I wanted to write a general piece on what China is like to travel in. But rather than do a generalising and probably rather dull discussion of things like how I've noticed Chinese restaurants use a lot of pork (although they certainly do), hopefully it will be more interesting if I focus on the things about China that make me go, "Wow!", "Eh?" or, "You bastard!". Clearly, focusing on the odd aspects of a culture, one invariably starts sounding a little like Donald Rumsfeld, but I hope my fascination and wonder with China comes through as well as my bemusement and occasional boiling rage.

"Who needs stairmaster?"

One of the more challenging issues the Westerner faces in China are China's toilets. Essentially, Chinese toilets are usually a squatting affair, a hole in the floor with a flush (sometimes). Shitting therefore requires the traveller to develop a specific squatting technique, as well as strong leg muscles. I tend to try to keep my knees bent at about a 100 degree angle, my bum hovering in the air while standing flat footed. I've seen Chinese men squat in a full bum-to-the-floor flat footed crouch, which is probably more stable, but without training creates a high risk of peeing all over one's trousers. But Daniel, you may be asking, how is it you have observed another man taking a shit? Did you peek over the cubicle walls or something? Well, the further joys of Chinese toilets are that partitioning walls are utterly variable, sometimes zero, flushing is not always available, toilet roll rarely is, soap very rarely is, water to wash hands afterwards often isn't. Probably as a result of all this, an awful lot of Chinese loos stink an awful lot.

The argument for squatting toilets are that they are more hygienic than resting one's bum on a communal seat. This hygiene arguement does however fall down given the above listed frequent lack of soap and water - even my Chengdu cooking school didn't have soap in the loos, which was nice. Hence perhaps the big Chinese food taboo against putting food directly into one's mouth with one's fingers. Maybe you think I digress on toilets too much, but speaking to other travellers, it is often the hardest thing to adjust to. This is not something which one can make an intellectual bridge, like swapping a knife and fork for chopsticks. This is about yuk, about stomach churning, even right and wrong. I can give a reverse example, to show how little these things have to do with rationality. It seems to me that for the Chinese, the floor is a very dirty thing - Chinese people often will pick my bag up and put it on a chair, or warn me if my jacket sleeves are touching the floor when I'm sitting in an internet cafe. I suspect this is because the Chinese spit on the floor a fair amount, big hawking gobs. Even though I'm sure it really is as unsanitary as they think, I can't get worried about leaving my bag on the floor - putting it on someone's sofa just doesn't seem natural.

KFC - finger licking bad!

So, on this just mentioned topic of not putting fingers in mouths, while the Chinese have no problem with say, taking a chunk of meat into their mouth then dribbling out the lumps of unwanted bone on to the table, licking one's fingers afterwards would be a big no. This isn't some cast iron dictum: I've eaten meals with families and we all used our hands. But I love watching Chinese prepare a meal or snack and waiting for the moment where they refuse to touch the food anymore, e.g. once the pineapple is completely peeled and cut in half, the fruitseller takes it just so, drops it into a plastic bag and hands it to me, hygiene standards intact. Watching Chinese eat in KFC is wonderfully strange - I see people holding the fried chicken through a plastic bag or wear a plastic glove while munching away.

In terms of animals eaten, I guess I've been fairly conservative so far: I've only tried duck, pheasant, rabbit, pigeon, the liver, intestines and heart of pig, beef, yak, chicken, little and big fishes - often pointing at my meal-to-be while it swims. Perhaps selecting a living animal to eat sounds abhorrent, but I feel if one chooses to eat meat, one should accept the nature of what one is doing. One quickly starts doing so in China.
There are, rest assured, far more exciting things than the above on Chinese menus. One restaurant in Chengdu, my friend Chris started at something, "I've never seen that before on a menu": bull's penis. We smiled at each other, and after a little thought, decided to remain ignorant.

