fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

My introduction to China was somewhat strange which was to be expected when sailing on a ship from Kobe under Chinese flag but stocked with the vending machines and products that I had come to love in Japan. The crew was Chinese who spoke superficial English but most of the passengers were Japanese who spoke unusually good English. The Chinese food served was undersized, overpriced and glistened and tasted like MSG-saturated plastic. Below deck there was a Japanese sauna and bath. Entertainingly the stewardesses extracted a cut-throat price from me for the Chinese entry visa and gobbled up all my dollars at extortionate exchange rates - it's hard to argue with a pretty smile that doesn't understand English. But then they made up for it with last-night karaoke performances and an attempt at a traditional Chinese dance with napkins. On the last day on board I then overheard an elderly Japanese gentlemen making conversation with a traveller from Australia.
"A lot of people in China," he started somewhat expectantly.
"Yes, the most," the Aussie replied with a baffled grin directed at me.
There was a slight pause, as though the older man was deliberating very carefully, and then he suddenly stated very matter-of-factly, "A lot of rats."
Make of that what you will but giggles by the gaijin ensued.
It was all already quite surreal as we started nearing the Chinese mainland after 48 hours and a cloud of thick pollution hung over the horizon of the canal into the port-town of Tanggu; it was promptly and aptly decided that we were entering China through its asshole.
Once we set foot on China's proverbial buttcheeks I collected my visa (to find that amusingly my name had been misspelled), passed through the SARS thermometer check (you were kindly informed to prepare for immediate quarantine in case of failure - outer Mongolia anyone?), souvenired an extra-wet and brightly shining red stamp in my passport and caught a bus to Beijing, glorious capital of the 2008 Olympic games. They already seem to be as prepared as Greece currently is; most of the area appears to be a building site or a locale for enormous modern art monuments, economically consisting of steel beams arranged in elongated geometric shapes. It'll sure be pretty here in four years.
And all that could pretty much sum up Beijing - it is a pretty strange place. In the poorer districts men generally only seem to lounge around, sip tea and chat, all the while their impressive chow-mein gut holding up their rolled up T-shirt; the women too seem to like to stand around and chat with each other on the street, often carrying a screaming child. They are amazingly friendly and seem very willing to throw token phrases of English at me and break out in giggles when I drop a Mandarin phrase out of my amazing vocabulary that consists of exactly two words. Conversely, anyone who seems to be working in a shop or behind a counter and the like are supremely grumpy towards me. The Beijingese seem to be happy doing nothing and seriously despise any sort of work - which is a pretty healthy attitude in my book (isn't stereotyping people a wonderful thing?).
Chinese national TV is also a good source of amusement. Viewing the English-language national TV channel for just a few minutes gives you a complete view of what is going on in China: everything is rising, from GDP-aquatic-food-price-confidence to constructing-asphalt-roads-into-the-middle-of-nowhere-index and other such nonsense. It's actually quite hard to make sense of anything but it all sounds pretty rosy.
Then there is the Euro 2004 football coverage which is simply hilarious - a goal is occasionally followed by a mumbled "oi" of the commentators several seconds later and most attempts at goal rarely warrant a comment, let alone a variation in tone of voice. Chinese football commentary must be the perfect antithesis to the South American one-minute crescendo screams of "GOOOOOOOOOOOL!".
But in compensation there is pretty decent and affordable food here - even if there is often more grease than you imagined possible and the flavour can be overwhelmingly intense (MSG is a way of life here).
And of course China is the place where DVD piracy has been elevated to an art form - oh, it's so beautiful, special features and all!
The nightlife is also quite entertaining (even if slightly expat-heavy who often lechily gallivant around while wife and kids are probably back in Europe). And at the end of the day there is the never-ending potential for totalitarianism/communism-related jokes that are just begging to be made here and brighten up the day - and brightening is severely needed in Beijing where hazy, smoggy skies are the rule.
Culturally I have been rather disappointed (or possibly unenthusiastic): the Forbidden City pretty much lives up to its name with most interesting-seeming areas being "forbidden for visitors" and the Chinese Wall too has evaded me - rainy days have made the climb up to the remoter sections either undesirable or just plain dangerous. And then of course, I am quite lazy too - wall, schmall, whatever.
But it's been great fun overall and not only because just like in Japan I have been spending the majority of time here with an old friend. Nevertheless, move on I must and tomorrow I hope to experience the marvels of Chinese train travel all the way across this huge country into the South. As in so many places I am afraid I will not even begin to be able to do justice to this China in such a short time.

[Weirdly I have been able to access this blog randomly at various times while at other times it seems to be blocked by the Chinese government's firewall. Strange, strange place but it feels liberating and slightly subversive to be blogging through the censorship anyway... But seriously folks, you barely notice it's not a democracy around here - could do with some of this political system elsewhere in the world, possibly.
In other news this time around I have managed to caption the photos (the Japan pics are also captioned now, btw). Click here for Albums China 1 and 2 with pictures of a skinned sheep and other random rubbish.]