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Published: September 25th 2007
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Arrival in Shanghai
Emilie and Johannes - ferry friends Scammy Almost another month of traveling down and I have made my way from Shanghai to Beijing then down again through Xi'an to my latest stop in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. To be honest I was not much of a sinophile when I got here - China really lives up to its reputation of being dirty (more like gross), noisy and crowded - and I actually considered catching the next ferry back to Japan after my second day in Shanghai.
It wasn't the dirt, noise or crowds making me miss good old Nippon, it was the seeming lack of ethics in this new place. Coming from a country where you can leave your bag in a train station with your money and passport in it and know that it will probably still be there when you go back, where they count your change twice in front of you to make sure they're giving you back the right amount - basically where honesty and integrity prevail - to China where pretty much anything goes was a transition I hadn't prepared for. So on our second day in Shanghai, my friends from the ferry and I were given a good reality check
Going through the Bund Tourist Tunnel
Shanghai, always providing good ways to waste your money - we were scammed!
It all started with a walk in the park, trying to find the Shanghai museum. Suddenly my group was approached by some "university students" who were very friendly, well-dressed, spoke good English and started chatting us up. We stood around chatting for an hour with them before they invited us to join them on a trip to a "tea festival". We actually turned down the first set of students saying that we wanted to have time for the museum, but not 10 minutes later were approached by a second set of students also going to a tea festival! At this point we thought there really must be a festival going on. So we followed our new friends to the "festival" which turned out to be a room set up with a tea set in a very dingy shopping mall - not very authentic!
The alarm bells should have gone off right away but somehow we continued to believe the "students" who sat through the tea ceremony with us, explained the whole tradition behind it complete with bogus pictures of the "tea procession" along the Silk Road, and even pretended to pay (the equivalent of
$40) at the end before walking us out and sending us on our way to the museum. It was only two hours later when I rehashed all the small details that had felt "off" with my friends that we realised we'd been had!
Though the amount we paid for said ceremony was exorbitant for China (about what you would spend on a week's accomodation), the tea we drank was enjoyable and it was a relatively cheap lesson to learn considering some people get scammed for hundreds of dollars. Nonetheless, we were harshly ripped from our little cocoon of trust that had formed in Japan and exposed to the reality of China - people want your money and they will lie, cheat and steal to get it. It doesn't stop at scamming; vendors, taxi drivers, even bathroom clerks will short-change you by as little as 0.10 RMB (that's 1.4 cents) or overcharge you because you're foreign. And then you've got the pick-pockets who don't even bother swindling you for your money.
Sadly, the result is that I don't trust anyone here, much less those who can speak decent English.
Hard-sitting from Beijing to Xi'an I was feeling
Ming meditation
Me and the Ming walls in Nanjing pretty bitter until I took the train from Beijing to Xi'an. Desperate to get out of Beijing and tired after having been directed to about 10 different ticket booths each of which refused to sell me a ticket, I bought a hard-seat ticket for the 16-hour ride to Xi'an. There are four kinds of tickets for long-distance train rides: soft-sleeper (a 4-bed dorm with door), hard-sleeper (a 6-bed berth with no door), hard-seat (a spot on an upholstered bench with two other people) and standing. People with a standing ticket do just that, or sit/lie/crouch on the floor or on whichever seat has been liberated by someone going to the bathroom.
It sounds like a nightmare really - 16 hours on a train with a teething mass of smoking, spitting, coughing, yelling people. But as far as cultural experiences go, it doesn't get better than this! Once the initial hysteria of trying to find a place for everyone's luggage and trying to get to your seat through the crowd has died down, the train car becomes a temporary community with people chatting, sharing snacks, playing cards, sharing their seats with the standing people in the aisles and heckling the
Peking Duck
Duck carving at our table vendors that come through selling everything from magnetic jewelry to wind-up LED flashlights. I was seated with a couple of grandparents, two middle-aged men and an ornery woman who warmed to me after I helped her remove toilet paper that had gotten stuck on her shoe. Even though we couldn't communicate very well, my bench-mates helped me stow my bag, offered to share their food with me and made sure I got off at the right stop. I was wrecked by the time I got off the train, but happy to have finally seen some humanity in China.
Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces Xi'an was a big improvement on Beijing and Shanghai in terms of cleanliness and having fewer hassles, but my favourite city so far has been Chengdu in Sichuan Province. People still spit everywhere and the sky is grey with pollution but it's a little quieter and less squalid than everywhere else, with far more flavourful (albeit spicy) food than the north and a GREAT hostel called Sim's Cozy Guesthouse that is a welcome haven from the onslaught of Chinese everything just outside the gate.
I've been using Chengdu as my base for almost a week
Summer Palace
Me and the rest of the Chinese population... now. I did the requisite trip to the Panda Research Center when I arrived, saw a slightly tacky but enjoyable Sichuan Opera performance and then tagged along with some new Israeli friends (actually on their honeymoon!) to JiuZhaiGou Nature Reserve where we joined about a million Chinese tourists in viewing the Rockies-like mountains, anti-freeze-coloured lakes and Tibetan villages. We even managed to spend a night with a Tibetan family inside the park (officially forbidden, but all you have to do is make a gesture for sleeping to any of the vendors in the Tibetan Tourist Village and they gladly keep you for the night).
Now I'm back in Chengdu for the day before Eli, Mayan (my Israeli friends) and I fly to Lijiang in Yunnan Province to soak up some more Tibetan culture and take in some more fresh (by Chinese standards) mountain air while trekking through Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Only one more week to go before I head to Vietnam. Now that I've gotten a taste for the Chinese countryside I could easily spend another three months traveling through minority villages and seeing more nature, but I've got a schedule to keep and must be in India
Sunset at the Summer Palace
With Fragrant Hills Pagoda in the background by mid-November to meet up with some friends there. Next time back, I will definitely give the historical triangle (Shanghai, Beijing and Xi'an) a miss!
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Dana
non-member comment
Sorry to hear about your bad experience! Gotta admit I would have a miserable time with people spitting all over - yuck!!! Great pics - I love the one with the panda bear - so CUTE!!!! Hope the rest of you travels will go smoothly and scam-free!!!!