Man Man Zou

Two days ago, we arrived by boat to the city of Yichang on the Yangtzi River. Most people skip Yichang and head somewhere more exciting immediately, but I wanted to stay for a visit to the big crazy dam- the Three Gorges Dam.

All of the income in my family comes from BC Hydro (the hydro electric company of my province). We’re a ‘Hydro family’ (even though these days the company is all sold off and gone to hell). My sister and brother have both worked at the huge dam up north, which I have visited many times. I owed it to them, and myself, to visit the largest dam in the world.

We could have seen it the night before as an extra excursion on the river cruise, but as I said before, I didn’t want to miss going through the huge locks, and I didn’t want to tour the dam at night.

The locks were exciting, but the whole process took about 8 hours! I think there was a delay because we had to wait for other cargo ships and boats to come. We could see the change in water levels just outside our window, as the lock walls were about a foot away from our window. The water level slowly dropped. I think there was a mistake in the timing, because the many people who went on the dam tour weren’t picked up by the boat until 1:30am (their tour started at 5pm)! I was asleep when our boat picked them all up, but I heard a commotion outside so I think they were all angry. But in China the customer is never right, so I’m sure there wasn’t even an apology from whoever screwed up. I’m so glad I didn’t take that tour.

In Yichang, we walked around for a while trying to find a hotel. Most that we came across were asking ridiculous prices because we are foreigners. I could see it in their eyes when we walked in to the hotels that they were going to rip us off. It didn’t help that there were a couple of annoying touts following us around, trying to get a cut from the hotel because they ‘helped’ us find the place. Finally we ditched them by walking up a residential road, and when we returned we found our place. It was a wondrous dump, but only 10Y per person. I was happy, the lady was happy (she was really nice), and we could finally take off our backpacks.

The next step was finding a tour of the dam. I figured there was no other way to see the dam, except on a tour. Good old Lonely Planet’s wise words of advice said to ask at the bus station. So we went there, asked, and were put on a bus. The bus dropped us off at some little bus station about an hour away, and of course there was nothing there except a few annoying guys offering to take us to see the dam. Thanks a lot Lonely Planet- I’ve had it with you!

The drivers were asking ridiculous prices for just a couple of hours (200Y + the 68Y admission tickets) likely thanks to some stupid foreigners who showed up and readily handed over a fortune. The tickets to get into the dam were expensive, and eventually we came to a deal of 180Y for two hours, including the 68Y admission tickets.

I didn’t really like our driver from the start. He kept trying to get us to go to other places as well. I just wanted the dam. I’ve seen a zillion tourist traps already; I now only accept the famous ones.

He also started acting sketchy. He stopped at a small canteen to buy what looked like our tickets. Then he drove along a very narrow dirt road. There was a barbed-wire fence between our little road and the main road. He rolled up our tinted windows, and continued along the dirt road. He asked us if we had any hats we could wear, to blend in with the locals. We didn’t. We passed dam guards along the main road who looked at our car, but couldn’t see in. He then found a way onto the main road, stopped, and told us he had to run back around the corner and give the tickets to the guards. Right away this seemed bogus, since he could have just taken the main road and given the guards the tickets there. He soon returned, and we were on our way to two viewpoints of the dam.

When we agreed on the price, he said two hours, and that he’d take us to five viewpoints. After the tour ended much sooner than expected, and we returned to the bus station, I said there was no way I was going to pay all that money for just one hour, and he didn’t even buy the 68Y tickets. We held out 80Y- take it or leave it. Of course this wasn’t good enough for him, so we just walked away, bought our bus tickets, and got on the bus. He followed us on to continue the arguing.

Before I go on, I should add what arguing with the Chinese is often like. We have gotten pretty good at it after dealing with our annoying school in Taiwan. It involves repeating your side of the story, and defending yourself-even it means you’re just stupidly repeating yourself over and over, which is often the case. As long as you don’t get angry, then neither will the Chinese. NEVER get angry, or you’ll get into the whole confusing losing face issue. Arguing with the Chinese is just a battle of stubbornness and patience, often there are no conclusions.

