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.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
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!
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)
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)
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, July 2, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Travelling to Beijing: Professor Bottlecap
Finally, the big trip! Chris got about 10 days off from work, so I finally had someone to go with to the big city sights in Beijing. Getting to Beijing is expensive (440 yuan) from where I am, so I had to make sure I didn't just spend a weekend there, like I normally do on my trips. We planned to go from Wuxi to Beijing, then down to Xi'an, and then back to Wuxi. Chris was convinced it was cheaper, but in hindsight, it's a fairly equal distance from each direction, so I don't know if it was really that important. Regardless, Xi'an and Beijing are easily the most famous cities for tourists to see, as Xi'an has the Terracotta Warriors and Beijing has... well, everything else: The Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, and the Mao Mausoleum (You get to look at Chairman Mao's dead, preserved body!)
We left at night, since it's a long train ride (about 12 hours). Some people suggested we pay about 200-400 yuan more to just fly, but that's not quite in my budget. I barely have enough left in my bank account to make rent for August and I still have to live in China for another 3 weeks. Anyway, soft sleeper cars are boring, since you get your own room, and rich Chinese people don't give a shit about other people, so no one chats with you. Hard seats are full of poorer people, but they are far more friendly and chatty, so I learn a lot more Chinese, and I have a lot more fun. Since soft sleepers are so dull, Chris and I went to the diner car to have a beer and watch a movie on Chris' mp3 player.
Once we had sat down and had gotten into about 5 minutes of the movie, we saw the same guy that was trying to chat us up when we were in line to get on the train. We groaned, because he had been kind of annoying in line and his English, although he tries, is not good. He had just walked in, and we pretended not to notice him, and continued watching the movie. He sat down alone, then saw us and immediately got up and sat with us. We smiled politely, but continued watching the movie, hoping he'd get the hint.
The problem was that he couldn't see the mp3 player. It was propped up on a sign showing the daily special, and so he thought we were staring at the sign. He moved the sign towards him, probably because he was going to explain it, and ended up knocking the mp3 player over. We groaned, and finally gave in and took out the earphones to chat with him. It was at this point that we figured out he was actually quite drunk.
We finished our beers, and showed him we had none left, as he kept cheers'ing us every time he couldn't remember the word for something. We were hoping to escape, but he decided he was going to buy us more beers. Clearly, once he started buying me beer, he had gone from annoying to my newest Chinese friend. Chris was largely silent during the conversation, mainly because half of it was in English, and half of it was Chinese. Chris' pronunciation is... well, I can barely understand him in English, his first language. We'll let it rest at that. The Chinese guy couldn't understand a word that came out of Chris' mouth.
Some of the things we learned about the Chinese guy were quite funny. He told us he was from Beijing, in Wuxi on business. Apparently, he is a famous professor, and his technique is known all over China. When he saw me pocket the bottlecaps from the beer bottles (I keep them all, even in Canada), he told me he wished he had known ahead of time that I liked bottlecaps, because he owns the factories that make them. For this reason, I nicknamed him Professor Bottlecap. Chris asked him for his phone number in Beijing for some reason, and he politely declined. His reason was that we are friends by chance, as we saw him in line, and again in the diner car. If God wants us to continue being friends, he will arrange it so we meet again.
Here's why I think it's funny. First off, it was clear that he didn't have all those jobs. He claimed he owned factories all over China, and he's a professor at the university in Beijing, and he makes bottlecaps, and he had another job, which escapes me now. We never could figure out what he did, although Chris has a reasonable theory that Prof Bottlecap goes to different cities and trains the factory workers on how to use machinery. This would explain the "famous technique", his teaching, and the factories. I'm pretty sure the bottlecaps thing is a stretch.
The second reason it was funny is because everything I mentioned was just about all we managed to talk about. I know his job (kind of), that he has a daughter who has far better English than his (although she wasn't there with him), and that he seems to be religious. That's it. We talked for over two hours, and that's all he managed to communicate. Two HOURS of him struggling to remember a word, or attempting various dubious pronunciations of the same word. He also had no clue how to use a dictionary. I brought my Chinese-English dictionary and he kept looking for a word in the wrong area. Seriously, he was looking for Chinese words in the English section.
