Tai Shan: Tai'An's Only Redeeming Quality

Special Nit-Picking Note: This part actually started on the 15th, but I dated it the 16th since most of it, and the best parts happened after midnight. The trip began not long before sundown on the 15th.

Finally, it was time for us to load up with food and water, and head up the mountain. The sun hadn't even set yet, but I enjoyed their company, and Tai'An certainly has nothing else to do, so I gladly accompanied them. This way, I got to see quite a few of the earlier sights and take pictures before dark, when I had to rely only upon the flash of my camera.

Some of the trip starts outside of the actual ticket gate, so we saw a few sights before I even had to pay. I impressed my Chinese friends by managing to scam a student price out of it as well. I'm clearly not a Chinese student, but I show my ISIC card everywhere I go, and sometimes they get so confused that they give me the cheaper price anyway. In this case, it saved me a ton. The original price was 120, and I paid 62 yuan. That precious ISIC card I got for free has saved me about 200 yuan (about 30 bucks CAD). For a country full of people known and sometimes ridiculed for their cheapness, that's not bad at all.

Once the sun went down, it quickly got very dark, and I realized the Lonely Planet's description was useless. First off, the book claimed that the whole way was lit. Bullshit. I saw several people who attempted it with no flashlight limping up and down the mountain. There were also people making a fortune by waiting around with makeshift stretchers, made from branches and some kind of canvas. They just waited around until someone limped up to them and they'd take them down the mountain. One old lady was a trooper and had them carry her UP the mountain. She entertained me.

Rather than stumble around in the dark, assuming there were stairs somewhere or not, I bought a flashlight shortly after it got dark. Fortunately, I haggled a good price thanks to the Chinese people around me. Even though they didn't haggle for me, the guy would have jacked up the price much higher. Their mere presence kept his asking price low. I bought the "high quality" flashlight, which genuinely did let off more light. I use quotations because not long after, it started to flicker and fail due to bad connections to the batteries inside. I managed to get him to put new batteries in it before I bought it too, rather than buy it with the batteries he had been using to show everyone for who knows how long how good the "quality" is.

The second reason I say the Lonely Planet was useless here was because the map proved useless. The Lonely Planet's map is confusing, and the mountain's paths are well laid out. There was no need for the Lonely Planet for navigation either. Its information on the gates was somewhat useful, although none of the Chinese characters on the gates corresponded to what the translated name was in the book. It also failed to mention a few of the cooler parts of the mountain.

The last reason as to why it was useless is small, but irritating enough that I have to mention it. The Lonely Planet claims that "some" Chinese attempt to climb the mountain at night. I think I saw half of Tai'An's population that night. EVERYONE climbs it at night. Some people climbed it during the day, but most people were going down, not up. For good reason too, because climbing it at night was well worth the reward.

Once at the halfway mark, I stopped and waited for the Chinese people to catch up. Honestly, the majority of China could really use some strength training. They insisted I go ahead, because each set of steps consisted of me bounding up it two steps at a time, then waiting and providing them light with my flashlight, as they slowly took on the difficulties of a set of around 20 steps. I heard at four different times from random shocked Chinese people "Oh, you are so strong!" just for being able to climb stairs. Before the halfway mark, the slopes are gradual, and steps rarely exceed sets of twenty. It really wasn't hard. For a people who consider mountain climbing (in the sense of walking up stairs) a sport, they're really bad at it.

Reaching the halfway mark is supposed to take two hours. We had left before sundown (around 6 PM), and they didn't get there until 11 PM. On my own, I would have made it to the peak by then. Regardless, they finally caught up, and they all wanted to be at the peak right away. I knew the peak wouldn't take more than two hours, and it was finally starting to get cold, so I suggested we stay. The halfway mark has a few restaurants and a lounge where you can pay to rest in the semi-heated area. It's mainly only warm because of all the people there. We haggled it down from a whopping 8 yuan, which they claimed to be expensive, to 6 yuan for each of us to rest.

Inside, I warmed up, and shocked them by suggesting we play Da Di Hua, the common Chinese game. It closely resembles Asshole, with some minor differences that make the game much more difficult. They were amazed I knew how to play, so we managed to kill quite a bit of time. We then napped until 2 AM, and set out. They suggested we leave at 3 AM, but I knew if they left later, they probably wouldn't make it.

Not long after we set out, the stairs became much steeper, and the sets of steps became much longer before a break occured. They insisted I set off on my own again, and after checking that they were sure it was ok, and getting their phone number so we could find each other on the peak, I took off. Granted, this was much harder than before, but I'm glad I went off on my own. Waiting for them would have been excrutiatingly boring. I made it to the top in under an hour and a half.

Some memories I have of that second half, I will always look back on and smile. One Chinese girl tried reading the English portion of one of the plaques that describe the history of a certain sight along the way. While reading out loud, I joined in as a joke, since thanks to the pitch black of the night, she couldn't see my face, and hadn't realized I was a foreigner. Once my voice joined in with hers, reading it outloud, she stopped, stood straight like a deer in headlights, and hid behind her boyfriend. I had actually scared her to the point where she instinctively hid, just by being a foreigner.

Another fun memory I have was nearer to the peak. The lady I said was a trooper, taking the stretcher to the top, instead of down... she passed me. Several times. I was passing tons of Chinese people, one after another, as they gawked at the sheer, massive power of an average white guy. But that lady, I just couldn't stay in front of. The two guys carrying her were hot on my tail the whole way, and she was how I kept motivated and kept my pace up. I kept thinking surely, if two guys can carry another person up, I can go up faster only burdened by two days worth of clothing! These guys weren't even big, either. Just typical, skinny Chinese guys, probably weighing about 150 pounds each. It wasn't until the next morning, when I saw how they restocked all the food and other inventory they have at the top for sale, that I realized why it was so challenging. These guys are monsters, unstoppable forces of nature, when you see them in action. They put tons of weight on each end of a pole, and carry up maybe 6 or 8 cases of beer at a time. Basically, if the pole can support the weight, they can.

Once at the top, I had what I thought was an hour left (it turned out to be an hour and a half) before sunrise, and I was getting cold fast. I packed a sweater, thinking I was clever, but I only had shorts on. I had to keep walking, and finding more steps up in order to keep warm. Thanks to this walking, I ended up getting horribly lost in the paths on the peak. I found several maps, but they were useless as I didn't know where north was. I tried asking others where north was, but couldn't seem to communicate what I wanted. I later realized I had mixed up the words for north, pronounced in English like 'Bay', and white, pronounced in English like 'Buy'. I had been asking everyone where the white was.

Finally, I half signed, half asked in Chinese where the sunrise would be, and had someone point it out to me. I followed them there, and happened accidentally to end up at Sun-Watching peak. That's honestly the literal translation. It's the eastern most part of the mountain's peak, and is actually a huge cliff with a great view. It's also the most popular place to watch the sunrise.

While waiting, it got brighter and brighter out, until it felt like daytime. It was still very cold, and I kept trying to walk around to keep warm. Finally, about half an hour after I thought the sunrise was supposed to happen, I gave up, thinking I wasn't going to get to see the sunrise. I assumed that it was too cloudy out, as the mountain was full of mist and China's skies are often obscured by pollution. I set off, and left my vantage point to get a good picture of all the other people watching for it. Just as I was about to take the picture, I heard a ton of Chinese people Ooh, and Aah at once, and turned towards the east. I saw the sun just poking out from the horizon. It was gorgeous, as I'd never watched a sunrise before, and certainly never on a mountain peak. My camera definitely did not do it justice, as for some reason, it picks up the sun as a tiny dot, no matter what settings I had on. I watched it come up until it was fully shining, in all its power, and I went off to see the mountain, which was now fully exposed.

Now that the sun was out, and starting to heat everything back up, the mist was quickly disappearing to reveal what I had climbed the whole night. It was breathtaking, and I feel that even the pictures I took don't do it any justice. This was the defining moment of the whole trip, and I was ecstatic I had made it. There were no clouds out, it was a clear day, and made all the racism and long hours standing on the train and climbing the 6660 steps so worthwhile.

I did nothing but gawk at the many sights for quite a long time, while seeing the different tourist attractions along the paths I had accidentally wandered (Confucious' temple, Jade Emperor temple, etc) at the same time. By the time the Chinese people's text messages got to me - they were long delayed thanks to being on top of a mountain - I had seen everything and was waiting to meet up with them at the South Gate to the Heavens, where the long path to the top ends. They had barely made it to see the sunrise, and definitely didn't make it to where I was for the event, so they set off and looked at everything I had just come from.

I messaged them, letting them know I'd be waiting for them there when they were ready, and as it was still very cold out, haggled for some coffee. I could only get instant coffee at the top, but I found a place that would sell it for 10 yuan, which isn't bad, considering 2 - 3 yuan beer cost 20 at the peak. While sipping my coffee, a bird flew in through the door, as it was wide open, and started flying around everywhere in the restaurant. The entire staff came out of the kitchen and started batting the air trying to hit the bird, and finally, it hit the window and the cook grabbed it (with his bare hands, I might add) and pinned its wings back. Here's the part that makes this story worth adding to the blog: Instead of releasing it, he took it into the kitchen! I kid you not! There are rumors that barbeque in Wuxi (or anywhere) uses stray dogs and cats instead of legitimate beef, because it's cheaper. This only adds to the potential legitimacy of the story. Suffice to say, I was glad I only had a coffee, although I'm certain that their "Chicken" fried rice is now quite fresh.

Once I finally met up with my Chinese friends, I chatted with them a bit, thanked them profusely, and finally made my way down. I took a bus from the halfway point, as I was far enough down that most of the sights to see were either not nearly as impressive as they were from the peak, or I had already gotten pictures of them while the sun was still out. The bus ride offered some nice new scenery. Unfortunately, most of the pictures didn't turn out as I was extremely low on battery power, and a lot of it was obscured by a treeline along the road.

I ended the trip by waiting over three hours in the train station, as there really wasn't anything to do in Tai'An during that time, even by admission of the natives. While in there, I came across the most unsanitary washroom I've ever seen. Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. It was just a long, approximately foot-deep, foot wide trough in the floor, with no drain. I assume all the waste was shoveled out at some late hour of the night. It was filled with the crap of others who had passed by, and there was certainly no toilet paper available. To top it all off, the sinks had no running water. One was filled with water because it was clogged with something, and the majority of the Chinese were rinsing off their hands with that. It was... disgusting.

