transit (game 5)

game #5

i must have picked up on the tenor of this trip telepathically because before i left i already initiated a game of my own called ‘for every chinese person that can pronounce my name i will donate 1 dollar to a charity of my choice at the end of my trip.’ so far i owe nothing.

the trip itself got off to a rocky start. after pulling an all nighter in the hong kong airport i got on my plane to kunming (SW China) to find the first 10 rows of the plane all talking to each other animatedly. not only do i not speak their language but apparently all of china knows each other already. aaaaaawwwkkkkkkwwwaaarrrrdddd. once i got off the plane i spent way too long trying to barter down the taxi fair to 5 yuan, which my roughguide said was a reasonable price around kunming. after having a bunch of cabbies laugh in my face i caved at 20, and basically figured that, bartering wise, i was screwed for the rest of my trip, until i checked my book again and read that that the airport was an hour away and should cost at least 30.* things improved drastically from this point on. not least because, similar to in romania and syria, it seems that nothing makes me feel more at home than monolithic communist architecture with water damage. its just so shabbily honest - who needs decorative facades when you have a righteous ideology.

*this has set the tone for china being one of the most fair and honest countries i’ve ever travelled to. i dunno if its severe penalties or just good morals (locals i’ve talked to seem to think the latter), but even with unmarked prices they barely try to charge us more than locals and i’ve never really had any fear of something getting stolen. i’m pretty sure i could set my laptop in the middle of the sidewalk and walk away and no one would bat an eye...i really mean that...there eyes would go extra wide open staring at what the crazy white girl was doing this time...but they wouldn’t take it...or try to return it :D

what i missed (games 1 thru 4)

most of what happened before my arrival involves deception and trickery

game #1

the english language schools in guilin sends their students to yongsheng to practice their english with tourists, and my nunchucks* were getting accosted quite a bit. since guilin hadn’t flooded yet, and they couldn’t use these agglomerations of people to ford any overflowing rivers, they decided to turn this potential inconvenience into a fabulous game called ‘let’s see how many students we can congregate around us at once’. i think they maxed out at about 14. they then used the quick dispersal tactic which is game #2

* friends

game #2

though i haven’t been here very long, one sentiment that the chinese population seems adhere to almost to a ‘stick’* is an intense hatred for the japanese, largely due to that little tiff colloquially known as ‘the nanjing massacre’**. fuller and alex thought they would riff on this by sporadically introducing oker to the locals as a japanese tourist. announcing this to the group of english students in yangshuo elicited a deafening group gasp. this game lost favour however during their train trip to guiyang, when they told it to some cute girls sitting beside them as a joke. flirtation quickly evaporated, and cool stares and disinterest were all that remained on the train ride.

*chop

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

game #3

in a very un-cultural-revolution-y way, its currently uncouth in china to talk, look, or do anything else like a farmer. bourgeoise appearances are especially important to maintain when hitting the clubs. oker took this as an invitation to totally confound the guilin bar scene by dressing in complete farmer garb (rolled up pants, brown shirt, wide brimmed straw hat), and accessorizing with an obviously expensive massive camera, and an entourage of white devils*. he then proceeded to dance with all the foreign tourists, another faux pas for the locals. when he finally tried to enter the ranks of his blood brother and sisters it apparently sent them into scatter formation. that he was humping the air probably didn’t help.

*friends

game #4

the boys became so enamoured with the idea of bucolic generousity, that they decided they would visit someone’s home and get fed in every village they went to, regardless of whether it was offered voluntarily. this can be achieved using various ‘coaxing’ tactics, such as striking up casual conversation with a villager, and then kind of loitering around until the offer is made, or if the offer isn’t made just asking outright if you can visit their home. where conversation opportunities are scarce, just knocking on people’s doors (if they have a door) seems to work.

@oker: coaxed entry #1, yangshuo

@oker: coaxed entry #2, ping'an

for comparison

i thought i'd rattle off some preconceived notions i had about china pre-travels (i wrote these before i left) as a point of comparison for the end of the trip. they are based on fact, hearsay, media, and a week trip to shanghai three years ago to visit my brother and his girlfriend becky, who's from beijing. they're not that flippant so you'll probably want to skip them, unless you're really bored or would like a glimpse into my vast ignorance.

preconceived notion #1: the commun-ist-ication bubble
when i visited shanghai we heard by word of mouth that there had be some protests in another part of china during our stay, but of course no mention of it in the media. i couldn't help but think how savvy the government's modern tactics were for maintaining control...let people talk as much as they want because as long as they can't find out what's going on elsewhere in the country in real time (via internet/television/radio) than they can't organize. because it is a HUGE country. even though its very cosmopolitan, shanghai felt isolated in a way, provincial, because of the control over national communication

preconceived notion #2: 'there will always be more'
my favourite chinese saying courtesy of becky. it makes me laugh in a crying kind of way. it was her response to my query about how chinese people reacted when they heard about the governments' quelling of protests elsewhere in the country. of course she meant 'there will always be more people', not protests, or crackdowns. i'm interested to see what social coping mechanisms develop in a country w/ a population density of 138/km2, coming from a country where its 3.2

preconceived notion #3: nothing phases these guys
this is another impression from shanghai. it seemed like the chinese population knew they had this vast history behind them, with sea changes over successive regimes: imperial, ideological, or otherwise. i can see how that could make a person feel insignificant in relation to this huge machine, and hence apathetic, but more than that it seemed to engender this intense pragmatism: life goes on so lets get on with it...but not too seriously.

preconceived notion #4: totalitarianism's not what's it's cracked up to be
i was shocked in shanghai how unbrainwashed people were. maybe that was naive of me but its true. it seemed like outside of the han stronghold in the northeast people pretty much went on with their lives unfettered by the affairs of the communist government, like there was a nunspoken understanding: let us go on with our lives and we won't rebel against you. it also sounded like if you were in the far west of the country 'going about your life' could mean a lot of different things depending on which of a hundred minority groups you belonged to. again, this might have been brutally ignorant i had not idea china was such an ethnic party. i kind of thought the communist government has successfully homogenized everyone but turns out i was wrong...or maybe not....we'll see :D

preconceived notion #5: a lack of appreciation/respect for women
what can i say. the paperwaves are filled with talk of female euthanasia, and i'm probably gonna be subconsciously watching for grandmothers slapping their little granddaughters in the face and then giving their little grandsons candy apples. raise the red lantern and some other chinese films probably haven't helped.

preconceived notion #6: a high level of appreciation/respect for women
well its still technically communist!! and 60 years of ideology and institutionalized gender equality have to add up to something...it seemed to in syria at least (i mean the post-communism = feminism 'lite' thing)...but maybe that was just a cultural...i might have to hold off until i visit cuba & russia before i pass judgment on this assumption.

thats all for now. i guess all my others are too ingrained to even realize i have them. isn't bias fun.

lets try again

after a week of traveling in china i have decided that the name of my initial blog* was wholly inappropriate. i've realized this trip is less about culturally insensitive stereotyping than it is about culturally flippant tomfoolery**. the relationship between my feline supremacy and frolicking through the asian nations will become clear in future posts.

*blonwynsbrog.blogspot.com
**or okerfoolery*** for those who know him post highschool
***you probably won't understand that