|
|
Asia Travelogue, part 2
(The Mainland)
The most notable aspect of flying into Mainland
cropland. From the moment the plane dropped below the clouds, all I could
see for miles and miles was cropland. There wasn’t a square foot of dirt
anywhere that didn’t have food growing on it. But what I was looking at
was not a collection of large squares and rectangles like one would see
while flying over
which was small enough to be plowed by two oxen. During my stay, I would
see thousands of acres of crops, but I never saw a single tractor.
Peasants rely upon animal labor -- mostly the two-legged kind.
Alan had promised to meet me at the airport. I knew him from the
Bentonville Church of Christ. He quit his job at Wal-Mart and moved to
years. He then taught English for a year in the Republic of China on
He told me that he had learned enough Mandarin to get
around and I knew he
had done a lot of traveling in the PRC, so I intended to put my full faith
and trust in him and let him serve as my free tour guide.
When I stepped off the plane and saw nothing but Chinese faces waiting for
passengers, I felt the first sting of panic at the base of my skull.
is nothing like
speaks English. I had no Chinese money and no guidebook. A very short and
almost frail Chinese girl approached me and asked if I was Rick. She told
me that her name was Jane and that Alan had sent her. I was relieved.
Oh, but where’s Alan?
“He’s had food poisoning for the past several days,” Jane said.
“Is that what I have to look forward to?”
Jane just laughed. My full faith and trust in Alan began to slip.
After all, he’s the person who told me, “Shots? Naw,
you don’t need any
shots. There’s nothing to worry about over here. Just hop on a plane and
come on over.” Before Jane and I got to the airport exit, Alan appeared.
It turns out that he was there as promised, but was staying close to the
toilets.
We took a cab from the airport to the bus station, which is a long drive.
Along the way, Alan gave me a gold Mao Zedong pin as a welcoming gift. He
told me that Jane was his (Mandarin) Chinese teacher and was also his “ex
-girlfriend. Notice the quotation marks around the prefix, “ex.” Jane
ended up accompanying us to
relationship dynamic was always in one of three phases: 1) bickering, 2)
wrestling and giggling, or 3) Jane being so angry at Alan that she would
not talk to him or me. By the end of the trip, I overheard them talking
about marriage. (The future location of the happy couple’s abode was a
source of contention.) No doubt, at one time or another, you have found
yourself in the company of a couple who previously dated but now consider
themselves mature and reasonable enough to just be “good friends,” so you
can empathize with me.
Nonetheless, I was very thankful that Jane went with us. At most of the
places we visited, no one spoke English. Alan’s Chinese was good enough
for ordering food, but anything beyond that was a struggle for him. Also,
Jane knew how much things should cost and when and how to bargain. Most
Chinese see Westerners as fat white geese ready for plucking. When they
would see Jane, they would know there was a limit to what they could get
away with. I shudder to think what would have happened if Jane hadn’t been
with us. I might still be lost on a bus somewhere deep in the interior of
the mainland, living on $5 apples, and offering one of my kidneys in
exchange for a Lonely Planet
A bus took us into
armed soldier of the People’s Liberation Army standing guard under a red
and yellow McDonald’s lawn umbrella. The golden arches were clearly
visible. Judging by the stern look on his face, I doubt that he
appreciated the irony of a guard of the people’s revolution using a piece
of Western capitalist advertising to shield him from the sun’s rays. It is
against the law to take a picture of anything military related, but I
managed to sneak a picture on my return trip through
I was there for several days. Jane, Alan, and I stayed in the apartment of
Mike O’Brian, another English teacher from
allowing Jane and Gloria, another English-speaking Chinese girl, to stay in
his apartment. When I returned home to
Adams Boulevard Church of Christ, my hometown congregation in
is supporting Mike. How’s that for coincidences? Mike’s stated purpose
for being in
purpose is to spread the Gospel whenever the government officials are
looking the other way.
During my stay in the PRC, I came to realize that I had arrived with a
number of misconceptions about the country. One of them was how oppressive
the government is when it comes to religion. Mike’s apartment is used for
a house-church -- the kind you read about in the newspaper that gets raided
by the police. Chinese people -- mostly in their 20’s -- met there several
times for Bible study while I was there. They were much less secretive
about it than I had anticipated. The apartment was well stocked with
Bibles and hymnals that were kept out in the open. Members of the Bible
study are careful not to invite new people to attend until they have gotten
to know them pretty well, but in all likelihood, the police know that the
apartment is being used for a home church and yet do nothing to interfere
with it.
