Be Aggressive
So Carrie and I were walking back from dinner with her friend Sharona who had just taken a cab and we were along this river promenade which is kind of nice and lit up at night. We hit a quieter spot and about 5 12 year old kids surrounded us trying to get me to buy flowers. So you try the polite refusal tactic first in Chinese, the don't have money in Chinese, the occasional no thank you in English, then the ignoring them angle, all while trying to continue walking. None of this is effective. At this point, two of them physically grab onto each of my legs and prevent me from moving while they continue to insist I buy flowers and the others shove them into my hands, try and drop them on her purse. Hm, what to do. A Chinese man walks by and I ask him to help please since they are not listening to us. He barks at them in Chinese to let go and they pretty much immediately back off. It was pretty impressive. Victory. We move on and in about 5 minutes see them running towards us once again. Dang, now it's my turn. I had to yell at a bunch of kids in Chinese and tell them to go away and physically slap flowers out of one of their hands and they left us alone. I felt lousy having to be like that, but what else can I do? I couldn't believe the way they grabbed onto me, and I suppose we were fortunate that first guy was around to demonstrate the technique or would not have known what to do the second time. So appalling that the threat of physical violence is necessary, with a bunch of kids no less.
My digestive tract has been on the fritz the last few days. I ate definitely all vegetarian today and not too heavy, and I'm really hoping tomorrow I start to adjust back to normal. Despite being out of sorts, I walked around a lot and today visited a whole bunch of old neighborhoods, winding and ancient sidestreets filled with people who wondered why I was there, and then a few more traditional tourist attractions as well. I'm still pleased by the extent to which escaping the city is possible only by stepping into one of the many parks. The noise really does seem to drop away immediately, and you're surrounded by immaculately tended gardens and tranquil ponds with rarely a ripple in the surface save for the occasional dragonfly doing whatever it is that dragonflies do. Also, I have not seen a single piece of trash in one of these places. There always seem to be people ready to sweep up the tiniest piece of trash as soon as it appears. The streets are similar. Today I saw several people sweeping the streets during the day as pedestrians hurried past them in every direction. I also saw a woman get handed a flier and almost immediately throw it on the ground, so I think the cleanliness I've seen is definitely owed more to the numerous people than an incredible effort on the part of the people to pitch in and keep their city clean. Who knows, maybe they get some credit too and that woman was an anomaly. Plenty of New Yorkers throw trash out while others toss crap on the sidewalk with impunity, so it's always a mixed bag I suppose.
About restaurant behavior, there are a few differences that I have noticed and finally will write about. Pretty commonly, when you go in the restaurant and sit down, the waiter hands you the menu and then waits for you to look through it and decide what you want. He doesn't ask about drinks and walk away for a while as you think it over. It is kind of disconcerting to have someone standing over you while you try and sift through a ten page of menu of strangely named vegetarian items, assuming I'm lucky enough to be in a place where they have English names or occasionally pictures. Also, you always pretty much drink hot tea. I asked for water once and got back hot water, so cold water is not popular, nor is room temperature. I have ordered Coke or Sprite a few times, it is available, but everyone seems to be content with just tea as they eat, as far as I can tell. Today the waitress brought a boiling kettle of water to the table, and rinsed my chopsticks and tea glass in front of me. I thought that was kind of a nice gesture, the first time I'd seen it, though perhaps it should concern me that I haven't seen it earlier. Also, when you get the check, they stand over you while you get your money together and pay it, they don't leave it at the table for you. Not sure what that's about. I guess leaving it on the table isn't really how it is done here.
The hostel bed was hard but functional. Tonight I'm going to try a tactic I learned in Zhuhai when sleeping on the hard Chinese beds, which is to spread out the comforter they give you for an extra layer of padding, then use my sleeping bag liner which is a thin silken layer to provide the frosting if you will. Hope somebody knows what I mean by that metaphor. All in all, I was tired and I slept, and have gone back to the handheld shower next to the toilet, now having finally adjusted my technique so as not to accidentally douse the toilet paper or anyone's drying laundry. It's a delicate process. The hostel room is totally fine and only 120rmb per night which is something like $15US, so I'll be staying a bit longer. I keep on forgetting my credit card when I come to the internet place to book my ticket, but I hope to stabilize my gut before I contemplate my next jump to wherever I go, such as Guilin or what have you.
