Number One Time in China!

I feel like it's a common trend in America to equate all Asian cultures as the same. Japanese, Chinese, Korean—everyone regards them as the same thing or similar. However, upon arrival in China, it became apparent to John and I very quickly that Asian cultures have their striking differences. Upon arrival in Shanghai, we were rushed from our airplane, through security and customs, and quickly boarded back on the plane. When we finally arrived in Beijing and were exiting from the airport, an old lady next to us tried to cut in line with her bags on the way out. There was a certain irreverence that did not exist in Japan, which was all about formality and politeness. In China, we quickly learned that in order to get through the crowd, you didn't lineup, but push your way through. Also, you had better carry your own toilet paper with you as it was not guaranteed. Also, just an FYI, as a general principle, the Japanese and Chinese don’t even like each other—so there’s that. 

At the airport in Beijing, we were picked up by a lovely Chinese girl named Flora. Her English was great, which was reassuring as it became clear that a lack of any Chinese or Mandarin knowledge would make travel in the country a little more difficult, perhaps a lot difficult. Yet, we were picked up from the airport without a hitch and brought to our hotel. One of the most attractive aspects of our Chinese tour was the promise of five-star hotels at a very cheap rate. After having spent time in bungalows with no air-conditioning, a borrowed room in Singapore, and small dorm rooms, we were grateful for any luxury that China could provide. Our first hotel in Beijing was called King Wing Hotel. It was a bit dated, but compared to what we had been staying in, it was a treat. The first thing I noticed was the amusing translation on the bathroom wall. It was trying to describe the characteristics of the special spa water that the hotel used. It was an “A” for effort and an “A+” for amusement. The biggest perk was that it was warm. Stepping out into the cold Beijing air in December was quite a shock to the system. However we warmed ourselves that night with a yummy dumpling and bok choy dinner in the hotel. 

The next morning was our first experience with a Chinese breakfast. The options were very plentiful, varied, and interesting. An eclectic mix of Chinese and Western-style options was usually how I started the day. We also met up with the two other women who were on the Beijing leg of our trip–Susan and Elaine. They were both Canadians, but technically called “overseas Chinese”, visiting their home country on a trip sponsored by the government. They were very nice, and Elaine would turn out to be a great addition to our tour as she could translate all the Chinese for us, as it turns out the tour guides were not so great at English. 

Our first day in Beijing was, naturally, to the Great Wall of China. However, in order to get there we had to first maneuver our way through the great traffic of China. I can tell you one thing I would never, ever drive in Beijing. Nor would I ever be keen to use the toilet again. Along the way, one of our companions, Susan, had to use the restroom. We had nowhere else to stop but at a small gas station on the side of the road. This was my first introduction to Chinese toilets and it was certainly a memorable one—a hole in the ground, no toilet paper, and very interesting sign on the wall. 

We stopped at a Jade factory along the way, where naturally pretty young Chinese girls all dressed the same tried to convince us to buy their authentic “premium” Chinese jade jewelry. Fortunately, they were not as pushy as we expected them to be and nowhere as pushy as we would certainly encounter at other Chinese shopping malls. Having purchased our own Jade in New Zealand, we were immune to their charms. However, John did leave with a small marble stamp, with his name etched by hand in the Mandarin characters. We would see this type of trinket at other places, but they always used a Dremel tool rather than etching by hand. 

We also stopped at a Cloisonné factory, where we were able to see how it was made—the skill and delicacy required, and filled up on our Chinese buffet before heading out to the Great Wall.  

The section of the Wall that our tour guide chose was not the usual one that you see in photos, of a long flat meandering wall wandering the Chinese countryside. Ours was steep with vertical stairs rising up and up. It was nice actually, as the higher we climbed the warmer we got (in the freezing winter Beijing temperatures) and the further away we got from the hordes of tourists who could only climb so far. By the time we got to the top, there was not a soul in sight and the view was beautiful. Plus my feet were finally warm, having had a hole in the bottom of my shoe. 

When we got back down to the bottom, two young girls approached me asking to take their picture with me. I found this unusual but flattering, and I obliged. Turns out this would be a very common occurrence in China. The locals like to take pictures with anybody who looks different. As a pale white girl with blue eyes, I certainly looked different.

