After a day of exploring the metropolitan streets of Shanghai, we hopped on a train to the lakeside city of Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a beautiful, old man-made lake and park area surrounded by an otherwise incredibly ugly industrial city. Our first experience of the city was a bad one. We exited the train station and hopped into the first cab that offered his services. Given that the first cab was an unlicensed cab, we would have been better off walking. This particular gentleman responded to my inquiry about how much to take us to the lake with an English “fourteen”.
Or, anyway, I thought he said fourteen. I tried to confirm the fourteeness of the price while the driver was weaving on and off the road and more than occasionally driving against traffic in the wrong lane. Our esteemed chauffeur responded to me with grunts. He did however quickly clarify his position on the price of the trip after dropping us off, explaining that the price was actually forty, not fourteen. He was rather insistent on this matter, and our dialogue boiled down to this.
(Note, that this conversation happened in Chinese, which means that, in the absence of a better translator I have opted for a little flexible interpretation of the major points.)Cabbie: “You Pay Me 40 Yuan Now, you Dumb white Foreign schmuck!”
Me: “While I hear and understand your proposal, I must respectfully disagree. You initially stated that the cost of your services was only fourteen yuan.
Cabbie: “I am going pretend like I am calling someone to get you in trouble, all while speaking so fast that there is no way you will be able to understand me! Meanwhile, I will shout and grab your arm in the hope that you are intimidated into paying me to go away.”
Me: “I am unfortunately unable to understand the finer points of your arguments due to the velocity of your verbiage. Regardless, you have no hope of receiving the sum you feel is deserved. My parents and I are going into this yonder Starbucks, to drink lattes that each cost more than the difference between our two proposed fees for your services. I recommend you call the police to mediate our predicament, or, barring that, kindly go fornicate yourself.”
Shockingly, the cab driver followed us into the Starbucks. The baristas confirmed that yes, the man was trying to rip us off (a fair price from the train station was apparently 11 or 12 yuan). They then proceeded to mock the cab driver until he left in embarrassment. He did not go far though, but instead sat in his car giving us the finger for, I kid you not, almost twenty minutes while we idly drank our coffee. Some people just cannot let go.
The rest of our time was spent wandering around the lake in Hangzhou. We visited the White Snake Pagoda (There we went again by ourselves. Wait, that’s not how it goes? Never mind). Not too much else happened. We ate beggar’s chicken, and later some great curry, then headed back to the train station via an 11 yuan taxi ride.
The next day we went to Suzhou. Suzhou is known as the “Venice of China”, and whoever dubbed it this clearly had never been to Venice. The canals and gardens were still rather beautiful though, as was the pagoda complex with the two year old Hyatt hotel tastefully integrated with the 500 year old temples. Suzhou was scenic, relaxing, and rather uneventful. So, I will talk about a phenomena we witnessed throughout the trip; the hawkers.
In most tourist locations around the globe, one can find the product that the region is most noted for producing. Predictably, China’s hawkers most often sell cheap plastic crap. I don’t want to seem like I am disparaging it, however; it is really nice cheap plastic crap. Singing peanuts! Surprisingly bright green laser pointers! A gelatinous pig that reforms after you smash it to the ground! All and all, great stuff.
Many cities have hawkers selling things by the street side, but China’s are pretty impressive. By and large, they do not speak any English. They do, however, see foreigners as wallets with legs. So, in an attempt to overcome their communication difficulties, they use the tool most easily available to them; the word “Hello”.
Or, rather, “HelloHelloHello! Helllllloooooo! Hellllloooo? Hellololo!!! Hello!” They seemed to be trying to fit every aspect of their sales pitch into a single, oft-repeated word. The hawkers will follow you wherever you go, saying “Hello?”. When I threw them a little “Wo Bu Yao” (I don’t want), they just laughed and continued saying “Helloo? Hello? Hello!”
After Suzhou, we took a night train to the ancient city of Xian. Xian was one of the first capitals of China, and it looks the part, but other than the old black-brick walls that surround the city center, it hardly looks the part. Much of the city looks quite modern, with tree-shaded wide roads flowing between five or six story buildings on either side (it even has a Walmart!).
This impression did not last once we reached the quite-old Muslim Quarter, however. There, one can see lams and pigs being butchered on the sidewalk, along with cricket shops, little old ladies making dumplings, and, of course, legions of hawkers. The Great Mosque, a mix of Chinese architecture and Islamic calligraphy, is quite beautiful. The thick coat of dust that covers every inch of the place reminds visitors of its rather impressive age (700AD). I thought this was one of the more interesting parts of the trip.
The same cannot be said for the Terracotta Warriors. We took an hour long bus ride out into what one might call the suburbs of Xian to see the “World Wonder”. I was not impressed. That’s a bit strong. I just feel like I got little out of it that I could not have by reading National Geographic. It is big. The tour guide was friendly but largely unhelpful, and mostly just repeated what was on the signs. There are lots of statues, most of which are in broken piles. I don’t know. It just did not do it for me.
After about two hours of looking around, we headed back towards the bus and back to Xian. Later that night, we boarded a night train to Pingyao, which I will write about, along with Beijing, in the next post.
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