The train ride back was extremely similar to the train ride to Tai'An in the first place, and pissed me off all over again. I even had someone make fun of me because I bought a beer. Apparently, beer is only supposed to be drank with supper. I didn't care, I just wanted a beer. The Chinese are so closed minded sometimes. I regained my sanity by finally finding a group of people from Shanghai who were more used to foreigners, and I chatted mostly with the young boy with them. He found my lack of mastery of the tones the Chinese use for their words hilarious, and I teased him right back by teaching him English and listening to all the Chinese people around him laugh at his horrible attempts to mimic the sounds. All in all, the Shanghai people made the last leg of the trip somewhat tolerable, despite the many interruptions of the idiots who wanted to see the foreigner, and his "failing Chinese". I regained my confidence in my Chinese when I got back to Wuxi, when within 15 minutes of being in a city that knew foreigners weren't fluent, where people typically spoke more clearly and slowly to foreigners, I had two separate full conversations with people, without misunderstanding. One of the conversations was with the taxi driver taking me home, and granted, she corrected my horrible use of the tones, but there were no misunderstandings or laughing "Hahaha, he doesn't understand! What a stupid foreigner!" No more travelling to ass-backwards cities for me.

Tai'An: The Shithole with a View

This trip began poorly, and it didn't let up easily. Once I finally got there, I could see signs of the sun rising, and I was very unimpressed. First off, I quickly realized I had not calculated my financial status properly, and realized I wasn't going to be able to see Qufu, the birthplace and deathplace of Confucious, the famous Chinese philosopher, and butt of many jokes about China. I was pissed off about that, but I could live with it.

However, I was still very bitter about the train ride, and what's worse is the whole time I was in the train station, I was being attacked by the same four "taxi drivers". Unlicensed random guys trying to drive you around and imposing a jacked up price on you. They'd come at me in shifts, so I was never alone, just always walking around or standing with one guy or another, hounding me saying "Taxi! Taxi! Tai Shan, taxi!" despite my telling them I didn't want a taxi. In China, apparently, if someone says they don't want something, it just means you should tell them again about what rip off you're offering... 18 times. Finally, I was so frustrated that I stopped ignoring the guy, looked up from my Lonely Planet guide, and yelled loud enough for the train station to echo "I don't want a fucking taxi!". Rather than leave, they all just shut up and stood near and watched me.

Finally, I just bought a ticket for the next day (in the afternoon) for a "quick" train. The quick train they were offering was 9 hours back, and they jacked up the price by almost double. I paid for it anyway, and realized there was definitely no way to afford Qufu, so I pushed it out of my mind. I gave the cab drivers another glare to make sure they stayed in their place, and walked to the door of the ticket office to figure out which way was north to get my bearings on the map.

Unfortunately, it was raining, so there was no sun out, and worse yet, that also indicated I would see no sunrise the next day. My plan was falling apart, and I was becoming darker and darker shades of red from anger and frustration. Finally, a man my age came up to me and asked in English if they could help - a common question from those who want to practice English for free, and also from those who want to make friends with you before they sell you something. I warily told him "Well, most of all, I don't want a taxi" very firmly. He smiled, and started a short conversation with me about the typical things, where I'm from, why am I in China, etc. I started to decide he only wanted to practice English, but I continued to talk to him, mainly because he was the first person in over 14 hours who was nice to me.

Soon after, his friends showed up, who also knew English quite well, and they all smiled and listened in. I told them briefly of my problems on the train as part of my apology for being abrasive in the beginning of the conversation. Suddenly, they all started chatting in Chinese, and one of them turned to me and said "We are excited to see you. We'd like it if you came with us to see our university, and you can come sleep in our dorm room". I immediately smelled scam, so I asked them how much it would cost, and they looked confused and said "No, for free." I was still skeptical, but eventually followed them anyway. It proved to eventually have saved the trip.

The campus was very nice, and they bought breakfast for me, despite that I insisted that I'd pay. Chinese are very good at somehow paying the bill for you. I eventually started taking pictures of the campus, as it was nicely set up, despite the fact that the rest of Tai'An looked like an average city in Canada, sunken about a foot in mud (because it was raining), after everyone decided to take a simultaneous dump on the city. It was just seriously underdeveloped, and even the residents admitted that. I had gone here knowing that Jessica's friend used to live here, but I didn't find out until after the trip that apparently, she also got the fuck out as soon as she could, because it sucked.

Afterwards, they took me to another campus, where the dorms were, and as I expected, they wouldn't let a foreigner in the dorms. Surprise, surprise, a university with no foreign students had no accomodations for a foreigner. My new friends clearly did not know the laws surrounding foreigners, and that some areas are closed to us. I wasn't worried, and expected that to be where we parted, but oh, I was so wrong.

They insisted they knew of a place I could stay for only 10 yuan. That's not even two dollars Canadian. I laughed and told them there was no way a place that cheap could take a foreigner, and they said it could be done. So I humoured them, and walked with them to the hotel. However, once at the hotel, one of them grabbed my shoulder, and held me back from going in. The other two walked in, and I looked in confusion at the one who grabbed me. We chatted for a bit, until the other two came out and waved us into the hotel after arrangements had been made. Once again, they had paid. The one who grabbed me said "Walk fast." and I realized what was happening. I was being smuggled into a real Chinese hotel.

I walked in, walking briskly to the stairs up to my room, and the receptionist froze with a look of undefinable emotion on her face. It was a mix of wonder at the new foreigner and fear and surprise of the possibility they'd be shut down. If a place takes a foreigner without being licensed for it, they can face quite a horrible fine, or worse. This place clearly was not licensed. I had walked inside a building to the lobby, if you can call it that. The roof ended suddenly towards the back, and the stairs leading up also had the roof end suddenly. From then, it was just an open concrete floor with rooms sort of thrown together out of nowhere. The doors were shabby, and the walls, despite being exposed directly to the outdoors, were made of drywall. This "building" was actually just a shack, converted to some rooms of some sort of improvised make.

There was a window into another room, and I could see a man with a lady in his room. It was quite clear to me that she was a prostitute, and kept walking. I later heard the two of them together in the washroom, despite the fact that they were clearly not showering or using the (squat) toilet. We entered my room, and the Chinese people immediately locked the door each time they came and went, which unnerved me. At this point, they had easily earned my trust, but the fact that police could come by and kick me out of the city at any time was making me quite nervous, to say the least.

I slept, despite the rock hard bed and "pillow", with my backpack beside me against the wall, just in case. After about 4 or 5 hours, we set out, and one of the Chinese people got his deposit back. It was 5 yuan. I have never paid a deposit less than 100 yuan. I was thankful I didn't get arrested or kicked out, and happily went on my way. They took me for lunch, which was much nicer. Again, they managed to pay the bill, despite my protest.

We still had a lot of time to kill, as some of them were going to climb Tai Shan as well to see the sunrise, so we went to a temple that was a common stop before attempting the climb called Dai Miao. The temple was nice, although fairly typical. I saw a lady mopping carpet in one of the temples, but didn't manage to sneak a good picture, and they were quite angry after, as they thought I was taking pictures of the inside of the temple itself. I wish I had, as the inside walls of that temple were very beautiful, and actually real history for a change.

A common problem I have with China's temples is that sometimes, the temples' insides are quite interesting, but they won't let you take pictures because of the religiousness. I could understand that, if the temples were holy in the least. However, I've been to many temples. The statues and the temples' decor are all pirated, as they look identical, right down to the paintjob the outside of the temple has. Seriously, they're factory made. Some temples even admit in the plaques that the temple was rebuilt or "restored" in the 1980's. Furthermore, it's common for it to suddenly become ok for me to take pictures after paying money at the altar. If it were really for religious reasons, I'd have no problem not taking pictures. My problem is that it's only bad form to take pictures until money makes their religious spirit disappear. I've even seen monks light up a cigarette inside a temple before. Hardly a religious act, or a sacred grounds.

Tai'An: The train ride there

This was my last trip in China. I leave for Canada on the 21st, but I wanted to cram in one last sight, as China has some really nice mountainous areas. I've noticed during many of my trips that I tended to try and take pictures of natural things, not the touristy crap I complain about so often, so a mountain was right up my alley. Shandong province is north of Jiangsu province (where Wuxi is), so it was a close enough place with a famous mountain I was interested in seeing.

Tai Shan (The mountain I wanted to see) is in Tai'An, and out of the 5 Taoist Mountains in China, this is supposed to be the best. Unfortunately, I had to go to Tai'An to get there. I did not know what I was getting myself into. Tai'An has 5 million people in it, so I figured it'd be ok, despite the fact that the Lonely Planet literally has zero sights listed in Tai'An's section, except for Tai Shan itself. The city is so crappy and undeveloped, the people living there don't even know there's 5 million of them. I had native Chinese people telling me that there were maybe a few hundred thousand living there... More than a little off.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, the train ride from Wuxi to Tai'An. It sucked. It turned out my train had no letter in front of its name, which means it's the slowest of its kind. For a trip that should have taken 8 hours, at most, I ended up on a 14 hour train ride... standing. That's right, I had a standing ticket on a really crappy train. This train was also the lowest of the low I've been on. It brought a new meaning to hard seat. All the other trains I've taken had individual seats, with decent cushioning. This one looked like inside a school bus, if they took all the cushion out of the seats. Long, green boards made up the train seats, and they had mounted fans, mostly broken, along the ceiling, rather than air condition it.

I was planning to go climb the mountain at night, as many Chinese people do, since the sunrise is supposed to be spectacular from the peak. So my plan was to get to Tai'An at around 1 to 2 AM, maybe even as early as midnight, then head straight to the mountain, and climb it as quick as I could to make it there just in time for the sunrise (around 4 to 5 AM). However, the train I got on at 2:30 PM didn't make it to Tai'An until... that's right. Sunrise. I was not impressed.

