The Dumb Laowai

I love trying to determine the purpose of marketing efforts here. Any marketing has numerous variables, including product features, target audience, image, message medium, etc. On top of that you have cultural values and experiences, which are difficult for me to appreciate fully, as well as a lack of experience with capitalist activities. All of these combined can lead to very confusing ads and displays.

It’s something I’ve noticed and often been amused by, but haven’t really made note of. This morning’s eye-opener convinced me to pay more attention to this. I hope to have more examples for you in the near future. The eye-opener? A full counter rack display of “Strong Man” condoms, which someone had decided was a good place to also display home pregnancy tests. I realize that there are a lot of Chinese products that can not be relied on, but that was a little disturbing as well as humorous. Do doctors sell funeral packages? Do restaurants sell stomach pumps?

The resumption of classes has been a real challenge. After the sorting out of students, based on the final exam results, everyone was shuffled and teachers reassigned. Half of my class is elsewhere, gone back to either chapter 16 or 31, while students from other classes were added to ours.  We proceeded on, starting at chapter 46. It used to be that half the class would make me feel smart, but now I’m back to feeling stupid every day. Fortunately, almost everyone feels that way as well.

Our new teacher is a fanatic about speed; read fast, speak fast, write fast. Combined with her refusal to use any English, even for explanations, things are usually a bit of a blur. It’s quite common for her to explain a new word by using five or six other new words that we don’t understand either. Our new listening teacher is a real treat as well. I always hated these classes. Four hours per week of listening to poor quality tapes loaded with trick questions was all I thought I could take. Now I have a teacher whose speech makes the tapes sound clear. Imagine trying to understand a deep backwoods southerner with a mouthful of grits. It’s gotten so bad that it’s actually gotten better. I no longer attempt to follow her and use the time to practice my writing skills.

Thailand, or Phuket to be precise, was a perfect example of how not to plan a vacation. I have no problem with either complete plans or none at all. It’s incomplete, poorly researched plans that can get a little annoying. It started with the fact that late planning had left me facing an entire day of travel.

I left Hainan and flew into Guangzhou, considered by many to be the most polluted city in the world. Based on what I saw, or couldn’t see, they may be right. As far as I could tell, we landed in the middle of a grey cloud. I immediately abandoned my plan to leave the airport during the layover and headed to the ticketing counter. The flight in had been crowded and I knew that the flight to Bangkok would be even worse because of winter vacationers, so I wanted to look into an upgrade to business class. I knew that a bad morning followed by a three hour layover was going to leave me a little irritable on the five hour flight. Avoiding kids, screaming parents and chanting Buddhists was the least I could do for my sanity.

The upgrade was almost US$100, but the agent mentioned that I could then spend my layover in the business lounge. I could avail myself of free beer and food, English newspapers and smoking lounge. That sold me. The reality was that the beer was bad, the food was peanuts and crackers, and the smoking lounge was a café two hundred yards away, where I had to buy something to sit down. It was a long three hours. At least the flight was pleasant and I was able to sleep, something I’ve never really been able to do in coach.   

We got into Bangkok at sunset and I started trying to figure out where my pickup was going to be. The manager of my hotel had said that he would meet me. I had given him my flight number and arrival time, but he never got back to me to say that Bangkok wasn’t where I needed to be. I had started talking with an old Australian guy who looked like he had spent thirty years trying to sell Fosters beer to natives in mountain villages. There’s something about the accent that makes them seem friendly no matter what they say, but I still wanted to kill him when he told me that I needed to make another one hour flight to get to Phuket.

I got my bags and started slogging through the airport, looking for the domestic terminal when I encountered my first Thai hustler. He did his best to convince me that I should pay him a few hundred dollars to drive me to Phuket because there were no more flights that evening. He almost had me before I realized that we were still in the international terminal and that there was no way he could know about every little flight. I finally found the right terminal and got the last ticket on the next flight. The counter woman even held it for me while I scrambled to change enough money to pay her.

I finally get to Phuket, knowing that my ride would no longer be there. I bought a sim card for my phone so that I could call him. Of course, all of the directions for activating the card were in Thai. I gave up on the phone and went to the courtesy counter, where they specialize in hotel bookings. She made me realize that the hotel I had booked was miles from anywhere and that the name was almost identical to the one that had actually been recommended to me in Patong.  As I saw her do with two other people, she made arrangements for me to stay at one place that night and at another, better place for the rest of the week. Since it was already 9pm and I was still facing a 45 minute taxi ride, I agreed.

