To China or not to China - there is no question

there are many reasons why I like China and love my travel here, but there are also a few reasons why I could never make it permanent! I don't think I'd survive living and working in Asia (or more specifically China, excluding HK and Guangdong where they speak Cantonese and my Mandarin is useless, oh and Shanghai because they speak Shanghaiese, and almost every other part because they all speak bloody dialects! Hmmph).


I don't think I could live here for more than 6 months without:


a) REAL bread.
Not sweet-stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-soggy-consistency bread. Bleh. I am CRAVING a grilled cheese sandwich. And no, I am not pregnant.


b) Committing homicide on a regular basis
Flippin' Heck, people here really get on my last nerve. Yes, it's a different culture, and I need to adjust. BUT, when I'm getting on a tram - one foot on the bottom stair, hand on the rail, lifting myself into the door - and someone tries to get on it ahead of me by literally contorting themselves inbetween my foot and raised arm... can you really blame me if I get a little testy? I am learning to truly appreciate what elbows are for. And I've finally figured out that respect for elders is overrated when said elders are trying to scam-push-rip-off-cheat you at every turn. The one-armed shove is becoming my new forte.


c) Feeling like an animal in captivity, an attraction, a freak.
I've lost count of the number of photos I've been in - voluntarily or not! People keep asking me to be in a photo with them, or they take them stealthily while they think I'm not looking. Like I don't notice! Hmmm, maybe I should just charge?!


d) I'd have to be N.A.K.E.D. here for the entire time.
Even I am freakishly tall here and no way does any place sell ANYTHING to fit me without me looking like a spandexed sausage. Lovely.


I aim to spend a month in an intensive Chinese course so I can at least learn to cuss people out and tell taxi drivers to take me where I want to go! THAT particular skill would indeed come in handy! Right now the best insult I am able to offer a taxi driver in Hong Kong that takes me the long (read twice as expensive) way round is "you have no honour". Not exactly biting, is it? :/

Guangzhou: Thanks Simon!

I decided I had to dedicate on blog entry just to Simon. He's living the dream (ahem), muddling through daily life as an expat GM in China. Unfortunately I didn't get to meet his family who'd fled the heat to go stay in the Netherlands for a while. Can't say I blame them!

The last time I met him, I was 14 and he was 22 and an intern for my dad in Vienna. How things change! Now managing one of the largest LPG companies in China, it's great to see a compatriate making it work here. I spent 3 days in the lap of absolute luxury being chauffeured about and shown every place of possible interest in Guangzhou. Of course it completely RUINED me for the rest of my trip... I'm sure I can't continue in the standard to which I have now become accustomed!

I extended my stay by 2 days only to be informed halfway through my extension that my rate had been changed to 40% higher as my former promotional rate was no longer available. Perhaps a bit late to be telling me this when its already 5pm the next day? Simon's pitbull of a secretary - Ally - agreed and thanks to her amazing negotiating, and some great strategizing between us, they not only retracted this change, but also send the assistant sales manager to schmooze me with a free drink at their cafe and unruffle my extremely ruffled feathers with some helpful suggestions for sightseeing in Shanghai! To top it off, they threw in a free lunch for 2 in their brand-new Italian restaurant on the 41st floor... as seen in the pictures above. Who else could I invite but Simon! We had a sumptuous lunch of REAL Italian lasagna (even-if-it-was-served-lukewarm-and-we-had-to-ask-them-to-nuke-it-after-which-it-came-back-nuclear-hot-presumably-to-prove-a-point-to-the-rude-foreigners-that-dared-to-question-the-chef's-boundless-wisdom!) followed by the deserts in the picture. I officially adore Guangzhou! Thanks Simon!

Guangzhou: panic attack! Oh, and river cruise...

Today I went into a bit of a panic over my visa’s restrictions – according to everyone I’d asked, the web information, AND my previous Visa (typed in English in London) - my type of Visa is only valid for 30 days at a time. It would have made for an interesting route if I had to go out of mainland China every 30 days! Simon asked his secretary, travel coordinator and driver to step in and 2 hours, countless forms and one smart-cookie driver later (he took a copy of my passport Visa directly to the Chinese visa bureau) it turns out I may be the only one to have an unlimited F-type visa? It’s valid for 6 months, multiple entries, with no apparent time-limit per entry. When the driver asked the person at the visa bureau who told him there was no limit to “check again to make sure”, he was rebuffed with a “don’t you believe me?!?!”. I guess it must be true then. With a possible fine of 500RMB per day that you overstay your visa (that’s roughly 32 quid, 50 Euro’s) it’s important to make sure. *phew* crisis averted!