Our next stop on our whirlwind tour of the day was the Summer Palace which, given its namesake, is still beautiful even in the winter. The frozen water and the slowly setting sun behind the Beijing smog gave an almost ethereal feeling to the place. 

The main attraction was the famous Long Corridor, running over 700 m long. We we walked the whole thing, the whole time being followed by four men. Finally, at the end, they approached us and revealed their reason for pretty much stalking us for the entire 700m —they wanted a picture with John and I. Talk about persistence.  Hence began the long running joke that I was some famous person visiting in China and my tour mates were my “posse". Elaine even jokingly began asking people for money whenever they came up wanting a picture. No one ever coughed up the dough, but I took a picture with them anyway. A few probably even snuck a few while I wasn’t looking. I was flattered. Today, I wonder how many random Chinese websites have my picture floating around. 

The other interesting part of the Summer Palace was a large giant stone, mined from a single boulder and sitting in the middle of a random courtyard. Flora told us at that after all the time, effort, and money a former emperor spent to bring this relatively useless stone to it’s final resting place, the Chinese irreverently referred to it as the “waste of money stone.” Straight talk (a rarity in China I found)—I like it. 

By the end of the day I was tired of signing autographs :) and my shoes still had the holes in the bottom which meant my feet were absolutely freezing and I was ready to head to our restaurant for the night. It was time to enjoy the Beijing specialty of Peking duck! Along the way, we stopped at the Olympic attractions of the water cube and birds nest, a point of pride for the Chinese but nonetheless still empty buildings. 

One could call it “the waste of money cube,” if they were honest about it.  Apparently, the water cube has been turned into a water park which would've been fun, but not in the -8* Celsius. I much preferred the comfortable warm restaurant and delicious Peking duck to cap off the day.

The next morning it was time to hit the rest of the highlights for our final day in Beijing. We started with an early morning visit to Tianmen Square.

 After a few pictures in the famous space we noticed the line to visit the Chairman Mao Mausoleum was almost non-existent. So, after a quick vote we elected to make an impromptu visit to see good ole Mao. We had to surrender our bags and cameras at security, and we had to continue walking once we got to the room with his body lying in state, but it was an interesting experience. I had seen a few Popes in various degrees of decomposition when we visited the Vatican a few years before, but Mao Tse Tung looked pretty much the same as I image he did 40 years ago—they pump them full of formaldehyde and I’m sure his face and skin is covered in some special makeup and wax to hide any signs of decay. Plus, it’s China, it could have been dummy body while the real one is being preserved—still, it was cool in a morbid sort of way. 

After our little rendezvous we headed to the Forbidden City, whose entrance was just across the street from the square. Outside the entrance policemen were milling around and pulling out random people to check their IDs. For what purpose I’m not sure, but it surely wasn’t for a democratic one. We evaded examination and made our way to the entrance. It was here where I was able to put my pushing and elbowing skills to the test. I didn’t try out public spitting, however—that would wait until India (and that story will wait for another blog post).

Once inside, Flora gave us a lot of interesting information about the place, revealing a lot about how serious the Chinese take their superstitions. 9 being a lucky number, there are 9,999 rooms in the Forbidden City—a number of these reserved for concubines who had their own special area of the palace. The colors were red (being a lucky color) and the roof yellow (also a lucky color). All around the place were normal stairs for all of us plebeians to take, while the center flight of stairs, reserved in the past for the emperors to use, were blocked off. There were also huge pots dotted around the place. They were painted in gold and hence had scratch marks from where looters tried to scrape some off ( they were far too large to carry). Apparently the old palace used to be made of wood, hence these pots were filled with water in the event of a fire or attack.

After visiting the main courtyard, we ventured to the throne room and special rock garden before ending our visit.

In between the palace and our next stop, we grabbed a quick lunch in the city. Snake juice anyone?

The later part of the morning was spent wandering around the Beijing Zoo. Panda’s were naturally the main attraction, and we were able to see a few of them hanging around that day. Having seen Panda’s at the Atlanta, Washington DC, AND San Diego Zoo it wasn’t too terribly exciting. 

We found some monkeys in the park who provided more amusement. 