So there we were on the bus that was going to leave in five minutes. He kept saying something about foreigners not being allowed to see the dam. We said that’s BS, he didn’t buy the 68Y tickets, he didn’t take us to five places, and it wasn’t two hours. We just kept the 80Y out in front of him the whole time. No one was angry. Mark repeated the facts, I repeated the facts, and the driver repeated his story about foreigners and tried to joke about it with the other people on the bus (who, of course, didn’t really give a crap). I just relaxed and looked out the window, while Mark did a little more talking. It didn’t matter what anyone said. The fact was that it was only a matter of time before the bus was to leave, and he would have no choice but take the money.

It was funny because he even got a little whiney, and started lowering his 180Y original price. We just ignored him and kept the 80Y in front of him, ready for the taking. Finally, the ticket lady yelled at him and he had no choice but to get off with his 80Y. As he left he said more words (though not in anger, of course), but we didn’t really care what he said anymore. Once the bus started rolling, quite a few people smiled at us (it was a nice smile), and talked about it. We overheard people say things like “But he didn’t buy the tickets”- it was funny to hear them gossip about it.

We rested at our 20Y hotel that evening. When I opened our door to go to the bathroom, there was a lady in the TV room, not at all surprised to see two foreigners suddenly appear in a very non-foreigner place.

“Come sit down”, she said. She didn’t speak English, but was one of those people who assume everyone can speak Chinese.

So I sat and watched a China-Japan war flick / soap opera thing on TV with her. That’s one thing I see all the time on TV here- a lot of harmless- but slightly brainwashing- shows against Japan.

The lady was from Wuhan, a huge city of more than 8-million (Ever heard of it? Didn’t think so). Wuhan is 5 hours away from Yichang

She made strange conversation with me, as though she didn’t notice I am a foreigner. She didn’t even ask me where I was from. I quite liked talking with her because I couldn’t figure her out- I couldn’t stereotype her into other Western or Chinese stereotypes that I have stored in my head.

She is 41 years old, and came to Yichang for one night, just for some sightseeing. I couldn’t figure out why she’d take a 5-hour bus ride, alone, to go to a boring city like Yichang. And, she was staying at the biggest dump in town. The hotel we were staying at was more like a trucker stop, or a place where poor people would go for a quick rest between trains. She didn’t want to see the dam either, so I have no idea what she did the whole time in Yichang. I found all that to be intriguing, but of course after a while I had hit the bottom of my Chinese-language bucket and there was no more I could say, ask, or understand.

Speaking of that, Yichang was an awful city for its dialect. I’ve heard stories about villages 10km apart in China not being able to understand each other because of differing dialects, but most people should be able to speak standard mandarin Chinese in the cities. Besides a few people in the tourism industry (i.e. at the train station and hotels), no one in Yichang could understand me. The simplest things, like ordering a strawberry sundae, got blank stares in return (they probably thought I was speaking English to them). It drove me nuts (how dare people not understand my ‘standard’ way of speaking!) :)

Yesterday, we caught a hard-sleeper train to Xi’an. It was a 17 hour train ride, but we were expecting only 10 hours (thanks again, Lonely Planet). It would have been an ok ride, except Western and Chinese cultures clashed again, as the monstrous couple below us smoked (which is actually not allowed on sleepers), and went into full conversation at 3am when the wife woke up with something to say. There were no lowered voices for their entire conversation, but of course Mark and I didn’t say anything, since that’s the Chinese way!

Now we’re in the famous city of Xi’an (contrary to what most foreigners believe, Xi’an is NOT pronounced with an ‘X’!). It’s the first place I’ve been to in China where I actually knew of the city before I left on this trip.

Today is the first day of school, which became apparent to me when I saw hundreds of university students signing up for stuff at the train station. Then we saw all the elementary and high school kids in their spiffy uniforms.

Today is also a sad day of celebration. It’s the 40th anniversary of China taking over lovely little Tibet. We watched the communist celebrations in Tibet on TV, and I couldn’t help but feel depressed. Hundreds of soldiers marching in unison. Followed by hundreds of women in skirts, holding machine guns, marching in unison. Followed by groups of forlorn-looking Tibetans putting on their performances in front of hundreds of proud, smug Chinese officials. I don’t even know how they have the nerve to call it a celebration. Tibet is closed to foreigners right now, since the Chinese don’t want any party-poopers showing up to protest the event. That would make them lose face!