After all that, Simon took me to see Shamian Island – a weird little semi-peninsula in the middle of the river. It was once and English concession – after the opium war, when the English were told to get the h*ll out, they were given Shamian island to live on. Its odd wandering down leafy little streets with English-style mansions and buildings, knowing that I’m in a Chinese haven of industry. The brownish sky takes away some of the magical effect, but its nonetheless really pretty, quaint and peaceful.



As we were walking along, I realised that I was seeing a lot of causasian couples with Chinese babies in strollers. Simon led me to the White Swan hotel, which is apparently where foreigners from all over the world congregate to complete the adoption of Chinese children. I’d read an article on it in a magazine some time ago – so it was weird to actually be there and watch these instant-parents come to grips with their new charges. Although most looked at ease strolling about with the hired pushchairs, some clearly hadn’t mastered the art of “holding a baby” as opposed to “carting a sack of flour”. It makes sense that the Chinese authorities require the new parents to stay at the hotel for a minimum of one month before they allow the children to leave the country. Wonder if they get baby-classes with the room service. It didn’t occur to me until after we left the hotel that everyone looking at us walking about with a guidebook must have thought we were there for the same reason! *cringe*


In the evening I met up with Charlotte (from the earlier introduction) to go on a river cruise on the pearl river. We bought the tickets, we waited for the boat with lots of adoption-families, and then got onto our boat when called... only to find that we had somehow ended up on a Chinese dinner boat as the only foreigners! Quite interesting! It was a nice trip with lots of bright lights everywhere – the Chinese do love to light up “stuff” at night with multi-coloured neon-lights! We gave the dinner a miss though... we had a sniff and a peek (no pun intended) and decided that hunger was preferable. I was quite glad when, half an hour later we resumed our seats indoors and I spotted a mystery ingredient crawling around my dinner box! Yummmm.

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, endangered species dishes and adoption of chinese babies by foreigners

Hah, bet they sell the city a little differently via tourism bureaus... but its nice to know I'm in a quality town, experiencing the real China. Sort of... Actually... not really. Thanks to Simon – a true hero living in China who used to work with my dad in Vienna etc – I am ensconced in the PLUSHEST Westin hotel I’ve been in so far. Complete with bathroom with sliding walls (so one can watch the TV from the bathtub – tried that, it works) and the prerequisite Westin patented “heavenly” bed (soft and cushiony, makes you never want to leave... possibly part of their marketing spiel). But the absolute BEST thing? It’s only been open 3 weeks, so chances are very few, if any, guests have pre-contaminated my room! The smell and feel of NEW, love it!

Guangzhou appears to be much like all of China's large cities, HUGE. Lots of people, a host of impressive ginormous public spaces like the one seen from my 18th floor hotel room, some shiny attempts to build into the clouds higher than anyone before, and polluted sky coupled with searingly HOT weather. According to the handy thermometer in Simon’s chauffeured car, the temperature is hovering somewhere between 39C and 42C. Its enough to make my flipflops stick to the pavement! I think I’m starting to acclimatise at last though – air conditioning set to 22C feels cold...brrrr.

Today was a really long day – we started with a trip to Kai Ping. Andries (Dutch-guy-who-works-for-Simon-and-has-a-French-GF-Charlotte-who-will-be-moving-to-China-so-they-can-both-live-in-Shanghai, there – introduction over) had read about this World Heritage area close to Guangzhou. (Un)fortunately, nature chose that day to start chucking it down, so we could barely see the road on the way there, let along the supposedly magnificent scenery! Once we arrived, however, it started clearing up and we had a wonderfully cool and clear view of the Merchant Houses. They’re like mini-fortresses, 4-5 stories high, built like towers in the middle of the rice fields. They were built by wealthy-ish Chinese families that had moved to Europe, made some money, and then came back to China to live. Needing to protect their wealth from marauding thieves, they built their houses in the style of these fortresses. Surprisingly large and comfortable on the inside (if you’re shorter than 5’8”, else – mind your head on the stairs!), and ornate on the outside. Some have been restored to become part of a Disney-like park attracting tourists, some are just where they were, left in their original state, while farming continues all around them. Quite unlike anything I’ve seen before!