Another really irritating part was that Shandong is full of people with horrible accents, and none of them are used to foreigners. For a long time on the trip, I had lost all confidence in my Chinese, because I couldn't understand any of the people in Shandong province. I thought my listening ability had gone in the shitter. The problem was none of them had any experience speaking to someone who's native tongue isn't Chinese, so they all spoke quickly, and with no enunciation at all. Just good old thick Shandong accent. They had no concept, despite my insistence, of speaking slowly or clearly. As soon as I couldn't understand someone saying a single phrase, they'd laugh at me, and announce to the entire train car that the stupid foreigner doesn't speak Chinese. They'd even go so far as to tell other people who wanted to try and chat with me not to bother, because "the foreigner doesn't know any Chinese".

This was extremely frustrating, for two reasons. First off, I know enough Chinese to understand the general subject of most conversations Chinese people are having without me in it, but none of the specifics. Second, trains are noisy, so often, I just couldn't hear the person over a passing train, or other people's chatter. Rather than repeat themselves, or speak clearly, they just decided I was an idiot. Then they'd talk about me for 10 minutes, and make fun of how I spoke, or that I was stupid and couldn't understand them... in front of me. So not only did I suffer through the frustrations of not knowing enough vocabulary to understand everything, which is a common enough feeling normally, but I had to sit and listen to them make fun of me for 10 minutes.

By the time the train had finally made it to Tai'An, I was happy to get off, and felt like punching half the car's passengers in the face. Shandong's accent is somewhere between Beijing dialect, which I understand because Beijing people see a lot of foreigners, so they speak clearly, and Southern dialect, which is close to Wuxi dialect. However, it's a horrible mishmash of both, and they spoke very quickly, so it was near impossible to understand. Most of them weren't even speaking Mandarin, they were speaking their native dialect, which is specific down to the city, not even a province. Thanks to this train ride, I was exposed to the famed racism China's foreign visitors know oh so well, for far far too long. I had experienced it many times, but never to this degree.

The most aggravating conversation I've had in China

The following conversation occured on the street. It's common for the Chinese to yell "Hello! Laowhi! Hello!" (Laowhi = old outsider, foreigner) and expect us to respond kindly and even let them talk to us and practice their English (usually atrocious). Today, I was not in a tolerant mood, and this put me in a much angrier mood when it was all said and done:

Chinese Moron: "Hello!"
*I turn and glare at him*
*He assumes that means he can come up to me and talk to me, and does so*
~In English~
CM: "Where you from?"

~In Chinese~
Me: I'm from Canada
CM: Ah, I see. What country are you from?
Me: Canada
CM: I know, I know Canada. But what COUNTRY are you from?

~In English~
Me: CANADA!
CM: Yes, but where you from? America? Australia? Germany? France?
Me: ... Ca-Na-Da.

~In Chinese~
Me: I am not American, I am Canadian.
CM: I know! I know! But what country? America? Australia? Germany? France? Where?
Me: ... Do you know where Canada is?
*CM hesitates*
Me: Here is America...
*I show with my hand in the air*
Me: Here is Canada.
*I point above it*
*CM hesitates a bit more*

~In English~
CM: Yes, I know. North.
Me: Yes.
CM: But...
Me: Canada.
CM: Yes, Toronto.
*I sigh, thinking I've finally gotten through to him*
Me: Yes, I live very close to Toronto.
CM: See? I know! But what country...
*I make a very angry face*
CM: Did you know? This is free!
*CM points to my coffee, from McDonalds*
Me: It's free?
CM: Not free, but free.

~In Chinese~
CM: McDonalds will give you more coffee for no money.

~In English~
Me: Oh, free refills. Yes, I know.
CM: One day, I drink 60 of them for free. Manager not happy.
*CM laughs*

I just walked away from him. The guy was a fucking moron. Apparently, he is not aware that Canada is a country. I still have no fucking clue what he thinks it is. He knows Toronto, but I'm not sure he knows what Canada is. It's my best guess that he thinks Canada is called Toronto. I tried in two languages, and he still has no fucking clue where I'm from. I really have to stop instinctively looking every time someone yells Hello. I'm getting too many stupid fuckers trying to talk to me.

Tailoring Suits

Finally, I had the opportunity to take a Chinese person to what we call Fabric Land (a pun, based on the Canadian company). Hou Xixi, a street not far from where I live, is dedicated to clothing, and the end of the street is made up of several shops that will sell cloth or tailor clothing for you. Since coming to China, I knew I wanted to have some suits made, but I never had a Chinese friend with the time to come with me and help me buy some. I probably could have muddled through it, but I would have paid a lot more, and probably not have known how much cloth to buy.

We had Alex's friend, Apple, who is a student at Hy-Lite (Jessica's job - the English School) come with us. She was great, because not only did she help interpret, but when the tailoring work turned out to be a lot more expensive than I expected, she called her mother. Apple's only 18, so she didn't know quite how much it should cost, but we were getting prices of about 250-300 yuan per suit! I expected around 100 yuan! Apple, now armed with the knowledge her mom gave her, managed to talk it down so I was paying total 560 yuan for all three suits, including the pants, and all adjustments. Basically, when all is said and done, I've gotten each suit for around 35 bucks Canadian. However, now, I'm quite broke, and these last few days in China are going to be tight.

Afterwards, I had Apple pick out a bunch of popular Chinese movies for me, as I've become quite discouraged with buying Western movies here. I can burn American movies on my own back home, and they'd be better quality, but Chinese movies are not something I have realistic access to. Not to mention, these will have subtitles, so I can continue to listen and learn Mandarin, and if I don't understand, I can read the subtitles.

Apple also came back to our apartment and taught me the basics of Majiang, the popular Chinese gambling game. I still don't know how to play, but she explained all the types and meanings of the pieces. Apparently, I'm going to have to learn some more Chinese characters. Hopefully, Tommy will teach me when I get back to Canada.

Fire Car!

Huo Che, the Chinese for train, translates literally as a fire car. This is just meant to be a blurb on the types of train cars you can get tickets for, and my impressions of them all now that I've taken all of the different types.

Cars can be of 4 different qualities: Hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, soft sleeper. The prices increase respectively.

Hard seat:
This is the main staple of trains. They're the cheapest seats you can buy, and for foreigners, the ticket booths will often assume you want a more expensive seat. They'll usually try to upgrade you to a soft seat. I suggest if you know Chinese (even just a little bit), don't upgrade! The people in these cars are SO friendly, and because there's so many of them, at least some will know a decent amount of English. I love travelling in hard seats because the first 10 minutes, they do nothing but stare at you, and then someone reveals they know some English, and you get to chat with them. This has been one of the ways I've learned a lot of Chinese. If their English fails, they often fall back on Chinese, and this is how I learn. They also enjoy teaching you basic Chinese, so if your Chinese is really poor, they'll teach you some simple stuff. Some of the most interesting people I've met in China have been in hard seat. Not only is it cheap, but it's fun!

Soft seat:
I've taken these only on bullet/really fast trains. They're generally skipped over unless the trip is under a few hours long. The seats are more comfortable, as implied by the name, and there's often a table tray in the seat in front of you that folds out. If you get the opportunity to take it long distance, don't bother. Save the money, take soft seat on quick trips. I tend to have these seats when I go to Shanghai (under an hour train ride), or Suzhou (15 minute train ride). Generally, you won't strike up a conversation in here, since most people are business men who don't give a shit about you, but it has been done.

Hard Sleeper:
For a long time, this was my preferred car for long distance trains. It's cheaper than soft sleeper, and the beds really aren't that different. However, there are 6 beds in each section. There's a bottom bunk, middle bunk, and top bunk on the left and right of each section, and not much head clearance for any of them. I've read that top bunk is cheaper, and bottom bunk is most expensive, but I haven't actually noticed a price difference. However, the idea would make sense. Top bunk has almost no head clearance at all, as the ceiling is maybe 2 feet above the bed, and the light and speakers are right in your face. Bottom bunk is nice, but you may have to wait for the others to go to bed, as it is common for everyone to chill out on the bottom bunk until they go to bed. Middle bunk seems to be the best choice, but if you're really tall, over 6 feet, you may have people walking by bumping into your overhanging feet. I have no issues with any of them, and generally get "stuck" with top bunk.

Soft Sleeper:
This is the luxury. Each section has four beds, not six, and the beds are a bit softer, although not enough to make a difference for me. Each section also has a door, which you can shut for privacy when everyone wants to sleep, and there is a plug available just outside each section, on the opposing wall. Most of the time, you'll see rich Chinese and some foreigners here. If you want to meet someone to chat with, like another foreigner, or a friendly Chinese guy, don't bother trying the people in these cars. Go to the diner car. People are far more social there (possibly because they serve beer). The diner car usually separates the sleepers from the seats. Most foreigners seem to like to get these if they can, especially for really long trips. I don't like them anymore, because they're too expensive, and no one's social.

Standing Tickets:
Couldn't get a seat? The train may be sold out, but they'll sell you a ticket anyway. You just have to stand for the whole way... kind of. Standing tickets are cool, because you get thrown in hard seat, you'll lean up against the side of the aisle seats, and everyone will stare. Foreigners are supposed to have a lot of money, and most standing tickets are sold to poor Chinese people, so a foreigner... standing?! You get a lot of people chatting with you, a lot of nice people, and on long trips, where you'd assume a standing ticket would be brutal, is no problem. People will be more likely to get up and stretch their legs, and so they will offer you their seat in the meantime. In fact, some people will give you the seat and stand for a few hours themselves, just to be nice. I've had standing tickets a few times, and it's changed how I viewed China. They are really hospitable, and while someone sitting in your seat in Canada would be cause for confrontation, it's just a fact of life here, and they have no problem with it. I now offer my seat to the Chinese people with standing tickets routinely, because I like to stand anyway.

There is one problem though. If your train goes through the night, beyond 3 AM, you're going to run into trouble, because even the night owls will drift off around then. If you haven't found an empty seat by then, standing is BORING. Maybe bring newspaper to sit on or even lie down on (the Chinese do it) in the aisle, or try to get a seat at the diner car after they've stopped serving food. Often, for an extra fee (around 30 yuan), they'll let you stay in there from 11 PM to 5 or 6 AM. Rest your weary head on the table, and watch out for cockroaches.

Drunk Cops

Jessica took Alex and I out today for dinner after she finished work. She had learned of a "famous" Sichuan restaurant in Wuxi. It was supposed to be the best one of its kind here, which is a bit of a laughable claim, since there's probably only about 3 or 4 to begin with.

