Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past days, you’ve surely noticed that our beloved City of Flowers has come into full bloom. The gentle fragrance of a thousand blossoms floats softly on the warm breeze, dappled sunlight warms the young buds that dot the swaying boughs and leafy university campuses across town are aflutter with youthful spirit stirring to the promise of the new spring… Yes, Guangzhou in March is a peaceful place.
And indeed, nothing says ‘peaceful’ quite like an army of photo-hungry crusaders armed with fanny packs and selfie sticks overrunning your university in the tens of thousands. GRT Radio is reporting that over 100,000 visitors flocked to the South China Agricultural University in the city’s Tianhe District over the weekend to admire the campus’ famous flowers.
Crystal clear skies and bright sunshine conspired to create picture-perfect conditions that many of the city’s residents simply couldn’t resist.
The inundation of outside visitors caused, by all accounts, utter pandemonium as the university’s automated gate monitoring system logged a record-setting 9,000 cars entering the campus in a single day.
Students, who coincidentally were taking advantage of the picturesque vernal backdrop to take graduation photos, were less than impressed by the behavior of their uninvited guests, many of whom were accused of littering, being noisy, shaking trees – to create WeChat-friendly tableaux of falling leaves and petals – and otherwise abusing local flora.
Recent alumna Ms. Chen told That's some students may have been overreacting:
"Our school has always been proud of its greenery and its only natural that visitors should want to come and admire it. Obviously they should behave well and not damage the campus environment but the university isn't a closed compound. It's not as if the visitors are storming into the library and disturbing normal functions."
In addition to the campus itself, photos show the nearby subway station packed with human bodies while nearby roadways suffered considerable traffic jams throughout the weekend.
Authorities however, seemed relatively unperturbed by the implacable flower junkies. Despite considerable student frustration with the high number of visitors, school officials say they have no plans to limit the number of visitors.
Local media, meanwhile, encouraged flower watchers to take public transport if they plan to enter the apparent human morass that is South China Agricultural University in the springtime, while suggesting other places in the city where blossoms could be seen.
[Images via GRT Radio]
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