After the zoo we were headed to the old district of Beijing. Now, along the way I learned something very interesting about the Chinese language that would prove useful for the rest of the tour. Apparently Mandarin doesn’t have past or future tense. The way sentences are constructed, they say something to the effect of “We do this now.” or “We do this before.” or “We do this later.” Upon heading to our next destination our tour guide Flora announced that “Later we go to the Old Beijing district.” Two minutes later, “ok we’re here.” !?!? Apparently, “soon” or “In a minute” doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. After being startled the first few times this happened, I began to catch on and knew that “later” could mean at any time in the future (near or distant)—so it was better to be prepared for anything. 

Upon arriving in the Old Beijing district, we took a rickshaw ride through the streets. Given how cold it was , we were happy to at least have a thick blanket to keep us warm. 

Our main stop on the ride was an old Chinese-house, constructed in the traditional square configuration in which each portion of the house, or each direction, has a specific purpose. The middle of the house is an open, uncovered courtyard, with all the rooms facing toward the center. A young Chinese teenager was our guide for this portion of the tour, but her English was actually quite good. Good enough to muscle us into going into the “marriage” room of the house and staging a fake marriage ceremony for John and I. Red from floor to ceiling, with a big bed and pot of lucky goldfish—all the ingredients necessary for a happy marriage. Luckily this young girl was in no way legally empowered to perform marriages, but here are the pictures for posterity:

Our final jaunt of the day was some bargain shopping at one of the cheap Chinese markets. John and I had no desire to spend money on souvenirs, but our tour mates Susan and Elaine wanted some, so we were ready to play hardball for them. The market was definitely full of knock off-stuff, and several stalls had pretty much the same thing, which made it easier for us as we could play them off one another. Flora told us that whatever starting price the merchant gave, to cut it in half or even more and start from there. Elaine didn’t listen to this particular bit of information and didn’t ask us for help either, and ended up paying like 300 RMB (or like $50) for some cheap satin shirt that another stall was selling for $20 (which she only found out about after buying it from the first one.) Susan, however, was keen to let John bargain for her and ended up getting 3 T-shirts for $20 instead of the 1 for $20. There was one obnoxious, loud shop girl there who acted “offended” when we started our bidding war with $5 for 1 t-shirt. I believe her exact phrase was, “You’re saying my stuff is junk!?” I didn’t reply, but I wanted to say, “No, it’s not junk but it is made for pennies by some kids in a sweatshop somewhere who get paid practically nothing and live 10 to a room in squalor, which you buy in bulk from, with no import tax, probably for $1 so I’d say $5 is a fair mark-up.” But I didn’t say that—cause I would have been rude and condescending. I did enjoy the witty t-shirts though, and even though there were signs that said “NO PHOTOS” I ignored that and took some pics anyway:

The one and only black guy in the market did pretty well for himself, though. Some American kid. He got the bonus points for extra novelty. 

Our tour of Beijing that night was supposed to end with some Kung-fu show. John and I opted out as it would have cost us an extra $30 each to attend. However, as the driver had to wait for Susan and Elaine to finish, and we didn’t want to sit in a frigid van for an hour—did I mention the driver never put the heat on the in the car the whole trip because he thought it would waste gas!?—we said goodbye to Flora and she helped us catch a cab ride back to the hotel. It was only $5 and so well worth it. 

We were up at 5:30 the next morning to catch our flight to Nanjing. We arrived and were picked up by a driver who was to take us to some restaurant for lunch where we would be meeting up with the rest of a larger tour group for our remainder of time in China. We originally booked our tour through an Australian website at a discounted rate and was told our tours would be capped at 18, with English-speaking tour guides, and 5-star hotels, and yada yada . . . this is CHINA. C’mon. Also it was winter so we were the only two to book though this Agency for this particular tour. So, after Beijing, we were combined with another tour group called JACO. It was comprised all of overseas Chinese Canadians who had also come to China on a discount tour to visit the motherland and go shopping (essentially). We met up with the other 25 people at the restaurant, plus Susan and Elaine, in Nanjing that afternoon and were introduced to James, who was the tour coordinator. He kinda spoke English and had one of those abnormally long pinky nails which kinda freaked you out, but he was nice. The rest of our tour, we would come to find out, would be conducted in Chinese, with James providing a very brief translation, and only sometimes. This was not a problem for everyone else—since most of the people on the tour knew Mandarin, as they were bilingual, but at least they could translate for us. Which became Elaine’s official job when James was slacking. 