Patong was a bit of a shock. I didn’t truly realize it the first night, since all I could do after dumping my bags was stumble to the nearest restaurant for a meal and a beer. After switching hotels the next morning, I wandered around and was overwhelmed. Patong is designed to help you part with every dollar you own and the level of aggressiveness puts Chinese merchants to shame.

All tourist locales have T-shirts summing up your experience, but I have never seen one that did so quite so succinctly as the one most common in Patong. It simply said “No, I do not want a f***ing tuk-tuk, a suit or a massage!” You could walk for hours and be offered one of these at least twice a minute, often in combination. Sometimes a tuk-tuk (taxi) driver would offer to take you to a good tailor or massage parlor. I kept wondering if you could get a massage while they made your suit, but I didn’t find a place. General rules of thumb for Patong: All tuk-tuk drivers want outrageous fares, all tailors are Indian and all tourists are European, but not all of the women are women.

Patong has what seems like hundreds of hotels, full of Russians, Swedes, Englishman and the lot. A large percentage of these are married 50 year old couples and some are even families with small children. This is perfectly normal, but seeing them all checking out the thousands of working girls was a little strange. Seeing them line up to pay for the souvenir of a picture with a lady-boy was surreal. However, the boys did give the place a Carnivale-in-Rio kind of feel. Telling them apart was fairly easy once you got the hang of it. Dressed like Carmen Miranda? LadyBoy. Built like a linebacker? Ladyboy. Got an Adam’s apple like your weird uncle Phil? LadyBoy.

It’s not that the place is lacking girls by any means. Thousands upon thousands of girls will try to drag you somewhere, which often comes close to resulting in your extremities ending up in different bars. If you just want a shot and a beer, you’re almost forced to buy bottles and go back to your room. I eventually discovered that the easiest way to tour the area was to follow behind the strolling “Volunteer Tourist Police.” Everything was very calm and sedate within fifty feet of them. Of course, they started looking at me a little weird after a while, so I had to give that up.

The most popular activity in the bars, after buying drinks for the girls, is the nail game. Practically every bar has a three foot diameter, 12 inch thick tree section covered in nails. You and one of the girls each tap a nail into the wood to get it started and, at the count of three, you each swing away with a large hammer. The last person to completely drive their nail into the wood has to buy the next round of drinks. Suddenly I find myself walking a little unsteadily through a row of bars and every few feet drunken people are wildly swinging hammers. One more experience I doubt insurance companies will ever permit to be experienced in the states.

I found that Phuket is tourist central, but to do anything very interesting you have to go several hours out of town. Excursions are available for elephant safaris, diving and snorkeling at numerous islands, and several other activities. After my one side trip to ride ATVs through the jungle I decided that four hours of bus travel for two to three hours of group activity wasn’t really for me. However, I did get to see a condom plantation. Actually, he called it a latex plantation, but I still think of it as thousands of trees producing condoms.

Other than hotel rooms, Patong prices are great. I appreciated that since I had already been forced to buy a replacement camera. The only other real purchase was a couple of sports coats. I had thought of getting some but really wasn’t sold on the idea when I was literally dragged into a shop at 9am. I guess I hadn’t been walking fast enough. After trying to leave several times I ended up buying two tailor-made, cashmere wool sport coats for US$130. Now I just feel like an idiot for not having any shirts made.

All in all, Patong is not a bad place to kill three or four days. The weather was great, the beer cold and the food fantastic. The only bad part was having to return to freezing weather in Beijing.   

First of all, I want to apologize for being lax in posting updates. I got a little lazy during the school break. Now that we’re back on a rigid schedule I should be a little more punctual and have something for you every week. As I finish this, I’m watching a marching band of drums and cymbals passing below my building at 9pm Friday night. I have no idea what their purpose is, but it reminds me to mention the last few weeks.

Sunday, February 18^th was the beginning of the Chinese New Year, as well as Chun Jie, or the Spring Festival. Saturday night was their New Year’s Eve. I’ve had Chinese neighbors before and knew that there would be some fireworks around midnight, but I was unprepared, to say the least.

China had prohibited fireworks last year and possibly longer, so there may have been a pent up urge. I just know that starting at about 9pm; every street in Beijing was lighted by explosions and covered with fireworks debris. These weren’t just firecrackers – they included everything up to full-scale, colored, starburst displays. I had dinner with a friend and went to her apartment to watch a movie, but we could not hear a single word of it. This went on until around 3am, when I could finally get some sleep.