The food was fairly decent, although I find myself quickly getting tired of Chinese food. I'm quite happy I'll be back in Canada soon, where the food varies beyond "Do you want rice, or noodles?". The waitress was mildly useless, as she was one of the types to immediately assume foreigners can't speak Chinese, and so I must not know what I'm saying. It took several tries just to find out how much a beer cost, and she never actually answered me, someone else piped in and told me.

This was also the first restaurant to give us a bell if we want service. This was nice, because often, service is a bitch to get in restaurants. You typically have to yell "Ai! Fu yan!" quite loud to get anything. Jessica wouldn't ring the bell though, so I had to give it a shake when we needed something. Canadian manners really have to get thrown out the door here, you can't get away with the quiet "Um... excuse me".

The reason I chose to write about this little experience was not for the restaurant, or the food. They were fairly average. Why it became an event to write about was because of a group of guys in a private booth. We could see some of them, and they were clearly quite drunk, but they hadn't noticed us until they started swearing at each other in English (I told you, they were drunk) and I burst out laughing. I have a fairly loud laugh, so they all poked their heads out, saw foreigners, and immediately came over to talk to us and apologize for swearing in our language.

I thought it was funny, and I didn't care at all, but they kept apologizing, and poured us all some beer for Ganbei (Chinese cheers, you chug the glass - the word means literally "Bottoms Up"). They stuck around and chatted with us drunkenly for a long, long time. We found out they were all cops, and I believe the restaurant owner was hosting them to get some brownie points with the police. The owner was frequently with them, and always providing more beer.

They asked us what we did, and we answered teachers, although I let it drop that I'm actually a private tutor. Jessica turned her head and snapped that I shouldn't have said that, as apparently, it's illegal for me to be tutoring. The cops either didn't care, or they were too drunk to realize what I had said or implied. Regardless, I'm not tutoring anymore. I had quit before I went to Beijing and Xi'an.

We had fun, but once they finally left our table, we called the fu yan over as quickly as possible and told her to hurry and bring us our bill so we could get out of there. We paid, and they showed up again, chatting with us for a little while longer, and we had one last encounter as we left, saying good bye. It's always funny to see the cops here, because they're either so relaxed while on duty, or they're abusing their own powers. I'd hate to know the number of cops that are drunk on duty here, but it's a well known reality.

One of the highlights of the night for me was when Jessica turned to me and told me one of the cops offered her a kind of "protection". The other cops had been telling him to shut up, while he told Jessica they should exchange phone numbers, and if she ever needs a hand with anything, just give him a call. The way I interpreted it, it reeked of mild police corruption, but I'm likely reading too much into it.

Going to a restaurant just isn't going to be the same without drunken police officers yelling "Fuck you!" in a horrible, slurred Chinese accent.

Xi'An: Last Day of the Trip

Finally, the trip drew near to a close. Aside from the Warriors, Xi'An really doesn't have a huge amount more to offer. It has two pagodas, the drum and bell towers, and the city walls. I had already seen the drum and bell towers the night before, so I slept in a bit on purpose to kill some time, then took a bus out to the Big Goose Pagoda.

The Big Goose Pagoda was cool, but not because of the pagoda itself. The pagoda was walled in, and you had to circle around to the back to pay a fee to go up and see it. I thought it was cool because around the walls, there is a series of giant water jets, and I happened to get there just as it was turned on. The fountains are not on all day. I got there at noon, and it just so happened that at noon, they turn them on for what I call a water dance. The jets all shoot out at different angles and heights, all to several different songs, varying from classical, to what I'd call parade music, to very Chinese style music.

Once the performance was over, I circled around back, walked up to the entrance where you pay the admission fee, knelt down, and just snuck a picture of the pagoda, then moved on. China's got lots of pagodas, the insides are all the same, and I don't need to worry about paying to go to each one of them. I moved on to the next pagoda, called the Little Goose Pagoda.

This one was somewhat hidden, and I had passed it by quite a bit while walking. Finally, after doubling back quite a ways, I found it, and the pagoda wasn't visible at all. The walls around it are very far spread out, and they've turned the surrounding area into a park. So I was forced to pay to go in, just to see the pagoda, but I'm glad I did. This one, once in the park, was free to climb, which is unusual. It also had a bit of interesting history to it, and the view from the top was nice.

Finally, I had exhausted all the sights but one: The city walls. The city walls are a special sight, because many Chinese cities had large walls built around them, but none of them are still around. Xi'an's are still maintained, although the city has grown beyond the walls themselves.

I had about 2 hours before the train left, and I was considering walking from the South gate to the North Gate where the train station is, but I didn't want to risk being stuck on the city wall and discovering that it was going to take too long to walk there. So I took a bus to the North Gate, and went onto the City Wall from there. I regret this for many reasons.

First off, it's clear that the Southern section of the wall has more to see. That end of the city has been made much more natural looking, and there are things to look at. The North end is boring, and all you see is poor housing and the train station. Even further, the North end was under construction. They were restoring some of the towers at the North Gate. And yes, even worse than that is the enormous amount of money they want just for you to climb up and look around. It's 40 yuan to get up, and most people rent bikes as well, so another 20 yuan, and I pity anyone who buys any water or ice cream while up there. Suffice to say, it's an expensive way to kill some time. I walked far enough to see a main gate, as they have 3 signature towers at each gate, and a corner, since they build a tower at each corner in order to keep an eye out along the whole wall.

The only other thing I found remotely interesting about the city walls was the poor housing. I hadn't found a good perspective before to take pictures of this kind of thing, although I had tried. I've wanted pictures of the numerous solar panels they use here, just to show people back home. One thing I really like about China is how they use a lot of solar power. They do it for free electricity, not to save the environment, but it's something you don't notice unless you look for it. They have the panels covering every roof top, and they use them to heat their water. I don't know if others find it interesting, but it's one aspect of living in China that I really like.

Finally, once climbing down the precarious ladder, I still had time to kill, so I bought a beer and found a Muslim restaurant by the train station. What was funny is that just about all Muslim restaurants serve the same thing. However, I had stumbled upon a vegetarian Muslim restaurant. I asked for beef, they told me no. I asked for lamb, they said no. I kind of stuttered and hesitated, not knowing what was going on, so I asked if they had rice. They did, and the lady suggested I have vegetable fried rice, and thats when I looked around, saw no meat, and saw nothing on the menus saying meat (I know the Chinese characters for beef, lamb, and meat). Despite the lack of meat, it was quite delicious, and had an unusual spiciness to it I don't get back in Wuxi.

The train ride back was boring, as I had a soft sleeper. It was at this time I decided I would only get hard seats from here on in, despite the lack of bed. They're cheaper, and they're so much more interesting. I ended up reading about half of the Lonely Planet's Guide to China, which I borrowed from Jessica, then going to bed. It was an uneventful train ride home, although there was a small girl I enjoyed playing with a bit who was calling me Ge-Ge (Big brother) by the end of the ride.

Xi'An: Night Time

Once the tour dropped us off back at the hostel, I dropped off my "expensive" Warriors, and came back downstairs. I was hungry, and Xi'An has some famous meals, so I asked the tour guide if she knew of the names. Rather than just tell me the names, and send me to an obscure restaurant, she really impressed me. She said she was getting on the same bus anyway to go home, so she'd take me to the Muslim Quarter (a large section of Xi'an where the majority of the residents are of Hui minority, largely Muslim).

She took me there, and I told her my impressions of China, and the tour, and she seemed quite happy. She pointed out a nice area where I'd find lots of shops, and gave me names of a few dishes I should try. I asked her what local beers they had, as I always like to drink the local beer at each city I go to. It's cheap, and usually has a slightly different taste. She told me the name, but I later found out it's a German brand, and that Xi'an has no local brew. The dishes were quite good, but way too filling! The main dish was a soup, filled with some kind of special bread, bean noodles, and a bit of meat. It was good, but there was mostly just bread, and so I couldn't finish it. I had become stuffed on all the soup-soaked bread. I had them bag another dish I'd tried, another bread which was spicy and had a kind of red sauce on it. It was delicious, but I couldn't eat anymore.

Afterwards, I stumbled upon a night market, and since today was actually Jessica and my one-year anniversary (yes, I know, I was away travelling and I'm horrible), I looked around for something Jessica would like. Markets are mostly filled with crap, so I didn't know what to get her. At one point, a vendor started speaking English with me, trying to help the other vendors sell to me. I found out her (English) name was Becky, and I had a fantastic time talking to her.

To sum her up in one word would be: Cute. She chatted with me long enough at the other vendor's shop, and eventually realized I wasn't interested in any of the crap, so she pulled me over to her own shop. She kept showing me things that Chinese girls would like, or really cheap jewelery, so I kept telling her my girlfriend wouldn't like that type of thing. The reason I say "Cute" is because each time she showed me something and I said no, she would put on a child-like pouty face, and pretend she was upset because I "hated" her things.

I laughed out loud each time she did it, and I had a blast chatting with her. Finally, I told her I was interested in one little thing, a container made of china (supposedly), and the lid had a mirror in it. I suspect it is meant to hold rings, earrings, etc. but I had other ideas for it, and the outside was nicely decorated in a very Chinese style. She offered me a decent price, and said it was because we were friends now (yup, the "friend price"). I laughed, and I told her I liked her, so I'd give her half that.

Again, she whips out the pouty face, but I knew the price I gave her was fair. I changed the subject many times, and let her keep coming back to the sale (very frustrating for her, funny for me). I'd chat with her about anything, then she would go back to the trinket and give me a lower price, to which I'd always reply with my original offer. Finally, she pouted again, and yelled "Why won't you haggle?".

At this point, I had her down to only 5 yuan above what I was offering, and I told her an English lesson usually costs 100 yuan an hour. Surely, she can afford to drop 5 yuan more, since in my eternal graciousness, I was teaching her English for free. This was a horrible ploy I was using, and it is very much rooted in Chinese strategies I had learned along the way. She retorted, still with the cute face on, that she was teaching me English, and I answered "Maybe, but I've forgotten it all. I'm very stupid." with a wink. I got the trinket for my price, but it took having to give her my msn address so she could keep practicing English.

I really don't mind, since over the last few weeks, I had developed a rule that I will only buy from people I like. The most common thing I've noticed is that when you don't like someone, it's usually because your instinct is telling you you're getting ripped off. I've gotten overcharged before, even that day (remember the 3 yuan Warriors?), but only by people I didn't like, or felt uneasy about. Anyone I've chatted with who was friendly, or someone I've had fun haggling with, hasn't overcharged me by more than 5 yuan.

