China in general and Guilin

The scenery was gorgeous.
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After the conference, I only had a week to see the a couple famous attractions in China, and the easiest way to do this is to take a guided tour. I hate guided tours but would never have been able to see so much in such a short time. We used the tour company CTS or China Travel Service. I have a few complaints about this tour company, including certain stores they wasted my time at (see “Shopping” below), not giving us any free time, and bad food . On a positive note, they did bring us to impressive acrobatic, dancing, and kung fu shows after or during dinners. The food at about 50% of the restaurants the tour took us to was worse than what you would get at a cheap Chinese restaurant in the US- so it was very disappointing. The guides would not let you go next door to get good food. Some food was good- such as the “dumplings”, the Peking duck, and Mongolian hot pots, but those were the exceptions and they had very little taste to me. Do most westerners hate food with flavor, spice, or texture? Or do the Chinese eat bland food in most places we visited? I was adding an awful lot of extra seasoning to everything I ate while on the tour. The guides never ate the same meals as we did, which was a bad sign right there. Requesting that one out of the 10 dishes be with local spices got us nowhere.

They never let you take pictures of the kitchens in China...
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Shopping: Our tour company obviously gets a commission from certain stores that they bring tourists to. If you take a guided tour of China, do not buy anything from the “high quality” stores the tour guide takes you to because the exact same items can be found at small private stores on the street or at the markets for about 1/6 to 1/10th the price- plus you would be helping the local people rather than a government store and your tour guide. Do not believe any label or any vendor claiming an item is Armani, silk, leather, etc. Learn how to bargain- in touristy areas, the locals will quote a crazy high price. I noticed this especially at the Pearl Market in Beijing. They would start out at 500 yuan for something and end up at 50 yuan or less- it was really crazy! In order to get decent prices, you need to counter offer their 500 with 5 or 10 yuan and slowly and grudgingly work your way up. If you walk away the price drops dramatically. If you don’t like people hawking you or possibly grabbing you- don’t go to the Pearl Market. I refused to buy anything from anyone who grabbed me, because I do not want to encourage that rude behavior. I also refused to buy anything from someone pushing items at me in the street for the same reason. Keep in mind there are more polite vendors with the exact same items as the rude vendors. It is hard to know how to bargain when you do not know how much the item should cost, so I have included some prices that I paid for some items, or heard they were worth. I have no idea if these are decent prices. For a very nice looking tea set, I paid 70 yuan. Fake shoes/ fake handbag- possibly 50-75 yuan. Set of small terra cotta warriors- 10 yuan for the whole set and box (they looked 4-5 inches tall).  Food is super cheap: 1 or 2 yuan for most things on a stick on the street. No I never got sick from the street food, but make sure it looks fresh a few minutes before it is well cooked. I usually eat where I see the locals go- that way you know it is good and you can also see what is a fair price to pay, although no matter what your price will likely be a little higher.

Guilin- well worth the trip- amazing

Fishermen use cormorants to catch fish. A ring around their necks prevents the birds from swallowing the fish, but that didn't prevent them from trying. The birds seemed frustrated.
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In general: Looking down from the airplane, you realize how crowded China is. No speck of land is wilderness and tiny strips of individual crops are squeezed between the endless yet orderly “villages”, which coalesce to form a lacy meshwork like loose-knit crochet where the villages and roads are the knots and yarn and the crops make up the holes. Guilin, Beijing and Xi’an had terrible air pollution due to coal and wood burning.  People cough and hoark loogies in the bathrooms and on the sidewalks frequently, and you see people wearing masks (our guide said because they were sick and they didn’t want to spread it). However, the streets are very clean- free of trash, and there is nice landscaping with bushes and trees in many areas. The Chinese appear to really like multi-colored light to illuminate things, making many naturally beautiful trees, rocks, and caves look gaudy and fake when illuminated with a red light. But this artificial-ness appears to be part of the culture and adds to the charm of what makes China different from home. The traffic is crazy in Guilin- traffic signs and signals are entirely optional and pulling out directly in front of others is the norm. Crazy, home-made contraptions putter down the streets spewing smoke with spinning flywheels threatening to suck in someone’s loose jacket. Bicycles, tricycles, and scooters clog every empty space between cars during rush hour. The bigger your vehicle, the more other vehicles respect you. Pedestrians are fair game as they scuttle between traffic to cross the streets. There is some horn-honking, but not constant like you hear in South American cities. I also never witnessed any road rage or excessive anger which I thought was interesting. I suppose you would be exhausted if you got mad at every person that pulled out in front of you. I was always in a bus while in traffic, so my view on the situation was limited, but Beijing and Xi’an seemed a little more organized.

The crabs were really good.
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Guilin: The hills around Guilin were amazing, I was in awe during the Li river cruise.  I wished that we had stayed in the small spire- surrounded Yangshuo at the end of the Li river boat cruise (even though it was touristy) rather than in the city of Guilin. The Reed Flute cave was also impressive but it is hard to ignore the multi-colored lights, flower smells, and bird noises. Elephant Trunk Hill was uninspiring. The most interesting thing there was that when our group assembled for a group picture, many of the Chinese tourists gathered around to take pictures of us. Also, complete strangers would take stand in front of me and take my picture, or want to pose standing next to you to take a picture. Apparently they must only see westerners on TV? Guilin food is spicier than some other areas- too bad we didn’t get much of the real food. The kung fu show at the Red Theater was great.