But yes, in Nanjing that afternoon we were seated in a restaurant at one of those big round tables, which was now filled by other members from the tour group. Outside we would see the Nanjing wall, the little sister to it’s famous counterpart.

We would be sitting with the same people for all of our meals for the rest of the time as well. I actually really liked our table, as everyone was friendly and chatty, and also as we were the only ones who would drink and/or finish the Chinese beer that was brought out at each meal—if that gives you any indication of the nature of our group—we were pretty chill. 

After the lunch and our round of introductions, we were off to the Sun Yat Sen mausoleum. Now, the bus rides would be occupied by the tour guide giving out a berth of information, in Mandarin, so we pretty much just looked out the window the whole time. The mausoleum was actually beautiful and even though you had to climb a lot of stairs to the get to the top, once you got there the view was beautiful and the public toilets were pretty clean! Here are some photos of our stop there (minus the ones I took with my fans). Yes, I was approached here several times for photo ops as well. 

I find it kinda strange that the Chinese have such reverence for Sun Yat Sen and Mao Tse Tung, as the two were basically enemies and had drastically different ideas about what kind of country China should be. Ultimately, Mao won, and still maintains a God-like status even though he starved like 30 million people, but whatever. I digress.  

After the mausoleum was yet another stop, at another Jade Factory. We were told by many on the tour that this was basically shopping trip. The price paid by most participants was very low as it was subsidized by the government in order to bring overseas Chinese back and take them on a tour where they could buy their eyes out on Chinese goods. Everyday, we stopped at at least one factory and got some sort of presentation and then at least an hour to shop. We heard stories that in some places they take to you a showroom and will shut the door and won’t let your group out until someone buys something! Luckily we had some aunties on our tour who were ready to spend some serious RMB.

So, we basically spent half of our trip wandering around Chinese factories, but luckily we made some friends to help us get through. That evening, we stopped at some special market in Nanjing, right next to the river. It had a famous Confucius temple where there used to be an academy for philosophers and other men. Down the street was a brothel. It’s like peanut butter and jelly. 

We learned the story of the Golden Lotus and why women bind their feet. Basically it’s because some Emperor saw some chick walk on a really small piece of wood on water and thought it was the coolest thing ever, and had to ruin it for all future women of China because he had a foot fetish. That’s the urban dictionary version, but the result is still the same. Anywho, after wandering around this famous market and John trying some “stinky tofu” (yeah, I decided against that one), we met back up with the group where we were introduced to the only two kids who were also our age on the tour! Their names were Kenny, who was our age, and his sister, Sally, who had just graduated from college. They also had their younger brother there as well.  From Toronto, they were on a family tour with their parents, who were from Hong Kong and hence only spoke/understood Cantonese so they were just as lost half the time as we were! It was refreshing to be able to hang out with some young adults and speak English, and we pretty much hung out for the duration of the tour, mocking all the weird stuff we were bound to run into. 

So after this, the tour became much more enjoyable—even more so because the hotel rooms were actually pretty nice and we were able to sleep comfortably each night. Our hotel in Nanjing was called the Ding Ding Hotel—fun name, but man we had a nice room! It was loft-style so we had a bottom floor with a bathroom and living room and the upstairs was the bedroom. Not a bad gig if you can get it. 

Our first stop the following morning was a special bridge in Nanjing. It’s a point of pride for the locals as apparently it’s an old bridge that was in decline because the local government didn’t want to spend the money to fix it (and you can’t just vote out government officials in China), so instead the people themselves scrounged up the money and did the repairs on the bridge themselves. Impressive, ingenuitive, and decidedly non-communist. “So the local government doesn’t want to follow our wishes? Okay we’ll just subvert them and use private enterprise to get the job done.” 

