Category Archives: China

Beijing’s acrobatic show is a great deal.

The hotel my host lives at bought me really good tickets to a sold out show. I took a $2 taxi over there, settled in next to four Americans from Danville, CA, and enjoyed the jumping, tossing, dancing, and mind blowing flexibilty and stunts. I even bought an ice cream sandwich during the performance.

The American next to me was one of those guys who speaks his emotions ("You’ve gotta be kidding me!" or "Unbelievable!"). While normally I don’t like these kind of people (especially those at movies who say things like, "No Jack, don’t do it!"), tonight it made the evening even more enjoyable.

Well my fortune has turned around: I’m in Beijing, my body has assimilated to the malaria medicine with no further side effects, I’m in the wonderful apartment in a hotel of my host (an exec at Apple Computer), thanks to Tom Cole of Trinity Ventures, and I had two productive days exploring the city.

When I arrived in the afternoon yesterday Beijing was ugly: loud, polluted, tons of people, havoc on the streets, BMWs next to bikes next to rickshaws. Business suits next to disheveled old men carrying rice. But the situation got nicer, quick.

The hotel my host lives in is top tier and includes a variety of restaurants, a CitiBank ATM, fluent English staff, full size gym, and other amenities.

I started my day with a warm breakfast in the hotel and then did a two hour workout. It had been several days since I worked out and I felt the difference almost immediately, despite my strained tendon behind my left knee which I hurt in the Japan alps. Then I had lunch at the Italian restaurant in the hotel where I had garlic bread and pizza (yum). At 12:45 my guide showed up — through the hotel I hired a private guide for $25 who would lead me through Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Hiring a private guide is highly recommend by just about everyone and I know that in Beijing and Shanghai I will do this.

My guide just graduated from college so could offer a nice youthful perspective on things. In addition to asking her questions, she had plenty of questions about America, and her dream has always been to visit California "and see Clint Eaststood and Desperate Housewives and 24" (she’s a big 24 fan – season 1 just aired in China).

Tianemen Square was "good not great". It’s just plain massive. Well kept. But it’s really just…a square. Of course, what most of us think of when we think of Tienanmen Square is not what my guide thinks of! The Forbidden City was better: tons of cool red buildings, ornate architecture, interesting emperor history. My guide did a good job adding color to the scene.

As we walked through the Forbidden City my guide asked me, "Is Chairman Mao famous in America?" I said people who knew he was, but he wasn’t famous. I asked her if he’s famous in China. She said, "Oh yeah, definitely, we learn his book early on. We get tested on his book."

We sat on a bench in the Forbidden City to rest and we chatted. Among other tidbits, she told me 1 billion out of the 1.3 billion people in China are farmers. She asked if I liked Kelly Clarkson (I do). Then, we taxied back to my hotel and I paid her a handsome tip (but still ridiculously cheap by dollar standards).

Today I joined a small tour group to the Great Wall of China. It’s about 1.5 hours out of Beijing by car. The area around the wall is full of people trying to sell you souvenirs. It goes something like this: "Hello! Banana! Hello! Strawberry! Hello!" or "One shirt one dollar! Hello! Hello! One shirt one dollar!"

I rode the gondola — or as they call it, "cable cars," which confuses a San Francicasn like me — up the mountain to the top of the wall. A guy from Zurich, my home away from home, was in the gondola next to me. The gondolas don’t step when you get on and don’t stop when you get off and they scream "move! Move!" as you get on and off.

The Wall is spectacular. No surprises there. I walked along it, up and down, up and down, for two hours. Fresh air. I happened to walk next to two young women. I’m pretty sure they were Lesbian and they told me they were studying Eastern medicine before heading back to the States. Where else? San Francisco. Near Golden Gate Park.

In the car ride I chatted with a nice couple from Hong Kong. They talked about how they’re worried China’s culture and past will dissapear in all the modernization.  They asked what Americans thought of China’s rise. I said it’s hard to speak for Americans, but me personally, I think a richer and better China is good for the world.

On our way back to Beijing proper we stopped in a silk factory — where you can buy silk, the tourist operator gets a cut I’m sure — but it will still pretty interesting. We saw how they make silk clothes and sheets and manhandle the worms.

