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China Sept 06
My Hong-Kong adventures having come to an end my friend Laurene and I embarked on our journey through China, starting with the Li river (Yellow River) in the Guangxi province in East Southern China, continuing through to the Anhui province in East Central China where we visited Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) and Xidi & Hongcun (UNESCO world heritage villages of the Qing and Ming dynasties) and finishing in Beijing & the Great Wall in East Northern China.
In many respects, China was a perfect place for two young women to travel alone- in my experience, the Chinese are respectful, they do not hassle tourists, they don’t try to rip them off, they don’t steal from them, they will go out of their way to do business with them, they are very ingenious & sharp (to this day, I still wonder how some of the Chinese we encountered understood what we wanted considering how restricted our communication means were), they are very fair: prices are to be negotiated but once agreed on they do not come back on the price. Often, we found ourselves with little choice but to depend on locals and, despite a few incidents which arose mainly out of communication problems, in the end the Chinese we trusted always completed their share of the agreement.
I found the Chinese people forward-looking, they do not stop to feel sorry for themselves- one scene in Hong Kong’s subway struck me particularly: I saw a man with his whole leg amputated; the man was not begging, he was not miserable, he was not looked at in contempt, instead on his crutches, slaloming between commuters, he was going much faster than fellow two-legged passengers- to me, this was the perfect illustration of their forward, get-on-with-it attitude.
The Chinese are also proud people- they will go out of their way to do business with tourists but they are not willing to “prostitute” themselves: when haggling, if you bargain down too low they simply will tell you that they can not sell at that price and (most of the time) leave you alone.
We saw no beggars during our trip- granted, begging is restricted by the government but even if it were not, one can tell it is simply not in the Chinese mentality to beg; I am sure, if given the choice between earning or being handed out some money, the vast majority of Chinese would prefer to earn it- in fact, I once left a 10 Yuan note (roughly one euro) for a 5 Yuan meal (I was very happy with the service: seeing my disappointed expression when presented with the incomprehensible Chinese menu, the lady had invited me into the kitchen and I was able to point at all the ingredients I wanted), only to find the lady running after me in the street to give me back the change; I tried to explain it was a tip but the whole concept was clearly odd to her and I understood I risked offending her if I insisted further that she keep the money.
Overall, I found Chinese people extremely trustworthy, respectful, fair and hard working. In fact they are such arduous workers that sometimes one wonders whether they aspire to anything other than work, whether they would be moved by a poignant book, whether they would be touched by beautiful music- the Chinese do not show their emotions, they do not reveal their inner feeling, they are not expansive like Latin nations and it can be hard to even get a glimpse of what affects them, what moves them. When I shared this thought with a cynic friend he commented: “extremely hard working people with no soul? No wonder they are taking over the world!” I am not qualified to assess the depth of Chinese people’s soul but during our travels we encountered some very sweet and engaging Chinese people- the fact that they are more reserved & discreet does not necessarily imply that they feel less: the intensity of one’s emotions should not be measured by the external displays of these emotions. In fact, the Chinese being very respectful of others, I would not be surprised if they considered that over expressing one’s joy would be disrespectful towards people who have less reasons to be joyous whilst over displaying one’s pain would unnecessarily burden other people who have their own worries.
The Chinese are often said to be a very individualistic nation (which is hardly surprising considering the one child policy) but I have found that wishing their private sphere to be respected they also go out of their way to ensure they do not infringe on others’, which implies a great awareness of others- for instance, the white breathing masks they sometimes wear whilst travelling (often caricatured by Westerners) are as much to protect others from catching their germs as they are to protect themselves from diseases. Similarly the Chinese do not litter (which is greatly disrespectful to others), in fact the Chinese are often said to be dirty but everywhere we went was very clean- of course Beijing is extremely polluted, smells, and by any Western standards would qualify as filthy, but it is due to a lack of infrastructures not to the inherent dirty nature of their inhabitants.
In many respects, China was a perfect place for two young women to travel alone- in my experience, the Chinese are respectful, they do not hassle tourists, they don’t try to rip them off, they don’t steal from them, they will go out of their way to do business with them, they are very ingenious & sharp (to this day, I still wonder how some of the Chinese we encountered understood what we wanted considering how restricted our communication means were), they are very fair: prices are to be negotiated but once agreed on they do not come back on the price. Often, we found ourselves with little choice but to depend on locals and, despite a few incidents which arose mainly out of communication problems, in the end the Chinese we trusted always completed their share of the agreement.
I found the Chinese people forward-looking, they do not stop to feel sorry for themselves- one scene in Hong Kong’s subway struck me particularly: I saw a man with his whole leg amputated; the man was not begging, he was not miserable, he was not looked at in contempt, instead on his crutches, slaloming between commuters, he was going much faster than fellow two-legged passengers- to me, this was the perfect illustration of their forward, get-on-with-it attitude.
The Chinese are also proud people- they will go out of their way to do business with tourists but they are not willing to “prostitute” themselves: when haggling, if you bargain down too low they simply will tell you that they can not sell at that price and (most of the time) leave you alone.
We saw no beggars during our trip- granted, begging is restricted by the government but even if it were not, one can tell it is simply not in the Chinese mentality to beg; I am sure, if given the choice between earning or being handed out some money, the vast majority of Chinese would prefer to earn it- in fact, I once left a 10 Yuan note (roughly one euro) for a 5 Yuan meal (I was very happy with the service: seeing my disappointed expression when presented with the incomprehensible Chinese menu, the lady had invited me into the kitchen and I was able to point at all the ingredients I wanted), only to find the lady running after me in the street to give me back the change; I tried to explain it was a tip but the whole concept was clearly odd to her and I understood I risked offending her if I insisted further that she keep the money.
Overall, I found Chinese people extremely trustworthy, respectful, fair and hard working. In fact they are such arduous workers that sometimes one wonders whether they aspire to anything other than work, whether they would be moved by a poignant book, whether they would be touched by beautiful music- the Chinese do not show their emotions, they do not reveal their inner feeling, they are not expansive like Latin nations and it can be hard to even get a glimpse of what affects them, what moves them. When I shared this thought with a cynic friend he commented: “extremely hard working people with no soul? No wonder they are taking over the world!” I am not qualified to assess the depth of Chinese people’s soul but during our travels we encountered some very sweet and engaging Chinese people- the fact that they are more reserved & discreet does not necessarily imply that they feel less: the intensity of one’s emotions should not be measured by the external displays of these emotions. In fact, the Chinese being very respectful of others, I would not be surprised if they considered that over expressing one’s joy would be disrespectful towards people who have less reasons to be joyous whilst over displaying one’s pain would unnecessarily burden other people who have their own worries.
The Chinese are often said to be a very individualistic nation (which is hardly surprising considering the one child policy) but I have found that wishing their private sphere to be respected they also go out of their way to ensure they do not infringe on others’, which implies a great awareness of others- for instance, the white breathing masks they sometimes wear whilst travelling (often caricatured by Westerners) are as much to protect others from catching their germs as they are to protect themselves from diseases. Similarly the Chinese do not litter (which is greatly disrespectful to others), in fact the Chinese are often said to be dirty but everywhere we went was very clean- of course Beijing is extremely polluted, smells, and by any Western standards would qualify as filthy, but it is due to a lack of infrastructures not to the inherent dirty nature of their inhabitants.