After this it was time for more shopping! At a government sponsored factory, of course. This time it was pearl. We were shuffled into a room where we were given a presentation about these special pearl dust products and all of their beneficial health properties, yada yada yada. Then it was to another show room where another group of young girls all dressed the same would try to sell us yet another over-priced “government approved” product. Kenny, Sally, John, and I mostly wandered around through Kenny did buy nice necklaces for his mom and girlfriend—and showed Elaine how haggling is done. Another lady in the group, and one of our nightly dinner table members, bought some stupid expensive ring for like $1,500 but spent her sweet time picking it out, so they actually had her driven privately after her purchase to meet up with the group, as we had to leave earlier. 

At two different places in China we were told we would be visiting “gardens.” But by “gardens” they actually mean “houses,” although the houses were huge and did have gardens in them, but I was very surprised when we stopped at the first one as I had a very different image in mind when I read “garden” on the itinerary. They are old, sprawling family homes once owned by the elite Chinese people, that now kind of serve as museums. They are still built in that traditional square style, only the square is MUCH bigger. They have a lot more rooms and some fancy decor as well. Also, in the doorways of all the houses (and we noticed this as the Forbidden City as well) was almost like a small wall in the doorway. You always had to step over it in order to get it—and this was common everywhere. Apparently it’s roots are in Chinese superstition. Some say the higher the little wall, the more elite the person. Others said it was to protect the house against ghosts and unwanted spirits. Apparently the Chinese believe ghosts move around by hopping, and thus by erecting this barrier in front of a doorway, ghosts cannot hop over it and enter. I figure if it’s a ghost and hence a non-sold matter being it could just go right through the barrier, but to each their own. The house was still really nice and we took lots of pictures of their fancy garden in the back. We had one of those crazy “Auntie” ladies on our tour—an old woman traveling alone, highly kooky but amusing, and took her iPad with her everywhere snapping photos and Googling information (as much as Google China would allow, at least).  

We got a tour of the house from James, which I can safely say was a completely different tour from what they rest of the group got from the official tour guide—but would have been useless to use as it was still in Mandarin. 

The house was the last stop for us for the day, and we headed back to the Ding Ding hotel for the night, passing along the way some special rich city located just outside Nanjing proper. It was comprised of only the elite and rich in China, like I think you had to apply to even live there, offering the best and most lucrative jobs for the rich and their offspring and driving up housing prices in the area as well. An extreme example of concentrated wealth, or a physical manifestation of people living in an ivory tower, isolating themselves from the poor plebeians. An interesting insight into the current and future possibilities of socioeconomic life in China, as both the middle class and gap between rich and poor widens. The US isn’t that far behind, either. 

The next day we were off to the modern city of Suzhou. Our tour guide for this portion of the trip was Jessica, an incredibly bubbly and loud girl, but who actually spoke some English which was a nice change. She would conduct most of the tour in Mandarin, but would translate the highlights into English for us. I’m sure Elaine was grateful for the change. The required shopping trip of the day was at a silk factory. This place was actually pretty amusing and enjoyable. In the first part of the tour they took us to the place where workers collect the silk from silk worms and stretch it and spin it into yarn. The second part of the tour they ushered us into a room where we got our own personal fashion show! Kenny and John got a kick out of this as they had a catwalk, lights, music, and the poor shop girls had to model their silk fashions down the runway for a bunch of old Chinese Canadians. It was a hoot.

Finally we went into the showroom where Jessica told everyone about the very “special” deal we would be getting. Kenny informed us that if the tour spends so much money at these places that the tour guide gets a cut of it for bringing them there. In this showroom we noticed that they actually shut the doors once everyone was inside! This wasn’t a worry though, as a bunch of people bought silk comforters, clothing, scarves, etc. . . I was actually looking at the silk scarves as they had some for pretty cheap but ultimately stuck to our M.O. of not buying any souvenirs in China. This is also where we got to know another girl named Terri. Terri was also another girl around our age who had just graduated from college and was on the tour with her mother. Terri, however, actually spoke Mandarin, as well as Japanese and English (of course), so she actually spent her time listening to the tour guide, as opposed to the rest of us who had to amuse ourselves. She was really nice though, and spent the second half of the tour hanging out with us more. 

That evening Jessica took us around central Suzhou, of which she was extremely proud. We went to some special LED light canopy, “Number one in all of China! Number one!” Chinese love their rankings and they love to be ranked “Number one!” It was kinda cool, it had lights, it was a canopy. 