At one point, he informed me that my dictionary was very poor, because it didn't have the word for God in it. At that time I had no idea what the word he was saying was, but I had an idea due to the context and hand signals. I looked up "Heaven" and "God" and found the word in under a minute. Perhaps if he were looking for the word "Shangdi" in the CHINESE section, instead of under the L's in the ENGLISH section, he would have found it. If he is a professor, it's not anything that requires literacy...
We left at night, since it's a long train ride (about 12 hours). Some people suggested we pay about 200-400 yuan more to just fly, but that's not quite in my budget. I barely have enough left in my bank account to make rent for August and I still have to live in China for another 3 weeks. Anyway, soft sleeper cars are boring, since you get your own room, and rich Chinese people don't give a shit about other people, so no one chats with you. Hard seats are full of poorer people, but they are far more friendly and chatty, so I learn a lot more Chinese, and I have a lot more fun. Since soft sleepers are so dull, Chris and I went to the diner car to have a beer and watch a movie on Chris' mp3 player.
Once we had sat down and had gotten into about 5 minutes of the movie, we saw the same guy that was trying to chat us up when we were in line to get on the train. We groaned, because he had been kind of annoying in line and his English, although he tries, is not good. He had just walked in, and we pretended not to notice him, and continued watching the movie. He sat down alone, then saw us and immediately got up and sat with us. We smiled politely, but continued watching the movie, hoping he'd get the hint.
The problem was that he couldn't see the mp3 player. It was propped up on a sign showing the daily special, and so he thought we were staring at the sign. He moved the sign towards him, probably because he was going to explain it, and ended up knocking the mp3 player over. We groaned, and finally gave in and took out the earphones to chat with him. It was at this point that we figured out he was actually quite drunk.
We finished our beers, and showed him we had none left, as he kept cheers'ing us every time he couldn't remember the word for something. We were hoping to escape, but he decided he was going to buy us more beers. Clearly, once he started buying me beer, he had gone from annoying to my newest Chinese friend. Chris was largely silent during the conversation, mainly because half of it was in English, and half of it was Chinese. Chris' pronunciation is... well, I can barely understand him in English, his first language. We'll let it rest at that. The Chinese guy couldn't understand a word that came out of Chris' mouth.
Some of the things we learned about the Chinese guy were quite funny. He told us he was from Beijing, in Wuxi on business. Apparently, he is a famous professor, and his technique is known all over China. When he saw me pocket the bottlecaps from the beer bottles (I keep them all, even in Canada), he told me he wished he had known ahead of time that I liked bottlecaps, because he owns the factories that make them. For this reason, I nicknamed him Professor Bottlecap. Chris asked him for his phone number in Beijing for some reason, and he politely declined. His reason was that we are friends by chance, as we saw him in line, and again in the diner car. If God wants us to continue being friends, he will arrange it so we meet again.
Here's why I think it's funny. First off, it was clear that he didn't have all those jobs. He claimed he owned factories all over China, and he's a professor at the university in Beijing, and he makes bottlecaps, and he had another job, which escapes me now. We never could figure out what he did, although Chris has a reasonable theory that Prof Bottlecap goes to different cities and trains the factory workers on how to use machinery. This would explain the "famous technique", his teaching, and the factories. I'm pretty sure the bottlecaps thing is a stretch.
The second reason it was funny is because everything I mentioned was just about all we managed to talk about. I know his job (kind of), that he has a daughter who has far better English than his (although she wasn't there with him), and that he seems to be religious. That's it. We talked for over two hours, and that's all he managed to communicate. Two HOURS of him struggling to remember a word, or attempting various dubious pronunciations of the same word. He also had no clue how to use a dictionary. I brought my Chinese-English dictionary and he kept looking for a word in the wrong area. Seriously, he was looking for Chinese words in the English section.
At one point, he informed me that my dictionary was very poor, because it didn't have the word for God in it. At that time I had no idea what the word he was saying was, but I had an idea due to the context and hand signals. I looked up "Heaven" and "God" and found the word in under a minute. Perhaps if he were looking for the word "Shangdi" in the CHINESE section, instead of under the L's in the ENGLISH section, he would have found it. If he is a professor, it's not anything that requires literacy...
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