All selling, more or less, identical plants. This is a feature of business life here I find fascinating and really difficult to understand. You have got the street where people sell indentical-looking, identically-priced mattresses. You have got the street where all the artists are, selling paintings that are more or less the same as the paintings of their neighbor. You have got the plant and flower market. How do these businesses successfully compete against one another?

In any case, if you are not particulary interested in purchasing plants but need a cool respite from the hot weather, I would still recommend the market. Two thumbs up on being a relaxing place, where even shop owners have a mellow approach.

In 1980, when Deng Xiaoping began the process of opening China by setting up Special Economic Zones, free market enclaves on the southern border, he chose the ancestral homes of three of the most important groups of the Chinese diaspora: the Cantonese from Guangdong province, who predominate in Hong Kong; the Hokkienese from Fujian province, who make up 85 per cent of Taiwan’s population and much of Singapore’s; and, less well known, the Teochews from around Shantou, on the border between Guangdong and Fujian.

The Teochews are a phenomenon. They include Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s most respected billionaire; the Ma family, which controls the Oriental Press Group there (and which fell out with the British Conservative party, accusing it of failing to deliver on promises made in return for campaign funding); and most of the Chinese in Thailand, including the Sophonpanich family who built up the Bangkok Bank. (The Lamsams of Thailand are Hakkas, a group of unknown geographic origin, which has produced the three most influential Chinese of the late 20th century-Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Teng-hui, the president of Taiwan).

For those who are about to travel to Shantou and want to know about the city, this might be something worth to explore into.