The riverbank was actually very pretty with all the lights on that night. For dinner we also went to the largest restaurant I have ever seen (though apparently not the largest in China). Seriously, it looked like a hotel:

There was even a young couple who were having their wedding reception there, next to all the tacky Christmas decorations (remember this was in December). 

After dinner, the rest of the tour headed to some special show. After all the Beijing Olympic hype, they started this show as a way to capitalize on the fascination of well-choreographed and costumed routines. They said this show was famous, but as it would cost John and I an extra $45 each (while everyone else already had it included in their JACO tour) we opted against it and sat on the bus for over an hour. Now, the interesting part came earlier in the day when James approached us and asked if we wanted to pay to do any of the optional shows included on the tour (this show, a cruise on Westlake, and a cruise on the river in Shanghai). His exact words were, “China is democracy now. You can choose.”

Oh, James. 

It was an extremely illuminating comment for sure, and props to the Chinese central party for actually convincing people that China was now a “democracy,”  but I bit my tongue instead of saying, “You mean China is kinda becoming Capitalist now. Meaning you can choose from which government-owned factory you wish to shop.” But I didn’t. I figured this tour would not be the place to start a political debate, seeing as how I had to turn over my passport to the hotel front desk every night so they could keep track of all of us as we traveled around the country. I simply smiled, and declined to pay for the show that evening. Upon return, Kenny told John and us that it wasn’t really that great, lacking any real purpose or story, and that it certainly didn’t live up to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kenny’s younger brother said it was a waste of time and that he would have rather sat in the bus with us. :)

The following day was one of my favorites as we visited one of the historical Chinese towns called Wuzen, known as the “water canal” town because, you guessed it, it’s got a big water canal running through it. It has also preserved old Chinese architecture and the tour included a lot of really cool stuff. The old streets with shops and old homes was pretty cool. We saw old Chinese beds, tasted Chinese liquor/spirits out of a barrel (man that stuff was strong!), watched people use an old traditional method to dye cloth, and ended our tour with a boat ride along the canal.

Once again I missed a lot of the information as I didn’t understand a word from the tour guide, but looking around was fun enough and we had some translated signs to help us: 

The next day was our last with Kenny and Sally, as half the group was heading to the Yellow Mountains for two nights, while the rest of us were finishing up in Shanghai. The last tour guide, however, spoke Cantonese rather than Mandarin, so Kenny was able to translate for us this time. The first stop was at a tea plantation. We were ushered into another room, where we got another presentation, from another young lady who drilled us about the ingredients in green tea that make it healthy. Polyphenol’s you guys. It’s all about the polyphenol.

She did a pretty good job hawking her expensive tea. We were able to try their top of the line “emperor” level for free before she dropped the bomb about how freaking expensive it was—over $100 for a pound. Yeah, no thanks. John just bought a cheap bag in the gift shop before we headed out. Next we went to a tea pot museum which was actually pretty cool. 

They showed us how they make tea pots and all the different and creative designs they can do. They also showed us some of the science behind the tea pot, about the balance and how to make it pour just so. It was actually pretty cool and a couple of people ended up buying some tea pot sets. This is one thing John would have liked to get but we didn’t want to travel with it for another 5 months and it really wasn’t in the budget. Still, a nice day which ended with a cruise on the Westlake Lake. The boat itself was very pretty and while the cruise was uneventful, it lent itself to some nice photos:

The area around the lake was beautiful as well, even on a cloudy/smoggy day:

Before heading to Shanghai, where foreigners are a common sight, I had one last photo shoot with some curious tourists. I’m laughing in the last photo because as I posed for John to take a picture of me, two other girls came up to take a photo at the same time. Kenny and his brother got a kick out of this as much as we did when it first started happening. 

We took one final group shot of the whole tour before going our separate ways. However, we would find out that Kenny and his family would be heading to Hong Kong next, which is where John and I were headed, and made plans to meet up again!