After a day of traipsing about the countryside without food, the next stop was the international buffet at another plush hotel with White Tigers roaming about outside the restaurant windows. Apparently, Manchester United had been there a few days before on a promotional tour of China and the entire lobby was decorated with posters of the gang.

Despite the amazing cultural blah-di-blah all day (I’m such a barbarian), and the wonderful food in the evening, the absolute highlight of the day was most definitely the acrobatic show we saw in the evening in Guangzhou. It’s hard to describe, but there were so many acts where I must have looked like a complete schmuck if someone had been filming me – mouth hanging open, left hand partially shielding my sight, right hand holding my camera aloft in order to capture every second on film. And they had hippos...my alltime favourite animals (next to Koalas and possibly Panda's...).

Those of you LUCKY enough to be corralled into seeing all my pictures later (+6.500 and counting) will also get to see some of the videos! Yeay! I’m absolutely knackered now, but what a day!

Pak's Posse

Yeay! It's always nice to see friends again along the way, especially good friends! Pak travelled to Hong Kong for work this week and since she's not quite as bad a workaholic as I was she actually had some FREE TIME to spend with MOI! (Basically I camped out outside her hotel until she had no choice :P)

I went to meet her on saturday and took the lazy way out - I decided to get a cab from my hotel on Hong Kong Island to her hotel in Kowloon (East Tsim Sha Tsui). It shouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes and HK$60 as it's pretty much four blocks to the cross harbour tunnel and four blocks after. I figured - armed with a map, knowledge of where I need to go, and telling him the route I wanted to take when I got in... what could go wrong???? Right. The cabbie obviously saw me coming and decided to take me for a loooooooong ride. As soon as I realised he was going the long (3 times as long) way round, I started arguing with him. He pretended innocence, then ignorance, and finally that he didn't speak English. And so I ended up LATE (again, as usual when meeting Pak - it just wasn't meant to be) and HK$155 lighter. The worst thing? Since he - pretended - not to speak English, I couldn't even insult him properly. So I said the most hurtful thing I could think of that he might understand and that I happened to know the Mandarin for: You have no honour. Wow - that must have really given him 5 seconds of bad conscience! heheh. I think I need to go study Chinese!!!

Anyway - I met Pak's Posse (extended family) in Hong Kong. They do exist, Pak really does have Chinese roots and they're all extremely nice and kind...so I don't know what went wrong with Pak... Just Kidding. :) We had lunch with her aunt, who is about the nicest, politest, and certainly most graceful ladies ever. She showed us some markets in Kowloon that I hope I'll be able to find again sometime. It's like a giant bustling maze though, and (duh!) everything looks the same from every street corner!

In the evening I met her uncle, his wife and their two kids and the whole clan adopted me for dinner. Obviously both Pak and I seemed totally clueless about the new territories - so much so that her uncle offered to give us a tour the entire Sunday. So after meeting even more relatives for brunch the next day, we set off on our epic adventure... a mall, a computer accessories mall, another computer mall (yep, we can't escape what we love to do!) Aherm.

To be honest - HK is far too hot right now to enjoy anything other than sitting in airconditioning, walking in airconditioning, sleeping in airconditioning... you get my drift. So we first made a stop at a market to all buy umbrellas against the sun (I've taken on some local habits) and then drove to Golden Beach (I think) which is supposed to be one of or THE nicest beach in Hong Kong. When we arrived and got out for a walk it took me all of 5 minutes to rudely state: "Actually, sorry, but I'm not enjoying this. It's too hot, so I'll go park myself in a cafe with aircon and a cool drink. Just pick me up on your way back!" My mother would be so disappointed in me! As a result, I only have a photo of the walkway to the beach (see left), not the beach itself - sorry! I just couldn't hack it even with an umbrella and a fan. Luckily enough, all the others felt exactly the same way, they just weren't Dutch enough to blurt it out en-plein-publique. :) So we did a u-turn, got back into the airconditioned car and drove to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Hey, when in Hong Kong... eat Italian! yum yum.