A special price for Daniel

A topic that really does deserve mention is how those among the Chinese so love overcharging me. In every country I've been to in the past, I've rarely minded when I suspected I'd just paid a somewhat higher price than a local person would. It either felt like I just needed more haggling experience, or that a very poor person had just made a little bit more than the 0.01p they made from everyone else.
It doesn't feel that way in China. Aside from the need to haggle over even the tiniest things, like bottles of water, there are just so many incidents where a person looks me up and down and decides, without any attempt to conceal this, "let's see how much I can get him to pay". It is hard to convey how infuriating, how demeaning this feels. The worst moment is when one realises this person doesn't care that you know it's a rip off, they don't care you're angry - they only care about your money. Their only interest in you as a living being is that you have hands, and so can transfer your money to their pockets.
I still, despite these sometimes long weeks in China, don't mind the haggling in shops for little things - both I and the shop keeper can decide whether to accept the price or not. I do hate, however, the scams and the abuses of power. It seems so often, that when I come to collect a room deposit, or my horse trek lasts three days not the agreed four and I ask for a day's refund, or, on the way out of a scenic spot and an "entrance fee" suddenly materialises, or, most commonly, after I've just eaten in a cheap restaurant with no written menu - that's when a Chinese person will grab the chance to extract more money. One example out of, believe me here, many: I check out of my Xiahe hotel, needing to collect my 10 yuan room deposit. The manager tells me, well, you had a different room last night, you need to pay 30 not 20 (so, coincidentally, he can just keep the deposit and we'll be all square). I reply, angry but not surprised: No, your staff moved me yesterday, I didn't want a different room, so I'm only paying 20. He thinks about it, takes two fives out of his wallet, throws them on the counter and walks off into another room. I stand there in the now empty reception hall in all my bags, thinking, "That's it is it? I've spent two nights here, you've told me about bus times and we've had a chat about a music cd I bought, but because you couldn't get a bit more money out of me, I don't get a goodbye, or a thank you, or even a "tell other travellers about the hotel"...". A moment of probably the deepest anger in China was in the town of Songpan. My guesthouse has no hot shower, but there are public showers costing three yuan across the street. No problem. I finish in the shower, dress - there's now a woman by the door, so I go over to pay. She makes the gesture for "five" at me. I ready myself for disagreement, but then a woman that I sense is her boss comes over, and quickly, I say to the new woman, "San (three)"? She nods, and I hand the money over. I turn back the first woman, I'm pretty furious, and make her same "five?" gesture back at her to see if she'll respond. But she doesn't look at me, she just stares off into space, waiting for me to go away. I really am furious now, I want her to look me in the eye and smile, or look embarrassed, or angry, or shrug her shoulders - some human interaction, not this "I used the wrong PIN code for this walking money bag, now I have to wait for the next one to come along".
A lot of times, bargaining is fun, and whoever "wins" the encounter, there's rarely a sense of bad feeling afterwards. I often get the impression that one gets more respect as a strong, happy haggler than as a compliant tourist consoling oneself with, "so much cheaper than at home"! Sometimes, it all does get a bit wearying, eg when tired and desperate for breakfast, if a fat man in an grease stained apron says three yuan for some dumplings and you are sure it's (at most) two for everyone else, do you begin the fight or just take the food?

But equally, I have to stress the so many moments of lovely generosity. On my train to Chengdu, an elderly couple sharing my bunk cabin saw me eating those previously mentioned "three yuan" dumplings and offered me their cup of hot water so I could have a drink. I took a sip and offered it back, they waved me away. So I drank it all and took it to the train's drinking water tap to clean it out. This was clearly The Right Thing To Do - I could tell the wife was saying to her husband the Chinese equivalent of "oh, what a nice young man". They then shared their lunch of bread, hard boiled eggs and chili mix with me. Another time was when Tim and I were trying to hitchhike a very remote section of road back to Zhongdian. A blue lorry stopped, but it was clear there was no space for both the two Tibetans and our large bodies. We proposed we sit in the back flat section, but they shook their heads and instead the driver's friend got out and sat in the back. He must have endured a long rough helterskelter as the road was awful and the lorry seemed to have been invented previous to the introduction of suspension, but when we offered the driver some money for the ride, he refused it. They drove off with only our heartfelt thanks as compensation. And, just some of the things I've been given as gifts: an intricate carved bird, cut from a large red carrot, made by one of my classmates at Bayi school; a red bead bracelet, from Zhang Lu, one of the students at Chengdu hostel; an amazing gel pack that heats up when you press the metal disk floating in it, from some young guys in Hong Kong; and as previously mentioned, as many cooking classes at the Bayi school as I want. Sitting down inside the packed bus to Xiahe, I am deluged with offers of food people have to share, people start offering me food they haven't even bought yet, "Would you like an ice cream"? I can't really reconcile these two experiences of China and the Chinese.

