toastykitten

One 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.
  

We had various dumplings, which Beijing is known for, for lunch the previous day. They were all right - but everything ended up tasting the same to me. We had Peking duck for dinner that night, but it was a bit of a disappointment. The duck was dry and not juicy at all. At least the skin was crispy. Our tour buddies told us that they considered the Peking duck in the Bay Area far superior to the ones you got in China. So that is something we'll have to look into.

Next stop: Nanjing.

My first international plane ride was a horrible experience. I threw up as we landed in Beijing, and then threw up a few more times on the way to dinner. It makes for a wonderful appetite.

Before we got on the plane, we checked ourselves in with the tour administrator. He would accompany us throughout the entire trip, and would be the one constant. We hated him in our first impression, because he took so long. Our tour was much larger than expected - 70 people in all. I have no idea why they didn't just split the tour up into two groups, since once we got there we would be split into two different buses anyway. The tour admin, named Alex, started checking us off a list. A lot of people showed up really late - our flight was for 11:30 AM, and some people didn't show up until 10:30. Needless to say, it pissed me and my sisters off.

Alex looks like the kid in the Doraemon comics, all grown up. He was even carrying all his documents in a Doraemon folder. I thought nothing of it then, but if anyone from America his age (he was definitely mid-thirties) carried around such a thing, I'd have thought he needed help or something. As it was, I just chalked it up to him being from Hong Kong. You can get away with such things there. Alex assigned us all numbers, to which we would be referred to throughout the trip. We were instructed to wear our badges (I resisted as long as possible) to identify ourselves as part of the tour group. He went through a whole explanation of the process of the trip, and at 10:45 was still going. Meanwhile, boarding would start at 11:20. My sisters and I left the group early so we could wait at the actual gate, which sort of pissed my parents off. We made them lose face in front of other people.

I hate saving face. It's futile and demeaning. My mom would apologize to Alex later for it.

The tour group was made up mostly of Cantonese-speaking immigrants, some who spoke English, and one family who spoke Mandarin. There was one couple with a really young kid, and another with two kids. They had been pulled out of school and given make-up homework for the trip.

There was an elderly couple who sat next to me on the flight, and the wife kept putting on her Chinese ointment. Whatever it was, it was a thousand times worse than Tiger Balm. She would also periodically stare at me, seemingly for no reason at all. It got very uncomfortable for me at times.

Her husband grabbed a can of soda right off the drinks cart when it came around without being asked. Later his wife would repeatedly ask for a Coke even though the attendant replied that they only carried Pepsi drinks.

The dad of the eight-year-old boy walked over to him in the middle of the flight and said to him, "I forgot to tell you to do your homework."

The kid did his homework.

Once we arrived in Beijing, we were introduced to our Beijing tour guide, Kelvin. Kelvin kept referring to himself in the third person, which was really weird, especially in Cantonese. Kelvin gave us a bunch of warnings:

* Wear your backpack or purse in front, because otherwise you'll make yourself vulnerable to pickpockets.
* Carry cash in your pockets, not in your wallet. If you carry it in your wallet, a pickpocket will easily be able to see how much cash you carry and where you keep it.
* Don't drink the water. The tour would give us free water bottles each day. I should note here that one of my sisters packed one luggage piece entirely filled with bottled water and snacks. I'm not exaggerating. Her plan with the water was foiled, though, when my mom drank most of it during the three days we were in Beijing.
* Don't talk to natives or anybody outside the tour group. They may be trying to find out where you're staying so they can rob you. Throughout the trip, my parents seemed to be hell-bent on making themselves vulnerable to anyone and everyone. Alex had to stop my mom from talking to strangers during one of our stops - she was telling them everything they asked - where we were staying, what group we were with, etc.
* Don't ask to borrow people's cell phones, because they assume you're trying to steal their cell it from them.
* Guangzhou has a lot of pickpockets.

After the mediocre dinner (even the tour people admitted it was mediocre), we were taken to a shopping street where we walked around for about an hour. I didn't like the spot at all - all the potted flowers were fake , everything was really expensive, and nothing was laid out in a pretty way. To quote Nina Garcia, "It's not aesthetically pleasing."

I did see the 2008 Olympic mascots. I didn't think they were that cute at first, but over the course of the trip they grew on me. Of course the products associated with them were ridiculously expensive, especially considering that you know you can get cheaper things elsewhere in China.

We saw some security detail around some black people. I wondered if they were ambassadors or something, or if they were in town for the China-Africa forum.

The traffic - I have never seen anything like it. I totally was not surprised that I threw up two more times on the bus before dinner, because that was a hellish commute. If you were ever stuck in LA on the 5, be glad you don't drive in Beijing. Kelvin informed us, "You may be wondering why we are not allowing you to sit in the front seats. Well, consider Chinese traffic. Of course there are laws and regulations, but it's basically a free-for-all, and we have to guard you against sudden stops. Just think - there are no seatbelts in front." I looked out the window and there were lanes marked clearly, but no one was using them. Instead people just maneuvered around each other, so that three people would jockey for position in the same lane.

We were also warned that cars did not stop for pedestrians, and to be extra-careful while crossing the streets.

My first impression of Beijing was that it was pretty weird seeing all these Western structures - highways, streets, malls, etc being imposed on Chinese foundations without much apparent thought being given to Chinese social habits. For example, we were told to carry our own toilet paper. In the past, they explained, toilet paper was available in public facilities, but people kept assuming that they were free paper and just took them. It's like the government just expected people to adopt social urban ways without considering that most Chinese people aren't city people at heart. They have village habits that aren't easily unlearned.