I thanked her, and left. I went to see the bell tower and drum tower, although I didn't want to go up. I was happy I did it at night time, because they were all lit up, and quite beautiful at this time of night. During the day, I suspect they would've looked almost identical to those of Beijing's. Afterwards, I headed back to the hostel and turned in early.

Xi'An: Alone With The Warriors

I woke up often along the ride, and didn't sleep much at all. At one point, in my exhaustion, I almost got off at the wrong stop, until the guy I was chatting with the night before stopped me and said "This is not Xi'an". I perked up, looked around and quickly realized most people were still sitting, and I laughed at my idiocy. I kept falling back asleep until someone actually batted my shoulder, saying "Xi'an! Xi'an!". I couldn't have been the only one that tired, however. The lady next to me kept snuggling into my shoulder, using it as a pillow. She'd wake up every once in a while, realize what she had done and apologize profusely. I didn't really care, so I'd tell her not to worry about it. However, when I said it, she'd go right back onto my shoulder and keep sleeping. I found it quite comical. Apparently, broad foreigner shoulders make a good pillow. Her husband wasn't terribly impressed though...

Once off the train, Chris and I met up. Xi'an was supposed to be a very hot area, but it was raining, so Chris was actually complaining of being cold. We went to the ticket office, and argued a bit in line about when we'd be leaving. Chris wanted to buy tickets for the end of the day, whereas I wanted to stay in Xi'an for two days, as I knew the Terracotta Warriors would take a day on their own. Chris was determined to leave that night, so he said I should just stay an extra day on my own, but that he would be leaving that night. I was free to leave when I like as well.

So I bought a ticket for the next day, at 5:30 PM. Chris asked for a train that night, but everything had been sold out. Here's where it gets really fucked up. Rather than just take the train with me the next day, he lost his temper, both at me, and the ticket lady. Another man, with fairly good English, was trying to translate for Chris, but he wouldn't hear it. Chris ended up buying a standing ticket in hard seat to go to Wuxi in two hours. He went all that way, from Beijing to Xi'an, only to immediately leave Xi'an without seeing anything. Even now, I still can't understand it.

I was rather surprised, and told him I didn't know what to do if we only have two hours, so we sat and had some soup at a nearby restaurant, and I went off on my own way. I got to the Xi'an hostel, checked in, and asked fearfully if there was still tours being offered to the Terracotta Warriors. Fortunately, she said yes. The tour left at 10 AM. I had gotten there at 9:45! I was very lucky, and I ran upstairs to drop off my bag, and came down to get on the bus just in time.

The tour was nice, and the Terracotta Warriors were very cool, but the rooms they were kept in were very dark, so a lot of my pictures show almost no detail, or they're blurred. I'm fairly upset about that part. I don't know how much help the tour guide was at giving us history details, but she was nice, and I enjoyed chatting with her in between the sights, both in Chinese and English. I also met some Canadians who had been in China for about 2 weeks, and we had a fun conversation about our Tim Hortons cravings. Most of the tour, I spent chatting with a German and his Chinese girlfriend, as he was a lot of fun, and she was very cute. He and I had very similar views on China, and the same sense of humour, so we paired up for most of the trip. We exchanged a lot of Chinese vocabulary as well, as well as some swear words.

Learning swear words is surprisingly educational about a culture, for reasons I can't really explain. You just seem to understand what's important, and what is viewed as low in a culture. Telling someone to fuck off in Chinese translates literally into English as "Go to your mother" or the extra vulgar "Go to your mother's dick". Also, in Chinese, most comments related to tofu can also mean prostitution. Knowing what words are insulting, or allude to sex really reveal why some things are the way they are. I found the same true when I was learning French.

The other advantage to knowing the words is so you don't accidentally say them later on. Chinese tones can change the meaning of a word so quickly. The pop, Sprite, can easily become "Water-cunt", which I discovered the hard way. My German friend told me of a story where at a store, he meant to ask for a bag to put his purchases in, and accidentally told the cashier "Could you hand me my testicles?". Chinese is fun, but sometimes, it's frigging hard.

Swearing aside, beyond the Terracotta Warriors, we were also taken to the typical factories where they try to sell us stuff. It's how they generate more income. This tour took us to a factory where they make Terracotta Warrior rip offs. You could buy a little one for 50 yuan, or a huge, lifesized one for over 10 000 yuan. I almost bought one of the little ones, and would have for 30 yuan, but resisted, and just took pictures of them instead.

I'm glad I resisted it too, because once we had finished at the Warriors site, we saw more ripoffs, probably from the same factory, in little boxes. The whole box was being sold by random vendors inside the site for anywhere from 50 yuan to 100. On my way in, I heard a lot of 100 yuan, and I resisted. When we were leaving, I heard one guy say 50 yuan, so I talked him down to 35. I didn't haggle very hard, because I was falling behind my group, and I didn't really care if I got it for 30 or 35.

Here's the bitch. I catch up to the group, and one guy says "What did you pay for it?" I told him, and he said "The same guy just offered it to me for 20 yuan..." I was a good sport about it, because crap like this always has a huge markup, just as souvenirs do in Canada or any other country. I laughed it off, and said oh well. It gets worse. We're walking along, me with my 35 yuan warriors, he with two boxes, one he paid 30 yuan for, the other 20 yuan... and the price keeps dropping. Once we left the Warriors area, and were walking down the street, we saw a ton of vendors, all with the same pirated set. We heard a lot of 20 near the exit of the site, but then someone said "Hey, I just heard 10..." and we all groan, because we had all bought it for at least twice that. Then someone said 5 yuan... Finally, by the end of the road, we had vendor after vendor selling it to us for 3 lousy yuan. About 45 cents Canadian!

Even so, I was a good sport about it, as I haven't gotten ripped off much in China, and paying 7 bucks for something that was about 45 cents isn't nearly as bad as some of the situations I've avoided. Besides, in Canada, they'd still sell for more than 7 bucks in any souvenir shop. It's more funny to me than anything, especially after what I'd been through in Beijing. If you're white, you will be ripped off in China. It may not happen right away, but eventually, they'll get you.

Beijing to Xi'An: From One Tourist Trap to the Next

Once I had finished playing around at the Silk Market, I headed out to the West Train Station. Chris had managed to get a soft sleeper, but they didn't have enough beds for both of us. I was quite poor anyway, so I volunteered to take a hard seat for the long train ride. I paid a third of what he did, but I was going to have to sit, without a bed, from sometime around 5 PM until 8 AM the next day. Oh well.

I sat down, and the social aspect of the hard seat cars kicked in. Within minutes, I had already begun a conversation with two girls who knew English, and with some help from them, I was also chatting with the other people in my area. I love that about hard seat. Not long after the train started moving, Chris text messaged me from 8 or 9 train cars up saying to meet him in the diner car.

Walking up 8 or 9 hard seat cars is a bitch. It's a tiring task, because you have to dodge all the Chinese people with standing tickets, and walk around them in an aisle that is really only wide enough for one person. By the time I had made it to the diner car, I was actually exhausted. Even worse, the door was locked to prevent any hard seat people from getting into the diner car. This was probably just to allow the soft sleepers a chance to get tables first, since they clearly have more money.

I finally got Chris' attention through the window, and he had someone let me in. I had my typical beer, with no food, as I try to eat before I get on the train. Train food markup can be quite harsh. Chris and I chatted for a while, while he ate and we sipped our beers. I was mainly eavesdropping on an American family sitting in another booth, listening to their impressions on China, and what they had paid for random things they bought in China. I thought it was quite clear that they had a lot of money, just from the names of hotels they were staying at, and what they had purchased.

Eventually, the father went back to the sleeper car, and the kids (our age) came over and joined us. We had quite a time, just talking about China, or the differences between China and back home. They also went to Atlantic City quite a bit, so we had a good conversation about gambling as well. It turns out one of the girls had been living in the south of China for about a year, and she was about to go back to the US, so the rest of the family came out and they were all touring China's main attractions together. Personally, I don't think the rest of the family is getting a realistic view of how China really is, but this is an opinion I have of many travellers, and I try not to voice it much. Actually living here shows you so much more about the Chinese.

We stayed in the diner car for so long that the waitresses were getting pissed off at us. This was because at around 11 PM, they start selling the diner car seats to people with standing tickets. They kept telling us to get out, or pay 30 yuan to stay. We pulled the old "Stupid Foreigner doesn't understand" trick, and managed to stay for quite a long time, and we even got them to serve us one more round of beer, even though they had stopped serving about 2 hours ago. Finally, we got tired of pretending we didn't understand (or in the case of three of the Americans, actually not understanding) so we all went off to our beds/my seat.

I got back to my seat, and fortunately, most of my new Chinese friends were still awake, so I got to chat quite a bit. I wanted to get a card game going, but the game they knew was slightly different in a lot of ways from the version I had learned in Beijing. What ended up happening is I got distracted by a third Chinese person who spoke English, as to my amazement, he had almost no accent. The others played cards with my deck for a few hours, then packed it up and went to sleep.

At one point, Chris came back to my hard seat with the two American guys, who were clearly quite hammered. I had been chatting quietly with the remaining people who were awake in the car, and they showed up yelling in excitement, and waking a lot of people. They were quite excited to see the "poor section". I made fun of them a bit in Chinese, since they knew absolutely none, and the Chinese people in my area laughed quite a bit, but once the Americans and Chris returned to their sleepers, everyone quickly fell back asleep.

I spoke to the new guy and one other girl for quite some time, until I realized suddenly it was 3 AM. I asked them if they were tired, they claimed no, but as soon as I came back from the washroom, they had already fallen asleep. This was fine, as I knew I should try to sleep anyway. Those two had really fascinated me, though. The guy had lost almost all of his Chinese accent while speaking English, just from watching American movies, and the girl rendered me speechless. She had actual, well informed opinions about world wide problems. Most Chinese won't even give you an opinion about whether or not a certain food/drink is tasty. She was well read in Western books, and she knew of Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation, and of Michael Moore. Needless to say, I was very impressed. That was one of the most interesting conversations I'd had with a Chinese person to date.