Being a comic genius

It's easy for me to make Chinese people laugh, just not always intentionally. Often if someone calls out "hello"! and I say hello back, that is enough to set off gales of giggles. People seem so surprised that their school learnt words of English actually work they laugh in shock. Especially in Chengdu, if I passed some pretty girls on the street, they'll meet my eye and smile demurly, and very second they've passed me, collapse into noisy giggling. Many children love shouting hello at me, but the smallest children often get very scared, despite mothers encouraging them to say the magic "hello" word. It is amazing how racially aware we humans are. The toddlers' minds, as little as they are, recognise differences.

Chinese find my alphasmart word processor absolutely fascinating - often if I start typing away, Chinese men and women will lean really close over my shoulder to watch, sometimes reaching out and touching a few keys to see what happens. People can happily watch me type for several minutes and then walk off with a satisfied smile on their face.

"Chinese like eating - and money"!

Another odd thing about China is how colours clearly mean different things. It's something strange to come into a coffee shop, clearly in some way modelled on some idea of Western coffee shops, and the lighting is harsh, artificial blue and green - plus frequent neon wire lighting on the walls. I think us Westerners like earthy, woody colours to relax with - it's quite rare to see those colours in a Chinese tea house or restaurant. Tibetans have an even odder view of relaxing. It's weird to go into a Tibetan tea house to sit back and read a book, and watch the staff react: "Quick, we've got a customer, switch on the disco kareoke music"! I then find myself staring straight at a video of some minimally clothed girl doing Tibetan yodelling to techno music in a wooly hat.

Back to those coffee houses: I was once taken to the Chengdu branch of apparently a very popular chain, Coffee Language. Coffee Language is a rather pretentious place for well off Chinese to come and mentally reinforce how not poor they are. A businessman from Shenzen, had approached me while I was staying in the Chengdu Dreams hostel and asked if I'd like to go for coffee one evening. When we'd chatted for a while, I pointed at the walls of Coffee Language, covered in images of Westerners, both present and fancy 18th century, and asked him, "Do Chinese people like these images because it's fun once in a while to come here, or because they want to be like the West"? He thought about it. "I think Chinese want to get rich". He continued: "They see that Westerners are rich, but people don't really know anything about Western culture". I've heard this, "Chinese people want to get rich" so many times, from so many Chinese, it could be the national motto. The quotation that began this section came from the chef that taught me in that fancy Chengdu restaurant - he added the money comment even though we had been purely talking about Chinese cuisine - it was that worth mentioning.
My businessman friend went on. "Many, many factories now in Shenzen [Shenzen is a special freer economic zone opposite Hong Kong]. All owned by Taiwaneese!", he chuckled. And then, more surprisingly, "If you want to see the real Chinese culture, you need to go to Taiwan. Chairman Mao tried to reform our country, you see, but... he failed [the cultural revolution]. But, he was great, I believe".

Some funny words

A thing that happens fairly frequently to me in China is that if someone doesn't know the answer to a question or can't help me, they'll incredibly curtly say, "No" or "Meiyou" or nothing at all, and just turn away. This was infuriating at first, but eventually it occurred to me this is, after all, a concise and honest answer. I'd prefer it if people smiled and made some apology, but it seems futile to repeatedly get enraged over it, futile to wish the Chinese were more English.
A word infamous among travellers is "Meiyou", which sort of means, "There isn't" (eg when you try and buy something and they don't have it, "Meiyou"). Chinese people do love saying this word, just like Latin Americans seemed to be always saying the incredibly vague, "mas o menos" (literally: "more or less"). But, as with many things in China, I think the mistake is to think it is some kind of made up anti-tourist word. Listen to Chinese people talk, and they use Meiyou for all kinds of situations. I saw two girls who were playing badminton in the street, when they got their shuttlecock caught in a little tree - and for naught started shaking the branches: "Meiyou, meiyou" (Nothing's happening)!