However, leniency should not be mistaken for freedom. The mark of an
authoritarian regime is not the amount of control it exercises over its
citizens, but rather the amount of control over its citizens that is
available to it. In all areas of a person’s life, the state is the
ultimate authority, whether it chooses to exercise its powers or not. The
profusion of laws makes full compliance difficult and thereby places the
individual citizen at the mercy of the state. (Are you reminded of our
income tax laws?) For instance, during my brief stay, I committed the
following acts, all of which were violations of the law: not registering at
the police station as a foreigner in each town I visited, not notifying the
police that I was staying in the residence of a Chinese citizen,
photographing military personnel, bringing Bibles into the country with the
intent to distribute, staying in a hotel not licensed for foreign guests,
exchanging currency with a non-licensed currency dealer, and offering a
bribe to a government official (which is punishable by death for the
government official who accepts the bribe). If I am caught violating the
law, my punishment will most likely be expulsion from the country. The
punishment for a Chinese citizen, however, could be quite severe. If the
police know that Jane and the other Chinese Christians are meeting in Mike’s
apartment, they may
decide not to act, but Jane and the others will
forever be at their mercy.
The unavailability of Bibles was another misconception. I thought I was
being sly by hiding Bibles in different compartments of my backpack before
going through customs. I was shocked when Alan told me that Bibles could
be legally purchased at the bookstore near the university. While it is
true that it is illegal to bring Bibles into the country for the purpose of
proselytizing, Bibles themselves are not outlawed. They are considered
literature no different from any other book. However, if you went in and
ordered a whole box of them, I’m sure all sorts of red -- and I do mean red
-- flags would go up. Alan also told me that some English teachers receive
boxes of Bibles from
inside. Other teachers, however, have done things to draw attention to
themselves and so the police inspect all their
packages for Bibles and
religious literature.
As I stated earlier, our ultimate destination was
Liberation Army invaded
successfully assimilated the Tibetan people into the great red mass, the
government of the PRC feels the need to control outsiders’ access. They do
this by limiting the number of access points. One of the few that were
available to us was flying to the capital city of
Thus, it was necessary for us to travel west from
Of course, we could have flown, but Allan said that we could save money by
taking the train. Thus began my crash course lesson on true budget
traveling. I thought I was a frugal person until I spent time with Alan.
I appreciate the value of a dollar, but Alan appreciates the value of a
penny. Whenever we had an option as to where to stay or how to travel,
Alan’s only question would be, which choice is the cheapest. Jane would
then mock him by saying, “Cheap, cheap, cheap!” That
became the motto of
our trip: Cheap, cheap, cheap! You’ll see what I mean
later.
Alan and I went to the train station to buy tickets for the following day.
The train station is worth describing. In the courtyard out front, there
were hundreds of people coming and going intermixed with taxis, food
vendors, and old women selling knock-off Nike sport bags. (I would later
buy one for $2 that said “NIKE -- THE SPARK OF LIKE.” Inside the enclosed
portion of the train station was a large open concrete room in front of the
ticket windows. On the floor, from wall to wall, was a solid mass of
people. Only a few of them had bags. Most of them were simply people with
nowhere to go and nothing to do. They lay in the train station all day
because it has a cool floor. It looked like a relief shelter set up after
a natural disaster. We had to step in-between dozens of arms and legs to
make our way to the ticket counter.
There were at least a dozen customer windows, but only one of them was open
and on the other side of the glass was an empty chair. No workers were
visible. Alan explained to me that this is typical. The train system is
owned and operated by the government, so the workers only work when they
feel like it. Alan said that it is not unusual to be in the middle of
purchasing a ticket when the worker will decide she’s tired and will go in
the back room and take a nap; or maybe she’ll not feel like selling any
tickets that day so she’ll tell you they are sold out just to make you go
away. In fact, Gloria had called the train station earlier on our behalf
and was told just that. Alan, knowing that was probably a lie, decided we
should go to the station anyway. The Chinese train stations make
offices look like Drucker-inspired models of efficiency and customer
service.
Eventually, a worker idled up to the window and sat down. There was a
massive surge of customers to the same window. Although there were metal
rails for forming lines, no line materialized -- there was just a big knot
of bodies pushing and shoving. I would see this same scene everywhere I
went on the mainland. It was quite a contrast to
British influence could be seen by everyone forming neat and orderly lines
even to catch the bus at the corner.
Somehow, Alan managed to get in front of the knot of bodies. While he was
purchasing the tickets, people from all sides would reach around him and
grasp the edges of the window opening or shove in front of Alan’s face
fists of cash, thinking that would somehow secure them the next place in
“line”.