Oh yeah, new guy in the hostel tonight, also for the trade fair, but he is from Colombia. We spoke for a few minutes, seems nice, and I busted some Spanish. Later I'll have to get him to show off some Chinese since he's been studying Mandarin in Beijing for 7 months and I want to hear what you get for that effort. Hasta luego.
My digestive tract has been on the fritz the last few days. I ate definitely all vegetarian today and not too heavy, and I'm really hoping tomorrow I start to adjust back to normal. Despite being out of sorts, I walked around a lot and today visited a whole bunch of old neighborhoods, winding and ancient sidestreets filled with people who wondered why I was there, and then a few more traditional tourist attractions as well. I'm still pleased by the extent to which escaping the city is possible only by stepping into one of the many parks. The noise really does seem to drop away immediately, and you're surrounded by immaculately tended gardens and tranquil ponds with rarely a ripple in the surface save for the occasional dragonfly doing whatever it is that dragonflies do. Also, I have not seen a single piece of trash in one of these places. There always seem to be people ready to sweep up the tiniest piece of trash as soon as it appears. The streets are similar. Today I saw several people sweeping the streets during the day as pedestrians hurried past them in every direction. I also saw a woman get handed a flier and almost immediately throw it on the ground, so I think the cleanliness I've seen is definitely owed more to the numerous people than an incredible effort on the part of the people to pitch in and keep their city clean. Who knows, maybe they get some credit too and that woman was an anomaly. Plenty of New Yorkers throw trash out while others toss crap on the sidewalk with impunity, so it's always a mixed bag I suppose.
About restaurant behavior, there are a few differences that I have noticed and finally will write about. Pretty commonly, when you go in the restaurant and sit down, the waiter hands you the menu and then waits for you to look through it and decide what you want. He doesn't ask about drinks and walk away for a while as you think it over. It is kind of disconcerting to have someone standing over you while you try and sift through a ten page of menu of strangely named vegetarian items, assuming I'm lucky enough to be in a place where they have English names or occasionally pictures. Also, you always pretty much drink hot tea. I asked for water once and got back hot water, so cold water is not popular, nor is room temperature. I have ordered Coke or Sprite a few times, it is available, but everyone seems to be content with just tea as they eat, as far as I can tell. Today the waitress brought a boiling kettle of water to the table, and rinsed my chopsticks and tea glass in front of me. I thought that was kind of a nice gesture, the first time I'd seen it, though perhaps it should concern me that I haven't seen it earlier. Also, when you get the check, they stand over you while you get your money together and pay it, they don't leave it at the table for you. Not sure what that's about. I guess leaving it on the table isn't really how it is done here.
The hostel bed was hard but functional. Tonight I'm going to try a tactic I learned in Zhuhai when sleeping on the hard Chinese beds, which is to spread out the comforter they give you for an extra layer of padding, then use my sleeping bag liner which is a thin silken layer to provide the frosting if you will. Hope somebody knows what I mean by that metaphor. All in all, I was tired and I slept, and have gone back to the handheld shower next to the toilet, now having finally adjusted my technique so as not to accidentally douse the toilet paper or anyone's drying laundry. It's a delicate process. The hostel room is totally fine and only 120rmb per night which is something like $15US, so I'll be staying a bit longer. I keep on forgetting my credit card when I come to the internet place to book my ticket, but I hope to stabilize my gut before I contemplate my next jump to wherever I go, such as Guilin or what have you.
Oh yeah, new guy in the hostel tonight, also for the trade fair, but he is from Colombia. We spoke for a few minutes, seems nice, and I busted some Spanish. Later I'll have to get him to show off some Chinese since he's been studying Mandarin in Beijing for 7 months and I want to hear what you get for that effort. Hasta luego.
posted by Dan at 9:30 AM
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