Dec. 3rd, 2006 11:05 am
beijing, china, part III, the great wall
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toastykittenOne of the reasons I don't talk much about the food in China is that most of the time, there's not much to talk about. It's there, and we eat it, and it's not revelatory or mind-blowing or delicious. But picking up the manners in China was sort of a different story, especially for us tour people, since we were so used to our Cantonese/American habits. For example, we learned the following:
- Each dish needs to have its own pair of chopsticks, which are shared communally. After you pick up your food and put it on your bowl or plate, you switch back to your own individual pair of chopsticks. In San Francisco, we would just use our own chopsticks to grab food, and just make sure you hadn't touched other people's food with it.
- In China, you need to ask the waiter/waitress to refill the teapot. In San Francisco, you just move the lid off the cover, and a waitperson will come by to refill it.
- Soup for some reason comes near the end of the meal, instead of the beginning.
- Watermelon is always dessert. I can't tell you how sick of watermelon we all were by the end of the trip.
The morning we spent at an "Underground Palace". It is the tomb site/mausoleum of a Ming emperor and his two wives. Again, I can't tell you anything about the history. One of our tour people refused to go in because he was creeped out by the idea of going through this person's tomb. We had to have our bags searched before we went in. I'm not sure why. The tomb itself wasn't all that scary, but everything, like all the emperors' habits, were done on a very large and grand scale. The actual site itself was really nice - if you didn't know it was someone's mausoleum, you would have thought it was a national park or something.
Huh - looks like I made a note about lunch that day - it took place at Yulong Restaurant, which was also a government-run gift shop. We were also warned that the food was merely mediocre. There were signs everywhere that said you couldn't bargain, and looking at the prices, it seemed geared more towards Americans who didn't know how cheap you could get stuff in China. All the other tables were filled with white people and their tour groups.
Next stop was the Great Wall itself. It's impossible to describe how huge it is until you actually see it for yourself. We drove up this mountain, and could see the Wall stretching itself out for miles and miles. I don't remember which section we went to. It's easier for me to show with the pictures I took (which, I swear, I will put up on Flickr or Zoomr sometime soon) than to describe it. We were literally climbing the Great Wall, because while the way up was a stairway, the stairs were uneven and worn down on the sides, and occasionally very steep. I was hanging on to the side rail for most of it. Unfortunately I did not have the bravery of my sisters or my dad to climb all the way up to the first tower. When I was almost halfway up, I made the mistake of looking back and saw the other side of the Wall stretched out before me and freaked out. "HOLY SHIT THAT'S HIGH!" So I climbed back down.
Our break afterwards was a foot-soak-and-massage session. My sisters and I sat it out because frankly we don't like strangers touching us. It turned out to be another government-sponsored thing, because afterwards all we heard was people complaining about the money they spent. Chinese salespeople are relentless when it comes to selling stuff. If you ever think car salesmen in the US are pushy, really, you haven't seen anything yet. Chinese salespeople will grab you by the arm and say, "Auntie, you will look so very young once I do this - why don't you get this for your relatives I'm sure they will love x, y, z" and they will. Not. Let. Go.
Next stop: Nanjing.Huh - looks like I made a note about lunch that day - it took place at Yulong Restaurant, which was also a government-run gift shop. We were also warned that the food was merely mediocre. There were signs everywhere that said you couldn't bargain, and looking at the prices, it seemed geared more towards Americans who didn't know how cheap you could get stuff in China. All the other tables were filled with white people and their tour groups.
Next stop was the Great Wall itself. It's impossible to describe how huge it is until you actually see it for yourself. We drove up this mountain, and could see the Wall stretching itself out for miles and miles. I don't remember which section we went to. It's easier for me to show with the pictures I took (which, I swear, I will put up on Flickr or Zoomr sometime soon) than to describe it. We were literally climbing the Great Wall, because while the way up was a stairway, the stairs were uneven and worn down on the sides, and occasionally very steep. I was hanging on to the side rail for most of it. Unfortunately I did not have the bravery of my sisters or my dad to climb all the way up to the first tower. When I was almost halfway up, I made the mistake of looking back and saw the other side of the Wall stretched out before me and freaked out. "HOLY SHIT THAT'S HIGH!" So I climbed back down.
Our break afterwards was a foot-soak-and-massage session. My sisters and I sat it out because frankly we don't like strangers touching us. It turned out to be another government-sponsored thing, because afterwards all we heard was people complaining about the money they spent. Chinese salespeople are relentless when it comes to selling stuff. If you ever think car salesmen in the US are pushy, really, you haven't seen anything yet. Chinese salespeople will grab you by the arm and say, "Auntie, you will look so very young once I do this - why don't you get this for your relatives I'm sure they will love x, y, z" and they will. Not. Let. Go.