Lychee Bay's past and present

Feng Zhimin now does a roaring business at Lychee Bay, selling old-time delight such as water-chestnut drinks and "little chicken" biscuits.[Photo by Pauline D. Loh/China Daily]

It had been a rainy day and Lychee Bay was bathed in a twilight glow that did give it an otherworldly charm, but the people walking the streets were the odd tourist or three, Guangzhou locals and migrant workers having an early dinner.

The river is all cleaned up and the nearby swamps drained. But the little sampans that used to sell the delicious porridge of my granddaddy's days are also long gone.

In their place, neat rows of shop houses line the banks and the streets, and although the old architectural style of five-foot ways and bar-gates can still be seen, the rusting balustrades are now deserted, minus the svelte young ladies.

A stroll through Lychee Bay now is like taking a step back into Guangzhou's culinary history.

In the dimming light of day, we are attracted by the red spotlights shining on the green signboard of Wang Laoji, that famous cooling herbal drink now at the center of a messy branding battle.

Here, though, there is no sign of any legal cacophony, but a serene calm guarded by a solitary bored shop girl examining her nails with abnormal interest.

Further on, there is a little shop selling local products, including local olives pickled in licorice, wrapped in twists of paper. They used to be called "jet plane olives" because they were tossed up to the first floor balustrades after money was dropped for the itinerant vendor.

The musical cries of the olive vendors are now silenced forever and the olives themselves, grounded at the back of the shop, are sought out only by nostalgia buffs who have heard or read about these little snacks.

Feng Zhimin was a businessman enjoying the economic prosperity of his native Guangzhou, but when he hit middle-age, he decided his next investment would be in nostalgia.