Do you speak Chinglish?

OK, so I don't speak Mandarin and I am, after all, in China. Apart from a few useful phrases - such as: Hello, I Am Fine, Thank You, You're Welcome, Meet My Friend ___, Where Is The Toilet, Too Expensive, No Want, Do You Not Understand No? - I am an illiterate and a virtual mute in this huge country. Anyone who understands me when I try to point/gesture/grunt is my hero, and it's great to have at least some signs and notices in English... but sometimes they're just not that helpful.


Some signs are just funny: Handic Raf Tarts and FOCK DANCES.

Some are a little confusing, but still kind of get the message accross... kind of. No dabbling?


But then there's that last category of literal-translations-by-a-five-year-old-with-and-snoopy-and-charlie-brown-dictionary which are just plain unintelligible. Trying to book a flight online, I got the following message:


"If you can accept the way turn in other airports,The following is the Dali that we recommend for you to fly to the Lijiang of in turn(onward flight) the flight path.Please choose you feel quite the cheese in turn the city, we will search the service for you"


Not knowing if I feel "quite the cheese" or not, I elected to abort the attempt and try again later... perhaps when I feel a little more dairy-ing. :P

Life With The Lindsays - HELP!

Meet the Lindsays - the family who took me in and adopted me for 2 weeks, took me on trips to Guilin, Yangshuo, and Xi'an, and helped me to become acclimatised to China in the best possible way... by being totally pampered!

They introduced me to my first ever PEDICURE (results shown in picture may not seem as spectacular as they are in real life), dinner parties and WESTERN style restuarants(with Wara and Olivia - center), Starbucks morning with the ladies of the SWIC (Shenzhen International Women's Club), the complimentary golf cart that transports you up the hill to the house if you've ingested too much Frappuccino to be able to walk under your own steam, and last but not least...trips to Luo-Hu for some serious (fake) retail therapy... not that I condone that sort of thing... it's very wrong...bad Marisa...BAAAAD! But one can always look. :)

Unfortunately, the stay with them also made it absolutely clear that I need to learn a little more Chinese in order to be able to efficiently and safely navigate this awesome country. Olivia and I went to a local theme park called Windows On The World - where iconic landmarks from around the world are recreated in miniature. I wonder if my visits to the mini Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Mount Rushmore count and if I can therefore cross off Agra, Cairo and ? from my to-do list? Or would this be considered cheating a tiny bit? :P But I digress...

Finished with trudging through the park at 39C heat being the attraction as much as the miniature recreations themselves (some people politely asked to take pictures with us, ruder versions just stealthily took out mobile phones and cameras to take snaps... I should charge!), we TRIED to take a taxi back to a local mall. With false confidence I'd informed Mr. Lindsay before we left that "if I can't manage to get back by taxi in Shenzhen, I have no hope of travelling rural China on my own". We'd had the foresight to ask the family driver to write down our destination in Chinese AND I was also armed with a map. How hard could it be??? Hard. Useless. Impossible.

One after another, the taxi drivers refused to take us either saying they didn't understand (riiiight), didn't want, or just took a look at us FOWAYNERS and shook their heads "no". We had to call a secretary in the company to talk to the drivers in Chinese and explain. After 1hr of failed attempts, we were finally on our way. Unfortunately, the same thing repeated itself on the way from the mall to home - drivers again refused to take us despite the fact that I had marked the location on our map, we had a business card with the address in Chinese, and it was basically a 20 minute walk straight down the same road! Of course, had we actually known it was only that far we would have walked! Instead, we had to go back to the Mall Customer Service desk where they wrote "please take me to" in Chinese on the business card and sent us back to the taxis. Hey presto - suddenly people understood and we were on our way home.

Now I ask anyone - when a person gets in a cab, shows you a map with a big cross, gives you a business card with the address, which (coincidentally!) is the same as the location marked on the map... WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY WANT? Not rocket-science, is it? Eggsactly. Wow, am I screwed or what?!

