Big Trouble in Little China

The Punch is finally back after a two week trip to China. I had originally hoped to write some posts while overseas and keep people updated on my travels. However, the Chinese government has taken the liberty of blocking several websites from the public. This includes dangerous websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and any site with the word "blog" in it. So the running diary was not meant to be. But now that we're back in America where freedom rings (U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!), I figure I'd dedicate this entry to the China trip.

I had thought about going into detail about my various stops in China, but realized I was going to just be rambling on and on -- and that's not really what people want to read. So instead, here are a few observations I made during my time in China...

1. Chinese people are impatient
Exhibit A: Me and Alex Shen were waiting for the subway and were first in line to get on. As the train pulls into the station, we're suddenly being pushed up to the doors by the mass group of people trying to get prime position to get on the car. Waiting their turn to get on was out of the question, and they instead insisted on being the first ones on, even if it meant trampling us in the process. I felt like I needed some riot gear and tear gas to keep them back.

Exhibit B: When I first landed in Beijing, the plane had just pulled up to the gate and people were starting to grab their bags and line up in the aisles to deplane. As I'm standing there, I feel a sudden push at my right arm. There's an old Chinese woman forcing her way through and around people to get to the front. Mind you, the doors aren't even open yet; no one can move. But this lady was on a mission. That or she was told there was a prize for being the first one off.

2. You can never be careful enough about what you eat in foreign countries.
For the first 13 of my 15 days in China, I managed to avoid getting sick from eating anything. I consider this a particular victory when one considers that the last time I was in Asia (Korea 2006), I got absurdly sick from eating something. Like, really sick. Long story short, it was a pretty miserable two or three days, and one of my goals on the China trip was to not replicate that. On day number 14 of 15, however, the streak was broken. My last night in China, I started feeling pretty bad in my stomach. Needless to say, a long night ensued. (BTW, I'm pretty sure I got sick from eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard. It wasn't even Chinese food; it was an American concoction. My home country betrayed me. In spite of that, I'm pretty forgiving, so I'll probably be back in line at a DQ by the end of the month because, damn, DQ Blizzards are awesome.)

The one thing I had to remind myself of was that I was going to embark on a 10-12 hour plane ride in the morning. This left me with two choices: One, hope by some miracle of God that the bad food would somehow naturally pass through my system by morning. Or two, force it out. After feeling pretty terrible for three hours or so in the middle of the night, I decided to go with option two meaning I pretty much had to force myself to throw up. I'll spare you the details, but I felt like a bulimic teenager. Anyway, it ended up working for the most part. I popped some Immodium throughout flight home and I made back to the states without any major incidents.

3. Stuff in China may be cheap, but you've got to stick to your principles
The exchange rate in China is about 6.8 Yuan to the dollar. Let's put that in perspective: a combo meal at McDonalds (which probably costs around six or seven dollars with tax in America) costs about 24 Yuan in China, or less than four dollars American. So for an American to be in China, it's a pretty good deal.

Still, you've got to stand up for yourself and your wallet a little. After a two day hike through the mountains above Tiger Leaping Gorge, our backpacking group of five wanted to make the descent to bottom of the gorge to see the river. There was an old woman there, however, whose family had apparently built a path down to the river and they were charging 10 yuan per person to walk down it. Now, look, 10 yuan is not even $1.50 American. But we had already paid 50 Yuan to climb the mountain, and now this old woman wanted more? Again, it's not a ton of money, but the PRINCIPLE of it made us argue with her for a while. In the end, we ended up paying the fare. You might think we were kind of dumb to fight about this with a woman who didn't have very much, but being in China does something to you. You think less in terms of how much something costs, and more in terms of whether you should be paying a certain amount period.

Alex Shen made a pretty good point though: it's a lot cheaper to make it rain in China.

4. No place like home
As much as I enjoyed my time in China, it's nice to be back in the U.S. It's nice to be able to eat without having to worry about whether it'll make me sick. It's nice to be able to use my cell phone freely. It's nice to be able to go on Facebook. And it's nice to be able to drive knowing that the majority of the other drivers are going to obey traffic laws.

Oh, and it was nice to come back and have the same songs that were played on the radio non-stop when I left, still playing non-stop when I returned... namely Drake "Best I Ever Had" and Keri Hilson/Ne-Yo/Kanye "Knocks You Down." Seriously... aren't people tired of these songs yet?


Anyway, it's good to be home.