myrainasia

Over a month since my last post. Now in Malaysia with my friend Carlos. It’s pouring out and Carlos is looking at the fishies in the aquarium which I will skip. The nice young man in this internet place is clearing the virus from my memory card so that I can continue uploading my pictures and I am trying to figure out how I am possibly going to catch up on 10 cities in China, Bangkok Part II, 4 islands in southern Thailand and my entry into Malaysia.

There are a number of reasons why things slowed down remarkably in China. I think the main problem is that I was a bit concerned about blogging my true opinions of China, yet I find it hard to blog a sanitized version of events. When I sit down to write, I want to write it all, the good and the bad. China had a whole heck of a lot of both. Another problem- I have been busy playing on Facebook. Not as busy as some of my friends who seem to be on Facebook more than one might imagine, but still- it’s a fun toy! Third problem- Lori and Eric came to visit and a few days after they left Carlos showed up- so I have no shortage of people to speak to at the moment. I blog more when I am starved for conversation and tired of talking to myself.

Really sorry to be missing most of the Olympics. Would have loved to see it in the U.S. with all of the puff pieces showing people and places in China, so I could sit there and say “I was there! and there! and saw that!” I have caught some of the actual sporting events although I missed almost all of the gymnastics and the Phelps phenom. I have seen more boxing than ever in my life because I have been watching from Thailand and one of the best stations was Indian. And I have not heard The Star Spangled Banner once! Oh well, there’s always DVD.

But back to the missing travels. I am thrilled that I got to see so much of China, but I do have to admit that it was the hardest place to travel of all of the places I have been. The biggest problem, as predicted, was the lack of English. For the most part this was not a terrible problem in the big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Xi’an. But it was a really big problem in some of the smaller cities that do not see that many foreign tourists. (It is necessary to specify “foreign” tourists, because the Chinese are definitely on the move and are touring their country in droves!) When I say there was a lack of English, this does not refer to a lack of scintillating conversation. This means problems getting food, problems getting a room, and big problems getting out of one town and into another. Eating for example. Some restaurants had English menus but figuring out the Chinglish was another matter entirely. Some places had pictures- I could pick out a whole fish and broccoli, but the finer points of the cuisine are not necessarily obvious. In some restaurants the staff would debate who spoke the best English and then send me out some young guy who would point at an item on the menu and proudly announce “pig” or “chicken”. Impossible to be annoyed with the group efforts displayed to achieve this minimal understanding. When absolutely no English could be found I would simply stroll around the restaurant staring at what other people were eating and trying not to be too obvious about it, and then finally bringing over a waitperson and pointing. Regrettably I am not 10 pounds lighter and managed to stay well fed even if I cannot say I sampled real Chinese food in great depth. However, anyone who suggests eating at a Chinese restaurant when I get home, does so at his or her own peril.

Then there was the transportation issue. There is no such thing as a travel agency in China. There are places that sell plane tickets and each city has a place that sells train tickets in addition to being able to buy them at the train station. And many of the big cities have offices where you can buy packaged tours for the famous sights in that city. But there is no place that you can go and say “Tomorrow I’d like to go …. Should I take a train? Bus? What time is the train? How long does it take to get there? …….” So I would have to find someone at my hotel who understood enough English to write in Chinese (for the taxi driver) “Take me to the bus station”. Then I would have to find someone at the bus station who understood me when I said the name of the city I wanted to get to. (You would be amazed at the amount of things the Chinese don’t understand when said my a non-Chinese speaker. Except for some of the really big cities, like Beijing or Shanghai, most people did not understand me when I said anything, even if I was trying my very very best to say it in Chinese.) Since this usually met with a blank stare I would have to pull out my Lonely Planet and point to the name of the city in Chinese. Then I would pray that the next bus was leaving within the next couple of hours, because once the ticket seller understood where I wanted to go, the only thing I was going to get was a ticket for the next bus going there, whether this was in 5 minutes or 5 hours. There was no way to try and take an alternate route- way too much information involved for that. And then, for the final amusement, I had to find my bus. Since there were no English signs in the station I would have to take my ticket and go from bus to bus until I arrived at the correct one. In a few stations there were hostesses of some sort who would escort me from the ticket window to the correct location and that was always helpful. Finding a bathroom to use before boarding was always successful although miming this request was often a bit embarrassing. (I prefer to mime washing my hands to taking a pee- luckily both get you to the same place.)

I could go on and on with these inconveniences but will stop here. What was more upsetting to me over time, was the attitude of the people to the non-Chinese speakers. I always thought I could make myself understood no matter what. Unfortunately, most Chinese people will not make an effort unless they understand a little bit of English, and are willing to use it. More often efforts are met with a shrug and people turn or walk away. When this would happen in places where I was trying to get service- such as my hotel, or a store or restaurant, I would really lose it and start yelling in English which, of course, no one understood. I guarantee not a soul understood “What am I, chopped liver?” but they definitely caught my tone of voice.

Lest people think I did not have a good time in China, I have to say that many of the people were really lovely and the sights were definitely amazing. I have 26 sets of pictures from China, more than anywhere else I have been, and I, personally, think they are all stunning. The Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an were fantastic. So were the Longmen Caves outside of Luoyang. I stopped in Heifeng because Lonely Planet explained that there had once been a Jewish population there- Jews who had settled there after traveling on the Silk Route- and there were supposed to be some Jewish stellae in the museum- but the museum people, once they finally understood (I think) what I was talking about, said this was no longer in the museum. So Heifeng was nothing much for me, although I did get my hair cut and everybody in the place was very excited to have a westerner there. Qufu was interesting for the home of Confucius but zip on the English. I really liked Qingdao and probably would have liked it even more if I drank (Tsingtao) beer. It once had a large German population and the old part of the new city has some really beautiful buildings. The beaches were amazing- more for the number of people on the beach than anything else. The new part of the city was in the midst of Olympic preparation- Qingdao hosted the sailing events.

That brings me to Beijing where I stayed for 9 days. I could blog for hours about Beijing. But not today. I’m pretty sure this is not my best entry, but it’s a start at catching up.

Tags: , 1, China, language problems in China

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 2:18 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.