Beijing: The Silk Market

I had a great time at this place. It was so blatantly inflated that I laughed out loud at every shop I went to. I was teasing the vendors, pretending I knew no Chinese, then springing it out on them after they talked about me in front of me to show I understood, or to show I knew what the real value of the item was. There were a few angry vendors, but nothing horrible. They are also extremely aggressive, trying everything to get you to come to their store.

One thing I was not prepared for was that they are physical about it. I would joke with a vendor about a price, or laugh at their price, and they would grab my arm and pull me into their store. They wouldn't let go of my arm until a sale was completed (or in my case, I told them sternly not to touch me). The first time someone grabbed me, I was shocked, and didn't know how to react. If I were trying to haggle with someone, but I gave up or couldn't find anything I wanted, they would grab me and pull on me or my backpack to bring me back in the store. I didn't know how to handle it at first, but I quickly learned a quick, serious face with the firm statement "Don't touch" works quite well.

Everything else was pure fun. I tried at four different shops for the same fake Armani belt. In Wuxi, I bought a belt very similar (my prized "Caivin Klein" belt) for 15 yuan. Here, they were offering a starting price of 400 yuan! I would laugh and tell them I live in China, I know what it's worth, and they would say "Oh, I'm just giving you a joking price" and lower it to 150-200 yuan. That's when I'd make my offer of anywhere from 10-20 yuan and they would be quite upset. A trend I've noticed is that it seems that Beijing's bottom line is clearly higher than Wuxi's. Things are legitimately more expensive in Beijing. I believe a belt like what I was going for wouldn't be sold for less than 25.

After the first belt shop wouldn't haggle below 100 yuan, I went to the second, and told him flatly: "I live in Wuxi, I know how much this is worth. Don't give me a "joking price" or I will leave. Give me a real price." He offered me a price of 250, so I laughed and walked away. The third shop insisted that it was real Armani, and that it was real leather. I got her to admit it was fake very quickly (her admission was "Well, of course it's not real!" in a very frustrated tone), but I never got her to admit it was vinyl. I exposed it as vinyl quickly, however, since I managed to talk her down from 150 to a sudden drop to 50 yuan. I then informed her of how much real leather belts sell for (definitely more than 50 yuan), and she became fairly hostile towards me, because just like the rest of Beijing, they don't like foreigners who know what proper prices are. The last shop was the funniest. I told her the same as I did the second shop, but she listened! She told me not to say anything out loud (because then other foreigners would hear what a real price is) and her initial offer was 50 yuan! I was amazed I had gotten someone to give me a somewhat realistic starting price, and so I haggled with her seriously for a while. However, she wouldn't go below 25 (her "rockbottom" price was 30, but she went down to 25), and I told her despite the fact that I can get it in Wuxi for 15, I'd buy it for 20 from her because I like her (which was honest). She told me she couldn't go any lower, and when I said that was fine, I'd get it in Wuxi, she suddenly turned angry and said "I don't care!". I was disappointed, but no matter. I love to haggle, so it was a good experience for me.

Another funny situation I got thrown into in the Market was on a stairway. Someone had turned the stairs from the first floor to the second floor into a shop, with scroll posters all over the walls. I asked how much one cost, and got a very unreasonable price, and just decided against haggling at all. She demanded I not leave, and that I haggle with her, so I told her I just wanted to know the price, and I'm just looking. She yelled "You can't look for free!" and grabbed my arm, so I twisted out of the grip, and laughed "I can't look?!" while walking away.

There were some really funny sales pitches too. They all yell at you to get your attention, and they point out things in their shops they want you to buy. Most of the time, it's crap I either don't want, or have too much of, so for entertainment's sake, I would give them reasons I couldn't buy it, and some of their retorts were awesome. I'll list some below:

Vendor: Come buy a shirt!
Me: I have a shirt. *I point to my Canada-bought t-shirt*
Vendor: But that shirt is poor quality! Look, it's awful! *While stretching out the stomach of my shirt*

(My personal favourite)
Vendor: Come buy my shoes!
Me: I have shoes. *Point to my feet*
Vendor: But your shoes are ugly! *Makes a disgusted face*

Vendor: Come buy my stuff!

Vendor: Come buy my shirts!
Me: You only have women's shirts.
Vendor: Buy for your girlfriend!
Me: I don't have one...
Vendor: Buy for your mother!
Me: I can't, she is too fat!
Vendor: Is ok! I have XL!
Me: Oh, that's too small for her...
*Vendor makes a very surprised face, is clearly speechless*

Vendor: Come buy my scarves!
Me: I have one. *Point to a t-shirt I had covered in water earlier and put around my neck to keep cool in the sun*
Vendor: That's not a scarf, that's an ugly shirt!

(After refusing to go into their store, this one pointed to a poster in my hand I bought elsewhere)
Vendor: How much you pay for that?
Me: 20 yuan (almost an honest answer, but I had a Chinese customer tell me that's what it was worth before I talked to the vendor)
Vendor: *Scoffs* 20?! I could buy 10 of them for that price! (Clearly a lie)
Me: Good for you! I'm proud of you. *Big, friendly smile*
(Being humble and happy for her really pissed off the vendor)

I don't know how they expect to sell me things when they inform me of how crappy all my currently owned stuff is, but I burst out laughing when I heard it. The guy who said my shoes were ugly said it in such a disgusted tone I had to laugh, and I told him it was a good sales pitch and gave him the thumbs up before I left.

My last silk market story (Sorry, I just love to tell stories about shopping in China) was for a scroll poster - the same one in my hand during that last vendor taunting example. I found someone willing to give me a decent price, but she haggled really hard. I was having a really hard time getting her to go cheaper than 30, and she even resisted the walkaway trick, where you pretend to be so discouraged, you give up on the whole purchase and walk out of the store until they call you back and agree to your price, or at least give you a better price. She let me walk out of her shop, and I didn't know what to do, because if I went back to her, she'd know I would pay her price, so I stopped at the next shop over, and pretended I was interested in something else.

Finally, she called me back over, and she started haggling again, saying 25 yuan. I insisted I should get it for 20, and she was so frustrated that she slapped my hand. My hand was out, and open palm up, (I move my hands a lot when I talk - part of the Sign Language effect) so she effectively high fived me when she slapped my hand out of frustration. I laughed out loud, and I told her in Chinese that in Canada, what she just did was a good thing. I showed her a real high five, and she couldn't help but smile when she realized why I was laughing. It was so entertaining to me, and such a surprising thing for her to do out of frustration, that I stopped haggling and I just paid the 25 yuan.

The Silk Market was full of adventures, and if someone were thinking of going, I would highly recommend it, but only after learning what things are actually worth in China. You'll get taken for a lot of money if you don't. Seeing someone pay 50 yuan for pearls was painful. Just because something's expensive in your country does not mean it's expensive here. What she bought was worth about 10 yuan. Real pearls are dirt cheap here. Same goes for silk. Silk is less than a dollar CAD per metre here. For the love of God, foreigners, stop paying so much money just because it's still cheaper than back home. You're giving us a bad image!

Beijing: The Land of Liars and Cheats - Day 3

The sun rises extremely early in Beijing, and since my new, upgraded hostel room had *gasp* a window, I woke up before my cell phone alarm went off. Chris and I would be meeting the girls from the night before for the hutong tour at 10 AM, and I had lots of time to kill. I went over to the lounge, and since I heard from other foreigners that their breakfasts were good, I gave it a shot. Their menu was funny, in that it was clearly geared for foreigners, not Chinese people. The breakfast menu was listed as such:

American Breakfast:
Eggs, Sausage, Bacon, Toast

British Breakfast:
(Whatever foods the British tend to eat)

French Breakfast:
(Same idea, but France-oriented)

etc...

None of it was remotely Chinese, which made me overjoyed, since as I've lamented before, Chinese breakfast sucks. It's heavy, it's greasy, and it feels like you've just eaten a rag soaked in motor oil when you're done. Even more exciting, as I waited for my food, I cautiously eyed the coffee machine they had. I saw unground, full coffee beans! The machine would grind the coffee beans, then brew the coffee fresh, exactly enough for one cup. I finally had access, for the first time in the two-plus months I'd been in China, to fresh, delicious coffee. It was so good, and I wanted to make amends for losing my temper the day before, so I approached them with the friendliest face I could make, and told them how good the coffee was.

Once Ve-Ve (the Chinese girl giving the tour) showed up, I went downstairs to wake Chris. She was quite early (9:30), and I knew Chris probably had another rough night, so I wasn't surprised he wasn't upstairs yet. I knocked on his door, and it took him quite a while to answer. Finally, he opened the door, and told me to go without him. Apparently, he had seduced a 16 year old Thai girl also staying at the hostel. Chris is older than me. I wasn't impressed. I went upstairs and broke the news to Ve-Ve, trying to be subtle, since I knew the Chinese are more conservative than us. One night stands would not be a subject I was going to approach with this girl I didn't know very well. I simply informed her that Chris was out drinking very late the night before, and that he wouldn't be joining us.

She was fairly upset, and I think it was clear she either didn't want, or wasn't supposed to be doing tours for only one person. Fortunately, I had been talking to a nice American couple who hadn't seen the hutong yet, and they took a liking to Ve-Ve, so they joined me. The three of us took the hutong tour, and I was quite happy I spent the extra money to have someone come and explain the history. Looking around the hutong myself would have been quite boring. Riding a rickshaw, and having someone explain it all was much better.

Ve-Ve also helped me out a bit after the tour was over, going beyond what she was supposed to be doing, by explaining the history of the drum and bell tower (which was supposed to be an additional charge). Rather than pay the extra 50 yuan to see it with the rickshaw and tour guide, I had her point me in the right direction, and she explained why they were there, and some interesting facts. Beijing was slowly getting a bit better.

By the time the tour was over, Chris still hadn't gotten out of bed, so I moved on to the next thing I wanted to see. I had covered all the major sights, so I decided to try something different. I went to an art museum. The Chinese art was quite beautiful, and I enjoyed it quite a bit (no pictures allowed though), but my favourite part was their take on Western art. I am by no means a great art conoisseur, but apparently, neither are the Chinese. Each floor of the museum had a different style, and the Western styles typically were made up of the centre section, with real Western art from some artist or another, and the wings, which were mostly made up of the Chinese sad attempts at copying the style. My favourite was the French Surrealist floor. The centre was fascinating, and the art was amazing, but the wings were a joke. The Chinese are good at many things, but thinking outside the box is not one of them. They're normally very conservative thinkers, so surrealism was clearly a bit beyond them. I laughed out loud more than once at their surrealist "art".