So far, Beijing has been good to me. I can’t say it’s taken my heart, but there are clearly some world class tourist attractions which make it exciting for any foreigner.

As usual I brought along some San Francisco souvenirs to give to my hosts in Asia. As I was ripping off the price sticker on a San Francisco bookmark here in Beijing, I noticed the phrase “Printed in China.”

Doesn’t that kind of take some of the magic away?

October, 2006

In Europe, to refer to the English language, they'll show a British flag and any recordings in English will be with a British accent.

In Asia, in pre-recorded messages, it's a mixed bag — sometimes American accent, sometimes British.

On the plane today in Shanghai China Southern Air played English instructions in one of the huskiest American accents I've ever heard. The kind I'd expect to hear from someone just in from hunting and ready to sink his teeth into some deer.

Startlingly reassuring, I must say. Eloquent in a way that's totally un-British!

There are no western tourists here in Dalian. In fact, I have yet to come across any English speaking person other than that airline attendant who helped me in the airport and one other guy (more on him soon). Yes, this includes the non-English speaking hotel front desk and staff.

Because there are no western tourists or businesspeople as far as I can see, I’m assuming the locals here in Dalian — an urban city right across the way from Korea in NE China — don’t see many Caucasian, English speaking foreigners.

My basis for this opinion is I have become a goddamn spectacle anywhere I walk. You may think all this attention would be cool, but it’s extremely irritating.

At first I thought the restaurants were just overstaffed, which they probably are. Then I realized my sheer presence commanded a wait staff of 5 or 6 people who studied my every move.

For lunch I walked a couple blocks down the way from my hotel and resolved to find the McDonald’s or KFC that I saw on the taxi ride over here to try to make up for the "breakfast" the hotel served, which despite my meager appetite to my sickness, was thoroughly disgusting. Unable to find these beacons of sanitary, edible food, I did see one restaurant with an English sign: "BBQ". Aha! Once inside I was seated, handed a menu, I looked at four pictures of "meat" and, out of desperation, chose the fifth picture that seemed to look like nachos.

While waiting for the food to arrive, three — three! — waiters sat at the table next to me and just stared at me. Uncomfortable, I took out my China guidebook and pretended to read. Then one of the guys came and stood over my shoulder to look at what I was reading. WTF? I kept "reading" and fortunately he walked away. Then two other waitresses came over and kept looking at my plate as I ate it — which turned out to be corn paste — and then offered me a spoon to supplement my chopsticks. I used the spoon as a knife to cut the corn paste (sounds yummy, no?).

For dinner I went to the "Western restaurant" in the hotel. Not a single piece of Western food. I walked into the "restaurant" to find a confusing buffet style of options spread all over the place. Everyone in the restaurant started staring at me. About five staff people started surrounding me. One woman started following me, right behind me, with a notepad. WTF? Finally a young man dressed as a chef came up to me and explained, in English, how to work the restaurant. He’s probably the only person in the whole hotel to speak any English. He realized I didn’t have a clue what to eat so he said "you want this salad and some lamb?" I said yes. "Beer?" I said no, I wanted water. "No water." So I said orange juice, the closest watery substance I could think of.

I then was seated at a table and didn’t dare crack open the book I brought along with me, because I felt that would further insult the Chinese tradition of sharing a meal with others (dining solo, as I was doing, is rare). So I stared straight ahead, into a wall, afraid to turn my head and endure the curious, probably friendly but to menacing, glares of every waiter and chef and most patrons. The salad came to my table and was terrible. The "lamb" tasted like rubber and looked as processed as your favorite Hollywood star’s boobs. The orange juice boasted 1% orange, 99% urine.

I got up to pay my bill, creating another spectacle as my height always does. Six mis-communications later and the chef — who had been re-assigned from the kitchen to the Ben Casnocha Entourage — escorted me downstairs to help me use my credit card at the front desk. While they processed the card and he asked where I was from, I said San Francisco, and they all started giggling. A week ago I would have laughed with them, happy that California has such positive connotations abroad. Instead I focused on the status of the credit card swipe.

A few minutes later I escaped back to the safety of my hotel room, which is warm, wired, and ringing with endless honking horns and undrinkable water in the bathroom. Can’t wait to leave Dalian. And no, I didn’t take any pictures, why would I want to memorialize these past two days?