I was rudely awakened at 8am by more fireworks. Little did I know that this would be my life for the fifteen days of Chun Jie. For three days I thought people were shooting at me, jumping every few seconds. After that, I got spooked when it was quiet for more than ten seconds. Over 410,000 boxes of fireworks were sold in Beijing, and by boxes, I mean the type large enough to prohibit an adult from carrying more than two. It might have been more than the U.S. uses in a year. 20,000 people were hired simply to clean up the mess. Sleep was sorely missed. I’ll definitely make plans to miss the next one.

Finally heading out of Macao, I meet the first taxi driver in six months who says that America is no good. Usually I get a thumbs-up and some comment about America being very strong, rich or beautiful. Even though I was a little hung over I just had to pursue his reasoning and asked why he thought so. It turned out to be elegantly simple, even if a little exaggerated: with a combination of broken English and pantomime he informed me that in America everyone goes around shooting each other every day. I had no effective way to debate him on the subject and considered telling him that I was a crack shot, but I left it at that.

I stumbled into the ferry terminal, looking for caffeine. Since I had booked the first ferry and arrived early, nothing was open other than the duty free shop. Although intrigued by the concepts of $20 whiskey miniatures and an apparently booming market for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, nothing appealed. I headed for the gate in foul humor before spotting a vending machine with soda and cans of coffee: heaven!

My eyes weren’t really up to deciphering all of the strange coins in my pocket, so I just kept feeding them in until a light went on. For all I know, it was a $10 can of coffee. I didn’t care. I’ve come to depend on cans of iced coffee on the many occasions where I lack other choices. I quickly discovered that there are ways other than caffeine to wake up, and much more quickly. My dulled nervous system took two or three seconds to inform my brain that the wonderful can of coffee that I was holding was scalding hot, prompting immediate, high decibel swearing and the throwing of said can across the terminal.

I sat on the floor next to the machine for a few moments, blowing on my burned hand and cradling my pounding head with the other. I resigned myself to the fact that it was going to be one of “those” days and went to fetch my can of coffee. Thankfully, the next couple of hours were quiet and peaceful. The ferry, train and airport terminal were all practically deserted. My only problem was waiting for my flight to Hainan. The only other people in the waiting area were a Chinese family with two small children. The seven year old boy decided that I was the most fascinating thing in the airport and wanted to be my friend.

His name was Charlie, or the Chinese equivalent. I gave up trying to nail it down. This conversation should have been perfect for me, since his vocabulary wasn’t too far ahead of me. Yet I struggled to understand him for forty-five minutes, refueling my fading headache. You see, Charlie, like many seven year olds, was missing his two front teeth and the resulting lisp was more than I could cut through. As he bounced on the chairs, adding a few extra S’s to every word, I started examining the terminal, perfectly willing at this point to drink a $20 miniature or even a Pabst Blue Ribbon. No such luck. I toyed with the idea of asking him to go buy me a can of coffee but fortunately for him they called our flight.

Of course Charlie and his sister were seated two rows in front of me and continued to vie for my attention. I pitied the people seated between us, trying to figure out why they were interested in me. As we progressed I found that I was able to ignore even Charlie. What had started out as a mild mumble from the woman across the aisle consistently grew louder and louder. After about an hour I was able to say her Buddhist prayers along with her, although I didn’t have a nifty set of prayer beads to help me keep track of my soul’s current state. By the time we landed, people three rows away were looking around, trying to figure out who the monk was. If it’s never happened to you before, let me reassure you that flying on a Chinese aircraft, which have less than sparkling safety records anyway, and having someone praying next to you for two hours can get a little unnerving. I unkindly hoped she would come back as truly miserable creature, maybe a mouse in the house of a crazy woman who owned 87 cats.

We finally arrived in Sanya, on Hainan Island, where it was a pleasant 80 degrees or so, with a nice sea breeze. It was time to say goodbye to planning and wing it. I had no idea where I was going to stay. I simply told the driver to take me to the beach. We stopped for water buffalo on the freeway and macaque monkeys on a side road, striking out at four hotels before he made a booking over the phone for me. Upon arrival, I found out that he also worked for a travel agent, which got me a discount rate. I did think it a little strange though that, standing at the hotel counter, they would not take my money. I had to pay it to the cab driver and the travel agent would later pay the hotel. I was certain that there was a rip-off developing, but gave in. All I could think of was a nap.