Through all of that, Alan was triumphant. He
emerged with two
tickets. He told me that one possible reason why we were able to get
tickets was that they sometimes hold back a few tickets for foreigners.
The thinking is that the government doesn’t want foreigners stuck somewhere
with an expired visa just because they couldn’t get on the train. So this
was one of the few instances where it was actually beneficial to have a
white face.
In fact, when I returned to the train station later with Gloria to buy a
ticket for another destination, I discovered that Alan had taken us to a
special window reserved for journalists, scientists, and foreigners.
Gloria told me that the Chinese who were crammed around the window were
able to use that window because they had “gon shee”. That means that they
have connections; they know the right government official or someone who
works at the station. It is so common that the Chinese have a special word
for it. I would learn that’s how many services are rationed off -- those
with gon shee get them.
Because I was white, however, I was allowed in
front of the others. As we were leaving, Gloria directed my attention to
the next room where non-foreigners without gon shee had to purchase their
tickets. The knots of people went from the windows all the way to the back
wall. There must have been over 200 people in there. If Purgatory has a
train station, that’s it. I then understood why the Chinese with gon shee
at my window were buying big stacks of tickets. They would sell them at a
premium to those Chinese without gon shee so that they would not have to
fight the crowds.
The following day, Alan and I boarded the train for
ride would take 30 hours. Let me repeat that in case you didn’t notice the
zero: It took us 30 hours to get to
that the planet earth was big enough to travel in one direction for 30
hours. Thankfully, Alan was willing for us to pay for a sleeper car. We
could have saved money by buying seats, but Alan said he had done that once
before and it made for a trip too grueling even for him. There is no
assigned seating and the train is always oversold. When boarding begins,
there is a mad dash for the seats. Those who are too slow end up sitting
on the floor or, as Alan and Jane once had to do, standing in the narrow
space between the boxcars.
Another reason why a sleeper car is desirable is that there is nothing
about the train ride that you want to be awake for. You probably won’t be
surprised when I tell you it was not exactly luxury class. I would guess
that our average speed was 35 mph. (I suppose things could have been
worse, however. I noticed trains being pulled by steam engines on the
other tracks.) The train was not air-conditioned, but at least most of
the windows would open, which was not the case on the last train Alan was
on. That’s important when half the people on the train, including our
bunkmates, chain-smoke.
A particular incident that stands out in my mind is when I was awakened by
a lit cigarette butt falling onto my forehead. I bolted upright and the
cigarette butt fell onto my towel, leaving a burn mark. I looked at the
guy who had apparently dropped it and all he had to say was, “Ooo, ooo.”
Another consequence of the train being full of smokers was that by the
following morning, the floor was covered with butts and dried phlegm.
There was so much ash in my hair and on my clothes that I looked like a
St. Helen
Alan and I were the only white people on the train. When we first got on
the train and sat down, our bunkmates sat across from us and stared at us
like they were studying an abstract painting. We took this as a challenge,
so we stared back. This continued until Alan offered them each a Chips
Ahoy cookie, which completely blew their concentration.
Of course, none of them spoke any English. A man from another part of the
train who did speak English spotted us and came and sat down to chat. (It
is quite common for Chinese people who are studying English to seek out
white people in order to practice their English.) He told us he worked
for Budweiser. He was in charge of buying boxes. He told us about the
poor financial performance of Budweiser and then, without any encouragement
from us, he proceeded to tell us about the business climate in various
Chinese cities and the prospects for different industries. (We couldn’t
remember his Chinese name, so Alan and I referred to him as the Chamber of
Commerce.) Alan and I had purposefully stayed up late the night before so
that we could sleep on the train. This was not the kind of scintillating
conversation we needed at this point. The Chamber of Commerce continued
talking for 45 minutes while Alan and I did nothing more than nod. He
probably thought we were agreeing with him. Once he finally figured out we
were actually nodding off to sleep, he went away.
As for the view, it was usually obscured. It seemed as though we were
inside tunnels about a third of the time. At other times, we were at the
bottom of narrow valleys and therefore couldn’t see anything other than the
bottom of a steep hillside. However, for those brief instances when we
were privileged to have a view, it was beautiful. The countryside was
always lush and green. I can’t remember seeing land so fertile. There
were crops planted everywhere, including on hillsides so steep that it
looked like you would need repelling ropes to bring in the harvest. The
odd thing was that this terrain never changed throughout the entire trip.
Where in
countryside?
In
in
tourists. Compared to the “hotels” where we would stay in
very nice. It would be the last time I would have clean sheets in weeks.