The last stop of the day was the silk market. It wasn't only a market for silk, it was just a large building, with 5 floors, on Silk Street, clearly geared towards foreigners. The majority of the shoppers were foreigners, and the prices reflected it. These were some of the most outrageous prices I had seen yet, with some real bold liars selling the crap. Most of the stuff there wasn't worth more than 20 yuan, and this is where I developed my Law of Chinese Shopping:

Everything in China falls in two categories. Category A is made up of goods that are not worth more than 20 yuan (30 yuan for clothing). These items should not be purchased in a store. They should be purchased at a market, where the vendor does not need to pay extra expenses like rent for the shop, or electricity, etc. By doing this, you've lowered the bottom line, and therefore can buy the item for cheaper.

Category B is made up of goods that are worth more than 100 yuan. These are items that should be bought in a store, to decrease the chances you get a fake, or poor quality item. These items shouldn't have a large markup on them, and will generally have prices marked on them which are fair enough.

If you are shopping for Category B a lot, you are probably in China for the wrong reason. Going to China is not something you do to spend a lot of money. If you think the item is worth anywhere from 0 to 100 yuan, it's a Category A, and won't be worth more than 20 (30) yuan. If you're paying 80 or 90 yuan for something, you're probably paying the foreigner discount. Do not be amazed when you discover that something you bought for 80 yuan is later priced at 20 or 30 yuan.

The Silk Market part got quite long, so I separated the post here. It continues in the next post (Beijing: The Silk Market)

Beijing: The Land of Liars and Cheats - Day 2

Who wants to guess if I made it up early enough to go to the Great Wall? Getting to the hostel at 5:30 AM, falling fast asleep with nothing more than a cell phone alarm to wake me was... unwise, to say the least. I woke up at 8:15 AM, 45 minutes too late to catch the bus. I got very angry, and ran upstairs to the lounge, where everyone getting on the bus would have met. The bus was long gone, and I took out my frustration on the receptionist, which I later felt bad about. I yelled at her for a bit, mainly because she lied to me by saying they tried to find me, but couldn't. Since Chris was also still sleeping, I knew that they didn't check the rooms or try and wake me, so I was just angry she tried to tell me otherwise.

At this point, I was only concerned about two things: Getting my money back, and finding a way to the Great Wall. The anger I was taking out on the poor receptionist did accomplish some of that. In my ranting and raving, I blamed them, and said they couldn't find me because they kept changing what room I was in (their records still said I was in the original room), and that they were liars for telling me they tried to find me to wake me. I ended up getting my money back, and Chris and I headed out to Tiananmen Square, since nearby were a few travel agencies that offered tours to the Wall.

Hungover, angry, frustrated, and very thirsty, I set out to find someone advertising a bus. I found one lady, and asked her if she went to Simatai. There are four sections of wall, and the closer they are to Beijing, the more touristy and restored they are. Badaling is the closest and very fake, and Simatai is the furthest out, and supposed to be very much original, and very hard to scale. We wanted to go to Simatai. The lady lead us way out into some backroads, and showed us a bus. I thought this was good, and we were making progress, but as she tried to sell me the tickets, I asked again, does it go to Simatai? The answer was no. She laughed and said we wouldn't be able to go to Simatai. I told her fine, I wanted to go to Jinshanling, the second furthest out, and she said ok.

They charged us the same price the hostel would have, so I felt ok about it, but I had that feeling something was up. I didn't trust them, and I've found that my instinct is often correct about people trying to scam me. I was right. They took us to Badaling, and a bunch of other places we didn't want to go to. All in all, I spent an hour and a half at the Great Wall, when we had dedicated an entire day for it. The bus left the Wall and took us to all sorts of crappy places, including a very run down amusement park. I had already been to Suzhou's park, so I didn't care to blow any money there. Instead, I bought a pack of cards outside the park for 3 yuan and chatted/played with the guy who sold me the cards. It was probably the highlight of my day.

All in all, the Great Wall was not impressive. I had built it up in my mind to be a great sight, but the experience was quite ruined by finding out I had been scammed, seeing how touristy it had become, and being hassled by the bitch who sold me the tickets. I discovered through the day that she basically hated me, because I was being visibly miserable, and I couldn't understand her accent. She was just angry because I didn't speak fluent Chinese.

Once the tour (from 10 AM to 7 PM!!!) ended, Chris and I went out to the Square again, as it seems to be the place to go to get anywhere. While in the Square, another vendor ran up to us, and for what felt like the millionth time, offered us Mao watches for "friend price". I was tired of being hassled to buy utter crap, so I decided to fuck with the guy. When he ran up and yelled "Mao watch! Look! Mao Watch!", I yelled excitedly "Really?! A Mao watch?!" and the guy became visibly excited, and clearly thought he had found a sucker to pay too much for his junk. He answered just as excitedly as I did, saying "Yes! Yes! I have Mao Watches!" and so I crushed all his hopes with an answer of "That's great! Because no one else has them!" then quickly changing my face from super-excited to clearly not caring and walked away from him. The disappointment on his face was priceless. It was mean, but a necessary evil to relieve some of the anger brewing inside of me.

At this point, we were quite hungry, and we were in the mood for pizza, as neither of us had had Western food in a long time. While walking around, looking for a pizza place, we were approached by two girls about our age who spoke fairly good English. My instinct went off again, thinking "Oh great, another person's going to try to sell to us". Beijing is full of two types of people: Those who talk to you in order to directly sell you something and rip you off with ultra-inflated prices, and those who talk to you to gain your trust, then ten minutes into the conversation, they drop that they're a tour guide for something, and for "only" 200 yuan, they'll take you to it.

However, these girls seemed nice, and they told us they were students, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. After the day I had, I wanted so desperately for something to cheer me up and redeem Beijing. Up until that point, Beijing had been nothing but anger for me. We chatted, and they said they knew of a nice pizza place, and that they'd show us to it. It turned out to be a long distance away, but it was quite good. It was a pizza/Western food buffet, so it had all sorts of meals we'd eat back in Canada. Watching the Chinese eat it is beyond comical. They don't like pasta because they don't put sauce on it (sauce was available, they just don't know enough about pasta to serve themselves properly). They eat pizza with a fork and knife, and stare at US when we eat it with our hands like the barbarians we are.

There was a catch, though. In the cab on the way there, our new student friends turned out to be... tour guides. Go fucking figure. Still, they were nice enough, and they only brought it up when I mentioned I wanted to see the hutong area (old, real China - hutong means old alleys). So at least they only brought it up after finding out I wanted to go there anyway, rather than just telling me I should go with them to something I have no interest in (or have already seen). They also got us a "friend discount", which was nice, but I knew I could have haggled the same (or a better) price on the street. The normal charge is 180 yuan, we got a price of 120 yuan.

Once we got back to the hostel, Chris went out drinking again, whereas I couldn't drink more than half a beer, and I went to bed somewhat early. Chris seemed to be less interested in seeing the sights of Beijing, and more interested in finding a girl and getting drunk. Seeing as how I can do that in Canada, and I have a girlfriend (and in China), I had no interest in repeating the night before. I can now say I've seen Beijing and Shanghai night life, they're the two biggest cities in China, and the two with the most night life available in China, and I'm more than satisfied.

Beijing: The Night Life

Arriving at the hostel, I was tired, and clueless as to the rough night I was about to go through. The next day, we were going to the Great Wall, and the bus left at 7:30 AM. I had no problem being up that early, and wasn't concerned. Once in the hostel, we saw a large number of foreigners our age were hanging out in the lounge, and most of them were playing MY game, poker. I immediately sat down and played with them, chatting with them all over a few beers. The ones I became most friendly with were a Quebecker, a guy from France, and two German guys.

A huge frustration for my stay at this hostel kept coming up, as I discovered for the first time when I got back that night. I went into my room to discover that my stuff, neatly piled on my bed, had been cast aside, and an Italian girl was sleeping in it. It turns out that the hostel had booked 5 people into a 4 person room. I had to be moved. Over the period of two nights, I was assigned four rooms. Always, something was wrong with a room I was in. The first one had an Italian girl in my bed (not even an attractive one), the second room had no mattress for my bed, and the third room, I was given a bed by one of my foreigner friends, not the hostel, as apparently she would be sleeping somewhere else (I'm assuming she met a guy) for the night. Finally, the fourth and last room I had was upstairs. They had run out of dorm beds, so they upgraded me to a nicer room that would've cost a lot more. I just wanted a place to sleep!

Anyway, bed problems aside, once the poker game ended, we all decided to go out to the bar. The Quebecker haggled a case of the local beer (Yanjing) down to a really good price, so we all got about 5 beers for about 10 yuan. They also had a dice game worked out for drinks, but I think there were too many people for someone to actually get drunk. I barely got a turn, let alone suffer any of the consequences.

I don't remember the rules perfectly, and probably have some mixed up, but the game essentially consisted of two dice in a glass and another glass, half full of beer. You'd bang the glass on the table, thus rolling the dice around. If the dice fell out of the cup, you had to drink an entire beer (to punish klutzes). If the dice rolled a 7, you drank the glass. If the dice rolled a 6 or 8, you'd add more beer to the drinking glass. If you rolled doubles, it would switch directions. If at any point you have to drink, you have to go again. The dice don't get passed to the next person until you roll a number without meaning.

Since we were sitting outside, we had a fair number of beggars circling us, constantly hounding us for money or beer. There was also a beggar kid, always to be watched carefully, since their small hands often wander into your pockets. I ignored them for the majority of our time, but at one point, we were buying another round of beer, and we started throwing our cash out onto the table, paying for our part. Suddenly, the little beggar kid leapt in, and grabbed what he could and took off! We all just froze in shock and kept asking each other if the kid got anything. It turned out he only managed to grab a 5 yuan bill, so no one gave chase. I turned around, and I saw the kid still running, then he stopped and looked at us, obviously very proud of himself, beaming a smile from ear to ear. I really didn't care, but that was the first time I had seen anything like the famed pickpocketing that occurs in China. I was just surprised.

