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