Still, I have to give it some negative marks. Right after we checked in,
we watched a large rat scamper across a telephone line above our heads
going to the restaurant portion of the hotel. That is where we would go
for our complementary breakfast. Seeing the rat might seem unappealing,
but we couldn’t resist the restaurant’s advertising campaign. In an
attempt to advertise in English, they had written on the window, “Typical
Food.” Mmmmm. My mouth waters just thinking about
typical food.
(That would not be the only rat I would see in
down a market street. One of the produce vendors had vegetables laid out
on a mat on the ground. Only two feet in front of the mat was a dead rat
that had been squashed flat.)
There also seemed to be some bad mojo in the hotel’s
elevator. Before
leaving
didn’t feel well on the 30-hour train ride. During our first day in
morning, I thought I felt okay until I got on the elevator. Then I started
to get light-headed. When we got to the lobby, everything was starting to
go black. I headed for a couch. I had to feel for the armrest because I
lost all vision. I collapsed on the couch a split second before I would
have lost consciousness. That is the closest I’ve ever come to feinting.
I still have no idea what kind of illness I had or how I got it. It
concerned me that I would be flying to the highest elevated city in the
world the next day and here I was feinting in
the altitude of
thinking that a simple breakfast would give me just the energy I needed.
So what did they serve me for breakfast? Cucumbers and ketchup between
toast. I had to wonder, “Is this typical food??
Later, we again took the elevator. This time, Alan’s diarrhea suddenly
returned and I once again started feeling weak. From then on, we stuck to
the stairs, despite the fact that we were on the 7th floor. On our
return trip through
the back of a police car in front of the hotel. I have no idea what was
wrong with her, but it would be my guess that she didn’t know to take the
stairs.
Jane arrived in
wondering why she wasn’t with us. She had met some French guy named Fred
in an Internet chat room. They started writing back and forth and Fred
ultimately invited her to visit him in
way she would be permitted to travel to
to
bizarre to me, and I’m not just referring to the fact that a Frenchman was
named Fred.
Anyway, Fred was in
so Jane said she wouldn’t feel right about running off and leaving him
there. She would spend a couple of more days with Fred and then catch up
with us in
up the wall. He loathed Fred. There wasn’t a single day during our entire
trip that Alan did not make at least one negative comment about Fred. Alan
even claimed that he could speak French better than Fred. Alan’s hatred
towards Fred quickly developed into a hatred of
people. French people are rude, dirty, and cowardly. I was walking on
thin ice when I reminded Alan that Napoleon’s army kicked some major butt.
On the day Jane arrived in
lobby of the hotel to purchase group tour tickets for
adamantly opposed to joining organized tours, but in this instance, we had
no choice. The stated position of the PRC government is that individual
foreign travelers are not permitted inside
part of a tour group organized by a government approved (i.e. government
owned) travel agency. At first, I assumed that this reflected the PRC’s
sensitivity towards outsiders’ access to
witness the on-going human rights abuses being suffered by the Tibetan
people. The truth, however, was that it reflected the PRC’s
desire for
hard currency. It was just another way for them to squeeze more dollars
out of the rich tourists.
Here is how it worked. A one-way plane ticket from
normally be 1200 RMB (the Renminbi is the PRC’s currency unit). That is
all we really wanted. However, we were required to purchase a
package costing 2500 RMB, which did not include a return plane ticket. The
travel agency claims that this actually saved us money because the tour
package included transportation to the airport and a 3-night hotel stay.
The truth is that a ride to the airport on a public bus would have cost 8
RMB and the hotel would have cost 25 RMB per night. The tour guide
probably gets paid 30 RMB a day for the whole group. So what is the extra
money for? In a sense, it is a legal bribe. I say “legal”, because the
money apparently makes its way to the government, or at least to a high
government official somewhere. There were many travel agencies in town,
but they all quoted the exact same price. That is because they are all
government-owned. The price must be fixed from above.
Alan had previously offered to pay the travel agency representative 500 RMB
just for a permit stating that we were part of a tour group. The
representative could pocket the money and we’d have what we need in order
to purchase our own airline tickets. But the travel agency representative
refused. We had no choice but to pay 2500 RMB a piece to join the “tour
group”. Once they had our cash, the travel agency and the government
couldn’t have cared less what we did. We were issued plane tickets, but we
never did receive any kind of permit or authorization showing that we were
part of a tour. As soon we were dropped off at our hotel, we ditched our
tour group and never saw them again. The group was only supposed to stay
in
In the past, the travel agencies would make you stay in
five days before issuing your plane tickets. That was one more way to
force you to spend some dollars in
away with that practice. The morning after purchasing our tickets, we took
a chartered bus to the airport and boarded a plane for