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China Confidential…
I have a confession to make: Since being in
China I have been a bad bad tourist. Instead of burying my nose in China's
Lonely Planet then blitzing the sites, I have been quite content to meander. My
brother, who is a teacher here in Xiamen at an international school, is quite
well versed in the ways of China, so I have been content to let him do the grunt
work, well it's easy, he lives here. And since I'm confessing my traveling
sins: I have not even bought a lonely planet for China,
I'm going straight to tourist hell for that one (Arkansas). I didn't even buy a
map, not a brochure, not even one of those napkins with a cheesy picture of the
great wall tattooed on it.
I have to say; my Marco Polo is temporarily deflated, My Columbus fever has
subsided to 98.6, and my Edmund Hillary rash has cleared up. Instead, while I
reside at my brother's pad, I am content to enjoy Western Culture comforts, in China?
-comfy bed with a top and bottom sheet, sans red ants.
-no Mosquito netting
-Nary a gecko to be found, I do love those guys.
-a sit flushing toilet where you can actually throw in toilet paper!
-Hot Water, in the sink and shower!
-Is that a Fridge, with food?
-DVD, get out.
-Mirrors with no cracks, windows that actually open...
you get the picture. I loved the rougher aspects of my first two months in Asia
- testing your spoiled North American ass mettle. When temptation rears its
ugly Westernized head, it is difficult not to submit to the big comfy bitch. I
have 10 days to cuddle with the big soft pillow and then I'm off to the land of,
hmmm, I hope that's not a scorpion moving under my blanket. I look forward to
it; cuddling scorpions.
When I can finally tear myself away from the computer screen and tear myself
from reconnecting to my friends on MSN, I have found time to explore Xiamen,
China; it’s nothing like I thought. Xiamen, 1500 or so km from Hong Kong on the southern coast of
China and part of the lucrative economic zone of China. A small quaint city,
okay Chinese subjection here 1,000,000 people, it's no Moose Jaw. Forget the
antiquated images of hordes of conical hatted peasants cycling by tiered rice
paddies in sharp green pajamas. This place is on the verge of complete
modernization;
skyscrapers, light rail transports, mass transit, high end cars,
and latest technologies in store windows touted by glossy poster girls; suddenly
I miss the rice paddies and those bad hats are a little more interesting.
Only in minute details do you see its third world foundation; old Women with
natural branched brooms sweeping streets, rusty old bikes with big cylindrical
reed baskets, a wrinkled old man chewing a beetle nut spitting conscientiously,
stains on his chin, and the oft and ever present stares at my white face and
round eyes.
My eyes aren't common in Xiamen,
and the locals staring will prove that. A naive male might
might feel quite Brad Pitt'ish when he passes a group of high school girls who
meet his eyes with stares and giggles, until he passes a group of old men who do
the same (okay chuckles instead of giggles). The stares and chuckles are a
little disconcerting; I can't tell you how many times in a feverish paranoid
state I've checked my fly.
Apparently the only thing freakier than a muscular, tall (thank-you, here I am),
blondish, bald, white guy in China is a muscular, tall (thank-you), blondish,
bald white guy on roller blades. I would've loved to have had a video camera
when I was bombing around Xiamen on Jeff's blades and zoomed by a bus depot of
30-40 locals. Conversations ended, crickets sounded, babies stopped crying, and
dismay ruled as the crowd followed my motion like a strained Wimbledon
grandstand. I actually looked back to see two Asians step out to watch me
disappear in the
distance only to be run over by their arriving bus - well no, but
pretty funny visual, in a macabre roadrunner-coyote kind of way.
As I buzzed
around the urban modern sprawl I passed bikes, and rusty motorized boxes, barely
moving push carts on the side of a 4 line moderately busy boulevard. The fact I
was passing these peddling and crawling dinosaurs wasn't enough for an
over-zealous chubby cop who waved at me feverishly to get my ass on the sidewalk
(*ass is Xing-hua in Chinese). Comical. Blading is not common in China and
boisterous comments prevail; old men with wide eyes gazes give me a thumbs up
and feverishly motion me on, a smart dressed middle aged Asian Man looking at me
in wonder suddenly blurted out a strong message, unfortunately in Chinese; using
my Chinese I deduced it to be "a cockroach will struggle in quantum physics"
what he was actually yelling, "hey look out for that tree". Stupid lovely
decorative Bonsai thing. My final validation was a car load of rowdy youths,
and in broken Asian English a spiked haired brazen youth squeeled, "goooo
dooooode". Alrightee then.
Other Chinese tidbits:
1. Yes is an acceptable response by any Asian to an English question; "is that a
male or a female bathroom?"... Yes.... "So I can use it then".... yes... it was
a broom closet, I used it just the same.
2. While looking for bread, "excuse me, do you have bread" ... yes *points to a
banana... "no, bread, bread" (it always helps to repeat the word they don't
know)... yes.. *brings a pineapple.. "no bread, uhmm.. wheat" (at this point I
do my best swaying wheat representation, it was impressive, but she had
obviously never been to Saskatchewan).. yes... "no *sigh.. that's toilet paper".
3. Chinese Women are lovely, except every salesgirl mandatory attire is a pair
of hideous, thick, yellow-ochre taupe, panty hose things.... if McDonalds can
get here why can't Hanes?
4. I did the McDonalds thing here in China; only because I was tired of getting
a fake rolodex watch every time I wanted a stir fry from my confused waiter. A
Mcwarning spicy chicken burgers in China, are really really really spicy. In the
end the food was the same as in Canada... McShit.
*Take this summation as only one of Xiamen, not China. If you go to the
interior, outside the affluent economical belt, you'll see China as it was 300
years ago.
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