Our group was to take the big tour bus into Shanghai while about 15 of them were supposed to take a mini-bus to the Yellow Mountains. When some of the women saw the size of the bus they weren’t having any of it and put up quite a big stink, which meant we were delayed a bit while they tried to sort it out. Eventually we left and made the hour or so drive into Shanghai where our first stop was lunch. Now, the Chinese, in an effort to clean up their image (probably before the Olympics), started giving hygiene ratings to restaurants. These were indicated by either a happy face, a straight face, or a frown face based on the rating. The whole time we had been eating at “smiley face” restaurants, until Shanghai when they took us to the “straight face” one. I get that Shanghai can be expensive and hence they have to cut costs somewhere but this made me nervous. Cause I mean, it’s not even a legitimate ratings system and I bet the Chinese standards are not quite the same as American ones. Lead paint and contaminated milk and all that. I didn’t each much besides some rice and vegetables and even Elaine noted that the food wasn’t very good. After lunch we went to yet ANOTHER Jade factory. I had become quite jaded about shopping at this point (ha ha). So John and I hung around while the group went to some presentation. Apparently they put on this show where the young girl is giving her spiel when “gasp!” an important person shows up to greet these honored guests and tries to make them feel guilty if they walk away without buying anything! We know this is a ruse because Kenny’s group would head to Shanghai right after we left and their group got the same act. 

However, apparently in our group the Auntie with the iPad obsession started asking questions to this dude that were not PC, and certainly not conducive to the image of China that they tried so hard to demonstrate on the tour. She started asking questions about how kids of party leaders can get into trouble and just get bailed out with no consequences, while other people are sent to labor camps. Yeah, apparently the “special” guest was not impressed with her line of inquiry and they kinda got in an argument. Now I wish I has been there! You go old crazy lady! I mean hey, it’s got nothing to do with Jade, but it’s a legitimate question. I guess she thought it would be safer to start stirring the pot at the end of the tour, and while she still had her passport (as we hadn’t checked into a hotel yet). 

The last major excursion of the tour was a stop at a Chinese medicine place in town. We went into this room where we were invited to take our shoes off and some young guys would come in and give everyone foot massages in this bath of special Chinese herbs. I figured when in Rome, so I sat in the back and took my shoes off. Now, when the gaggle of guys came in to give massages they all avoided me like the plague! When there was only a few of us left without a masseuse (me, Elaine, and Susan) two of them tried to sit in front of Elaine so they wouldn’t have to come over to me! I wasn’t really offended as I acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation and was just going to put my shoes back on when one of their managers or supervisors or whatever made one of them come over to me. Yeah, we didn’t make eye contact like the whole time. Then, we had some “doctors” come in and chat with different “patients” in order to talk about their health problems and prescribe them some crack-pot over-priced Chinese herbs. They avoided John and I like the plague too. Terri said one of the men tried to prescribe her stuff for menstrual cramps. She told them she was fine. 

I read an article later, well after we had left China, about Chinese medicine. Some of the people on the tour used it, even though they have perfectly good (and socialized) healthcare in Canada, but they said it was more of a preventative thing—trying to stay healthy rather than treating sickness. The article I read said that Mao Tse Tung himself didn’t actually believe in it. Privately, he was treated with a Western doctor using Western medicine. However, once becoming Chairman he wanted to push for a Chinese identity and way of life that was distinctive from the West, as Communism was so distinctive from the West, thus really pushed the Chinese medicine thing as a point of pride and as means of national identity. If the article is true it’s a really fascinating topic as clearly the craze caught on and persists to this day. Though another woman on the tour said those doctors were “quacks” as any good doctor would have patients lining up to see them, rather than having doctors line up to treat patients. It was a good point.  

The last stop of the night was a special shopping district in Shanghai called Chenhuang. It was all lit up at night which was kinda cool, but once again John and I just walked around having tired of the relentless pressure to buy things on the trip. 

We did, however, stumble upon some pretty amusing stuff:

Afterwards, the rest of the group was taking a cruise on the river in Shanghai, but John and I didn’t want to pay extra for this. There was another woman in our group, Bonnie, who had her young son with her who also just wanted to get to the hotel and check in as it was getting late. She asked us if we wanted to split a taxi to the hotel rather than waiting another hour on the bus and we said sure. Luckily, Bonnie spoke Mandarin and was a force to be reckoned with. We gathered our bags and the four of us pilled into a taxi while Bonnie gave the driver the name of our hotel. At one point on the drive, she pulled out her itinerary and information sheet to make sure we were going to the right place. The driver asked to see it and all I know next is that she had a very heated exchange with him. 