So when I saw this billboard near the house ("Empty talk endangers the nation, practical work brings prosperity"), I figured I might as well take it to heart and do something PRACTICAL - like taking an intensive Mandarin course for a month. Maybe THEN I can get a taxi to take me where I want to go! Updates to follow.

Xi'an - China's past

OK, so it's been about 6 weeks since I was in Xi'an, but one thing is sure - it left an impression of MAHOOSIVENESS. (You read it here first, just remember where it came from once it enters the Oxford Dictionary!)

Slumming it as usual when travelling with Mrs Lindsay, Olivia and Wara, I grudgingly consented to stay at the Sofitel at Renmin Square in Xi'an. It's lobby (picture left) was marginally impressive, the restaurants of a "reasonable" quality, and the staff was sufficiently friend and efficient... ok, cut the blase attitude, it was AWESOME! When we entered our room for the first time, Wara (picture right) and I both decided we'd just move in and never leave... the beds were beyond heavenly. The only tiny-smaller-than-small-itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-miniscule little issue with the whole LUXURY HOTEL set-up? The lights wouldn't switch off and at 1am we had to call in housekeeping who sent a woman to press the switch. When the lights still didn't switch off - she tried the same switch about 50 more times over a period of 5+ minutes. When we finally convinced her that the switch wasn't going to start working without some divine or engineering intervention, she left and brought back a man and his toolbox. 45 minutes later we finally had a dark room, but precious little time left to appreciate our WONDERRRFUL beds!

The first evening we decided to go to a local Dumpling + Dancing show. Literally - a dinner with approximately 50 different types of dumpling (some more tasty than others... yergh! Olivia is a great actress!) followed by different dancing, music, and acrobatics from various tribes around China. Wonderfully kitsch and touristy, we had magnificent seats by the stage so I could film and photograph everything. Weirdly enough, that's still allowed here. After all, they can't very well copyright their own performances when...anyway. My favourite bit was a guy who "sang" like no whole man should be able to sing.

The next morning (slightly refreshed despite the late-night-light-switch-fiddle) we set out early for the Terracotta Warriors. The museum and the grounds surrounding it are impressive and very representative of Chinese tourist attractions - spotlessly clean and well-maintained, massive and not at all wheelchair friendly, with bathrooms you really don't want to frequent unless you're about to have an embarrassing accident en-plein-publique! We saw EVERYTHING and spent over 4 hours in the various halls and shops. I was trying to take a picture with the warriors, but a Chinese couple kept getting in the shot. As it turned out, they wanted a picture with me. Not only was I at the Terracotta Warriors, but once again I was part of the attraction! I really should start charging (100 for a group picture, 150 for a signed napkin...) :P

The next stop (after an interesting but delicious lunch) was the Xi'An city wall. One of the few remaining completely intact city walls built in the Ming Dynasty, it dates from XXXX and is YYYY long, took ZZZZ years to complete and has a GOLF CART that will transport you from one end of the wall to the other ON TOP OF THE WALL! It's important to always remember the pertinent facts... Absolutely amazing to be standing on top of a wall that is 15 metres high, at least 10 metres wide, and snakes its collossal way through the center of the now sprawling city.

The last stop that day (its exhausting to write about it, let alone to have done it all in 34C heat) was the Great Goose Pagoda - or DayaNn Ta. refreshed from the golf cart ride, I was once again able to take in more facts! One of the largest Buddhist temples around, and the place where the original texts were purportedly first transcribed by a monk from Sanskrit to Chinese. Unfortunately, we were too pooper to even try to climb the pagoda, so I only have a picture of me looking quite knackered at the bottom of the tower!

After a great dinner in the hotel, we did what any group of exhausted tourists would do... we gathered in one room and played cards until 1am! Having been taught the game of Canasta, I've become a real monster. So much so, that I thought nothing of walking from one end of the hotel (our room) to the other end of the hotel (Canasta Central, a.k.a. Mrs Lindsay & Olivia's room) clad in my pajamas and hotel bathrobe...fetchingly accessorised with my handbag! Unfortunately it was only AFTER I posed that we realised there were security cameras at short intervals along the entire length of the corridor. Well, hope someone enjoyed the show. :)