After most of us were good and liquored up, the girls decided they wanted to go dance, so they lead us to a large club. Naturally, girls got in for free, and guys had to pay a cover. There were 8 guys, so we tried to haggle a cheaper price as a group, but they wouldn't budge. Eventually, some of them gave in and paid, so we all ended up paying. Then I found out how much alcohol cost! Suffice to say, I drank one beer for as long as I could.

Most of the guys didn't buy any more drinks because they cost so much, but one of the Germans took me outside (you could come and go as you pleased, they stamped your hand) and we walked to a convenience store. The German bought baijiu (pronounced Buy Joe) and went outside to drink it. Baijiu is essentially the Chinese equivalent of moonshine. You can get it in gold or white, and I hear white is much better. I hadn't tried it before, but I knew it's typically about 70% alcohol content, and that it's a harsh drink to master. I bought some juice, partially to hydrate myself, and partially to use as chaser in case the baijiu didn't sit right, and went outside to join the German.

He looked really drunk at this point, and he mumbled something I didn't hear, while handing me the baijiu. I tried a bit, and immediately drank a good portion of the juice. Baijiu tastes like really bad tequila, and I definitely did not like it. I may try the white baijiu, but I doubt it. While recoiling from the alcoholic blow to my liver, I heard the German repeat himself, and pointed behind him. Apparently, he had taken an awfully large drink from the bottle, and puked all over the place. Then he complained that he was sober (a bald-faced lie) and walked off. I gave the rest of the baijiu to a beggar, since for some reason if beggars can't get money off of you in Beijing, they'll ask for booze. We re-entered the bar, and none of us left until sunrise.

Beijing: The Land of Liars and Cheats - Day 1

We arrived quite early in Beijing, and found a hostel to drop off our stuff. The hostel was decent. I hadn't been to one yet, but the prices alone made it worthwhile. Only 50 yuan to stay a night. The rooms had 4 people in them, but they're all foreigners travelling, so it's just a chance to meet other people. It was cool. One unfortunate problem I saw with them is that some tourists were travelling from one city to another, staying only at hostels. They weren't getting any real exposure to China. Getting a hotel room in some shady building you know is crawling with cockroaches, or haggling with the Chinese, it's all part of the experience. These people only spoke to other foreigners, learned zero Chinese, learned nothing of the culture... I was saddened to know they were only going to see fake China. They'd only see the tourist traps, go to places that were decorated and shiny, and leave China thinking they knew what China was like. It's easy to tell who has seen "real China" based on how much Chinese they know.

Anyway, Chris and I moved on and walked down to the centre of the city, where most of the attractions are. We started at the back of the Forbidden City, and saw a nice overview of the Forbidden City from a park behind it. If air pollution wasn't so bad in China, the view would have been quite beautiful. After the park, we went into the Forbidden City. This place was huge, and it was quite nice. There were English signs for just about everything, so I didn't feel like I missed any of the history, as I often do in smaller cities.

One funny point was just purely by coincidence. We happened to approach a group being led by an English speaking tour guide, and he commented on the giant rocks that were displayed artistically in Forbidden City. They were all filled with holes, and I didn't really understand their significance. It turns out that the rocks were dug up from Tai Hu, the lake my home city Wuxi sits next to. By complete coincidence, it turns out that the rocks were donated to Forbidden City by Wuxi instead of paying taxes. Those rocks could only be found in Tai Hu, and were apparently a big attraction for the Chinese to come look at. I had seen them so often in Wuxi that I wouldn't have appreciated their presence at all. Chris and I heard that it came from Tai Hu, and we looked at each other and burst out laughing.

After several hours in Forbidden City, we came out the front (South) entrance and beheld two great views. The first was right in front of us. We beheld Tiananmen Square. It really is huge, and it's completely fenced off. You have to take underground walkways to get onto the Square. The second was behind us, on the south gate entrance. It was a giant portrait of Chairman Mao, with Chinese writing on both sides. The left had a meaning something along the lines of "Long Live the People of the Republic of China" and the right meant something like "Long Live the Unity of the People of the World". Chairman Mao has all the cool soundbites.

We went out onto the Square, and walked around. The Square loses its appeal very quickly. It's great at first, but then you realize it's just a giant paved lot with a ton of people trying to sell you jacked up prices for crap. One thing I knew I wanted before I got there was a Chairman Mao book. It's referred to as "The little red book", and it's filled with Chairman Mao quotes (I said he got all the cool soundbites, didn't I?). In his day, people would have to carry these books around and "discuss" the meanings and the values of the quotes. It's a great piece of Chinese propaganda.

Like I said, the Square is filled with people trying to sell you crap. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has Mao watches, and they must be a hot commodity, because I hear people yelling it out everywhere. It's a watch with Mao on it, and he's constantly waving. It's a piece of shit. I asked one guy if he had "the book" and he got excited and pulled one out. I asked how much, and he said 200 yuan. Now, here's the part I love: Chris got one in Hangzhou on the night market. It cost him 5 to 10 yuan. I told the vendor this, and he got angry at me!

A recurring feature of vendors in Beijing: They all give you enormously jacked up prices, and instead of making the prices fair if you know what the item's actually worth, they get mad at you and tell you off. I believe this is because they know they can hold onto the item and make more money off of it from the next naive tourist who comes by. I laughed the vendor off, and he followed me and shouted lower prices until he hit 100, then gave up. He honestly wasn't willing to sell me a book for under 100 yuan. I later bought two of them (Alex wanted me to bring her back one) for 20 yuan.

I had noticed that many of the vendors were treating their sales much like drug deals. The merchandise was largely hidden, and only visible within a metre or two somewhere in their pockets or bags. I didn't think much about the shadiness of it for quite some time, but the reason quickly became obvious upon the following fun experience:

Chris and I were sitting by a small garden by the People's Monument (in the middle of the Square) to rest and contemplate what we were going to do next. I had left the two Mao books sitting on the ledge of the garden between Chris and I where we were sitting. A vendor saw the two books, and came over to see if he could sell us more.

A bizarre sales approach in China is when someone sees you buy something from someone else, they assume you will buy more of the same from them as well. This guy wanted to sell me more Mao books, taxis see you get out of a taxi, so they honk at you because clearly, you must want another taxi, if I'm holding a poster, clearly a vendor should know I want more of the same poster, etc.

Anyway, the vendor came up and told me he had Mao books. I told him in Chinese that I know, but I already have two. Still thinking he can make a sale, he asks what I paid for them. I told him (20 yuan for both), and he scoffed, saying I paid too much. Then he offers to sell me one for 100 yuan. I laughed and asked him why I would buy yet another Mao book, for 10 times the price. Then suddenly, before he could answer, a van pulls up, some random guy gets out, shoves the vendor into the van, closes the door and the van speeds away!

As it drove away, Chris and I were in shock. My first thought was "This guy just got kidnapped in front of us!", but once the van drove away, we could see it was a police vehicle, and we became even more excited. I quickly realized that like many other things (protesting, large gatherings, etc), it must be illegal to sell stuff on the Square. It explained why the police vans were always patrolling the perimeter of the Square, and always driving very quickly. Our not-so-clever vendor took a risk of approaching us, instead of hugging the fence so they could hop over before the cops grabbed them. Since approaching us put him smack in the middle of the Square, he had no escape, as they were able to drive up behind him. He didn't even see the cops coming. Now, I don't know what became of him (likely, they confiscated his stuff and made him pay a fine/bribe), but I'm left with an awesome story of how I got a guy arrested in Tiananmen Square.

Another later Tiananmen Square experience seemed to confirm my theory that vendors aren't allowed on the Square. It's a common pasttime to fly kites on the Square, so naturally, there's a ton of vendors trying to sell kites there. One vendor kept following me down the Square, and wouldn't stop hassling me to buy a kite, so I got quite irritated. I told him time and time again I didn't want one, but he kept persisting. Finally, he said "Just hold the kite" and held out the string of a flying kite he was holding onto. My scam instinct starting alerting me very quickly, so I refused to hold the string. He tried a guilt trip, saying "Oh no, you don't like my kite?" and put on a very sad face. I answered him in Chinese, saying "Oh... poor baby, you're crying now?". He didn't seem to like that, but the police came by, speeding around the corner of the Mao Mausoleum, and he ran for the fence and hopped it, crossing the street before the cops could grab him and throw him in the van. The fact that he wasn't doing anything but selling, but chose to run from the cops seems to agree with my theory.

After the original "kidnapping", we didn't know what to do with the rest of the day (how do you top seeing the Chinese police shove a guy into a van?), especially since the Mao Mausoleum was closed. I was quite upset I wouldn't get to see Mao, but the Mausoleum was closed for the summer. To be fair, Mao's been dead for 30+ years now. I can see them closing down for a summer in order to fix him up a bit. Maybe his face caved in, who knows? I'm just upset I didn't get to see one of the greatest dictators of the century lying in a glass box.

Eventually, Chris and I made it to the Summer Palace, despite rickshaws and taxis all wanting to rip us off. We had to take a public bus, and it took over an hour to get there! Honestly, rickshaws are supposed to be cheaper than a taxi. Why they thought they could convince us to take a rickshaw to the summer palace for 4 times as much money is beyond me. Another irritating thing is none of the taxis want to use the meter. They try every time to negotiate a price before hand, and the price is always WAY more than what the meter will actually end in. Stupid Beijing.

Once we finally arrived, Chris and I quickly split up (not intentionally, it just happened that way). The Summer Palace was quite pretty, and the lake was nice. The various decorated decks and pavilions were nice, but clearly redone. Everything is just a recreation of what it used to be, you'll never find real old stuff in China, despite their 5000 year history. That's what happens in a country that's been at war as long as it's been in peace. My favourite part of the Summer Palace was easily the corridor. The palace has a long corridor you can walk along and see the lake and the islands very nicely from. The corridor goes along for over 700 metres (yes, I walked all of it) and is apparently the longest of its kind.

Once the sun went down, we took the long ass bus ride back to Tiananmen, cabbed it to the West Train Station to buy tickets to Xi'an for later on. Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel, walking past the "Beijing Night Market", which was horribly disappointing. It was just a long collection of barbeques. I wasn't hungry, and I was hoping to find some cheap Mao propaganda, but there was nothing but the same food at each stall, the whole way down the street.