Apparently it went something like this:

Driver: Can I see the map?

Bonnie: You said that you knew where the hotel was! We’re you lying to me!? If you don’t know then drop us off right now!

Driver: No, I wasn’t. I know where it is.

Bonnie: Then you don’t need to see the map! Take us straight there. No long side roads to run up the fare, or I will call the company and complain and we don’t pay. 

Driver: *continues driving in silence*

Go Bonnie! I was really grateful to have her for that cab ride. Sure enough, it was a short cab ride and the guy dropped us off right up front. We paid our fare and he left. 

It was a pretty nice hotel and we had a nice sleep. The next day was the last day of the tour for everyone and it was a free day in Shanghai. I woke up that morning to news of the Sandy Hook shooting, which had made it’s way to even the Chinese news agency,  which made for lovely breakfast conversation as we fielded questions about America and our ass-backwards gun laws. I won’t even go there right now.

We spent the day walking along the main shopping road of Shanghai and along the “Bund” or the famous boardwalk along the river. I’m not that into cities and Shanghai to me just felt like another city. Plus, it still had a lot of smog, too. Though it was significantly warmer than Beijing had been, so that was a plus. 

As we wandered around the bund we were randomly approached by a young Chinese couple, who spoke surprisingly good English, who asked us to take their picture. The interaction didn’t stop there, though, as afterwards they roped us into conversation, asking about what we were doing in China, where we had been, where we were going next,etc . . . I was starting to get annoyed and was trying to politely excuse ourselves when they dropped the bomb, “We are on our way to this great Chinese Tea Ceremony. It’s a famous tradition. Do you guys want to join?”

Ah Hah!

In my research about China before we ever went on the tour, I read about the famous “Tea Ceremony” scam, targeted at Westerners in big cities. Young, attractive English-speaking Chinese people would approach you, try to befriend you, maybe even offer to show you around. Soon after they would invite you to a “tea ceremony” at some house tucked down some random side street where you would try all these teas and then, at the end, be presented with an enormous bill. Some people lost hundreds of dollars over this thing. I was well aware of it’s existence well before, and as soon as these people mentioned “tea ceremony” I knew what was up. 

I wasn’t rude to them, even though I really wanted to be as I knew they were just trying to scam us. I just politely declined and said I was tired and just wanted to go back to our hotel. They were persistent, but I said no again and then started walking away, with John following. Luckily, they knew they wouldn’t get us and so left to try their tricks on some other poor fool. 

I would not be tricked into some overpriced bullshit again! (I had promised myself after Bali). 

So indeed, we headed back to the hotel to relax before we were off to find dinner, as we were on our own that final evening. The concierge at the hotel recommended this shopping center about 10 minutes down the street, as we could find a variety of affordable food there. So that’s where we headed and ended up finding a pretty decently-priced place where we were able to order dumplings, pork buns, and bok choy. The only downside was that there were two people smoking at a table nearby. Indoor smoking bans are not yet a thing in China, though they certainly should be. We managed to avoid smokers most of the time, but not always. With their terrible smog you would think they punish their lungs enough, but apparently not. They are paying for it now, though, in the form of lung cancer. 

Anywho, we enjoyed our last meal and made our way back to the hotel. The next morning we had to check out early but our flight to Hong Kong wasn’t until the evening so we mostly hung around the hotel all day using their free wifi until our driver showed up around 3 pm. 

Our tour had been an enjoyable one and we were happy that we had been able to make friends with people our age. It was an interesting tour and definitely a very carefully constructed version of China that we was presented, but still enjoyable nonetheless. I would like to go back, this time on our own, do no shopping but explore more of the natural beauty of China, like Xi’an, Guiling, and hopefully Tibet. But yes, from a political and economic standpoint, as a Westerner it was an interesting experience, and 10 days was not nearly long enough to fully understand and appreciate the complexities of a country such as China, as I felt our initial introduction was so superficial. Ultimately, though, we were glad we went. 

Most importantly, I do wonder where all those random pictures taken of me ended up. . . .