A lot of easy laughs can be had from the Chineses' strange English. I came across my favourite sign in China at the Big Buddha of Leshan - it simply says, "Nice to Live". This isn't some Buddhist affirmation however, this is advice to take care on the slippery paths. On some level, it feels a bit cheap to laugh at a small women's clothing shop whose English name is "Defender of Femininity" (I peered in to see if there were any Valkerye style steel bodices) - I make plenty of spelling mistakes myself, and was even willing to casually split the infinitive earlier in this piece (oh shit, I've done it again). But when a huge tourist site like the Big Buddha calls vertigo, "fear of high sickness" or when boardings announcing a new "international business office complex" spells "business" incorrectly, and "international" differently in two places, both wrong - I do wonder how seriously the Chinese elite are interested in the rest of the world.

Carrying tea

There are certainly some things that are unappealling about travel in China. Many hotel and government officials are incredible rule sticklers and jobsworths. Even if the procedure has clearly broken down, I've had the pleasure of long "debates" with a person who is simply unwilling to join the obvious dots. If there is a mistake in the hotel record indicating I haven't paid for a night's stay, then I simply can't have, end of story - even if I can show them a receipt for each and every night's payment. If I dispute this, then clearly I am a thief trying to rob them.
This list of rules for hiring a rowing boat for Kunming's Green Lake park encapsulates something of this:

There are, however, really wonderful things about travelling here. Perhaps it is a small thing, but I love travelling in a nation of tea drinkers. I never drank tea back in England, but now carry around some green tea leaves and my herbal tea (from Dr Ho). For in China, hot boiled water is freely available everywhere, in restaurants, hostels, trains, many shops and parks. Being accustomed to London's penny snatching, it's quite shocking for me that in an expensive restaurant or tea house, one's tea is refilled with hot water as a matter of course. Whichever company that makes thermosflasks for the Chinese must almost be as rich as the company that makes those tight prefaded jeans that almost every young woman seems to wear.

China is, at least so far, a very safe feeling place to travel in. I very rarely have any sense of worry walking around late or that I have to keep all my possessions wrapped up if I'm sitting somewhere for a while. People are aware quite how much money I have, and sometimes appear envious - but it's a, "Tell me how you did it!" type envy than a "Give me your money"!

Another good thing, and a rather important one for me, is that China is for the traveller a pretty cheap destination. Hostel beds cost between one and two pounds a night, food can be absurdly cheap, especially the staples of noodles and dumplings (whether or not you get overcharged, it's still pretty cheap). I was budgeting ten pounds or 150 yuan a day in Yunnan (so c. three hundred pounds a month) - which perhaps sounds a lot given the above mentioned prices, but the traveller usually manages to incur many costs the local doesn't - not least zipping around the huge distances of China. Since Chengdu I am aiming to keep to around 100 yuan a day - but there are less tourist type sites and restaurants to spend one's money on.

As a, somewhat political, conclusion: While I've seen many incredible, wonderful things here, there are many things that get really tiring and annoying about being in China. The generally total ignorance of the outside world, the casual rascism some people exhibit, the way many people seem to imagine you some stupid oil tycoon with money falling out of your pockets. I wonder, however, how much of this is "the Chinese" and how much of this can be attributed to things done to the Chinese.
Someone coming to China (at least southern and western China, I can't speak for Beijing etc, having not managed to get there) expecting ornate tea services, red temples with burning incense, calligraphy and all the other marks of a two thousand year old society could be very disappointed. These things seem to exist in Hong Kong, Singapore (and I'm sure Taiwan too, but I haven't been there) - but seem much harder to track down here on the mainland. I suspect that the Cultural Revolution did just immense damage to the Chinese - or can you persecute a country's teachers, priests and intellectuals with no ill effects? Current Chinese have an education and media which tells them by and large what the government wants their view of the world to be, that limits harshly their access to information from the rest of the globe. I've heard from several foreign English teachers here how many of those common prejudices, such as hatred of Japanese, are at the very least encouraged by school teachers. Is it any wonder then that it often feels like Chinese people have a weird and sometimes not very welcoming attitude to foreigners? Could it be that if a government attacks everything about the past, then denies its people the ability to find out about the present, then what else is there for a culture to focus on, except "eating and money"?

With my ruminations on China and dubious theorising done, best wishes, come and see China for yourself.

Daniel, 25 March