2000 Newsletter - China
The big thing about 2000 was always going to be my return trip to China. When I was there in 1990, I promised myself that I would return in 2000 so that I could see how the country had changed in the intervening 10 years. Virtually everything in my life has changed since then, I have got married, am no longer an accountant and live in a different house, but I still wanted to return to the country that mesmerised me 10 years ago.
Once the decision to return to China was made, we had to decide where we would go. I had to return to Xi’an. Brian wanted to visit Beijing and Shanghai and I wanted to see how Hong Kong had changed since the handover. Eventually, we found a tour that included all these places but at each location did not visit the places that I had not found particularly interesting the first time round. This tour had the added attraction of including a trip into the countryside and also visited the Yellow Mountain. If you have ever seen Chinese pictures with a mountain appearing out of the top of the clouds, then that is the Yellow Mountain.
Street bird seller
So, what had changed about China? There appeared to be a major movement toward the material possessions that we in the West take for granted.
- There were much fewer bicycles and many more taxis.
- Expensive cars were much in evidence (Audi and Mercedes)
- Virtually everywhere we visited had a new airport. Planes now jet engines and didn't give out the little gifts that we received last time.
- Public telephones were everywhere in the cities and there was mobile phone access virtually everywhere we went.
- Large TVs were much in evidence (visible at night as many houses weren't lit) and the programmes were far more Western (Adverts and Game Shows).
- Carrefour supermarkets and Kentucky Fried Chicken appear to have made major inroads.
China appears to be in the midst of rapid development and at times appears to be one very large building site. One reason for this may be that there are many more tourists. The people are now much more used to seeing Westerners and we only got stared at a couple of times. Virtually everywhere we visited was much more crowded. The concept of personal space is one that the Chinese do not appear to understand.
The official policy of overcharging tourists may be in decline, but the effect of it lives on. Tips are now expected everywhere. The main driving force of the population appears to be money and the concept of “value for money” does not appear to exist. Hawkers have taken a hold at the major tourist sites. It is an experience to “run the gauntlet” in these places. On many occasions, we wished that we could look at the goods on offer, but doing this would have subjected us to an onslaught that we chose to avoid.
Throughout the tour, the food was plentiful. For the first few days, we enjoyed trying each of the plates that were brought to us in a seemingly never-ending stream each lunch and dinner time. After that, we started to dream of a light snack. We can only hope that the surplus food found its way into the mouths of the local inhabitants. As we went from place to place, the style of food changed markedly. In some places it was so spicy that many of the group were unable to eat anything other than rice. This made things rather difficult for them as the rice only appeared at the very end of the meal. We had a Chinese speaker in the group and she would often ask what we were eating, and in some cases we really would rather not have known!
It appears to be the norm for Chinese tourist guides to take a group along at a very fast pace, spending very long hours visiting many places. This was certainly what happened to me in 1990 and talking to people in other tour groups said that this was happening to them. There appears to be no understanding that people might want to know in advance what was happening and that they might want to be told the truth. Instead it is normal to find out the reality as the situation unfolds. If the guides have their way, a visit to China can be like being on a high-speed train, there is little allowance made for the fact that people might just want the chance to take the sights that they are taken to view.
One major change in China is the attitude to smoking. Last time, the Chinese smoked everywhere. This time, it was normal to see people standing outside buildings smoking, however in a restaurant, an ash tray frequently still appears as if by magic if one starts smoking.