To avoid further irritation, I’ll be brief with the room description. I hate twin beds, especially with rock-hard, Chinese mattresses. The hot water in the shower was colder than the water in the mini-fridge, which doesn’t speak well for either. My only attempt to eat their food lasted about two minutes and the view out my window was that of the backside of the neon sign. As I’ve said, traveling wipes me out, so even these irritations didn’t keep me from a four hour nap. I hate waking up at 9pm, never sure where you are or what day it is. The only thing I knew was that I was starving and most places would be closed.

I checked the hotel options with no luck and headed down the beach. I wandered about half a mile before hitting the main strip for the area and chose the first restaurant I saw, which gave me my first inkling of what Sanya would be like: it was Russian. I later discovered that 99% of the non-Chinese tourists and most of the menus were Russian. Thank God the locals spoke Mandarin, although with a different accent. I was able to get at least the basics.

What I also realized later was that I am incredibly, unmistakably American, apparently to the point where other people see it on my forehead. I’m in a town full of Russians, where it took me three days to hear anyone else speak English, sitting in a Russian restaurant, wearing no branded clothing and the Russian host walks directly up to me and says “Hi. Welcome to Rasputin’s” or whatever the name of the place was. I’m constantly amazed, even though it happens all of the time. Not once have I been mistaken for a Russian, German, Englishman or even a Canadian, even though there is a Canadian flag on my parka. I just don’t get it.

After a great beef stroganoff, I wandered around a bit before retiring. I had serious business to attend to the next day, namely finding a place to watch the Super Bowl. Little did I realize that this would turn out to be an all day affair. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, since I decided that the most efficient way to find a sports bar was to ask every bartender I ran across. In other words, I had a beer at every little, beachside watering hole, conveniently located every fifty yards or so for half a mile. After a while, this turned into a challenge of its own, so I forced myself to have a quick one even with bartenders who only spoke Russian.

There was no end to the entertainment. I watched fifty Chinese people learn how to scuba dive in a few hours, all wandering around in their wetsuits. There were beach massages and even an acupuncturist. There were hundreds of beached whales, although after the buzz wore off I realized that they were actually babushkas in bikinis. Every last one of you can be thankful that, at some point, my camera case broke and fell off my belt, never to be seen again. You will never be forced to see my babushka collection, something that could easily lead to blindness if seen when sober.

I finally decided to stop at the office of a travel agent whose sign promised that they spoke English. What that meant was that the very pleasant clerk called her Australian boss and handed the phone to me. He had only one idea of where I might be able to watch the game and absolutely no idea of why I would want to do so. He recommended a place called the Rainbow Bar, apparently a hangout for expats (resident foreigners.) Thinking that I had hit the jackpot, I returned to the street, only to find that absolutely no one had ever heard of this particular bar. The one cab driver who promised to take me there also had no idea, forcing me to tell him that we had just passed it.

I had started my search at 9am and at 4pm I had finally found a sports bar where they spoke English and knew what the Super Bowl was. The only problem was that the manager said that they hadn’t had much call for it and that he didn’t think he could get the satellite feed. I consumed a few beers, resigning myself to the fact that I might have to wait another 21 years to see the Bears in a Super Bowl, when he came out and said that he had made a few calls on my behalf. His bar network told him that the only place at which I might see the game was the Sheraton at Ya Long Bay, a resort area approximately twenty miles north.

At this point I was unpleasantly tipsy, hot, tired and grasping at straws. I headed north. It should have occurred to me that even this was too easy. The good people at the Sheraton responded to my Super Bowl query with “Is that a soccer game?” I couldn’t even muster a response. I simply hung my head and dejectedly went to the taxi line, asking my driver to take me to another hotel. I was past asking anyone for advice. I was simply going to roll the dice until they came up a winner.

I immediately won and lost at the same time. The next stop was the Hilton Resort. The concierge thought that they would have the game but, at this point, I wasn’t trusting anyone. We went to a room and scrolled through the channels to make sure that they would have the right feed. I had finally found it! “That will be US$150 sir” was the losing part. Their bars would not be open at 7am. I had to book a room and watch it there.

I coughed it up and immediately realized that after my day long search, I was getting strange looks, probably due to my pungent aroma. Back to the city for a change of clothes. Twenty miles each way and I finally returned with fresh garb. It was already dark and I was too tired to eat, so I showered and crashed, but not before both requesting a wake up call and setting my phone alarm. I wasn’t about to go through all of this and oversleep.

After a good night’s sleep it was easier to appreciate that it was one hell of a room: huge with a multi-person tub in the middle, very comfortable un-Chinese bed, balcony overlooking numerous tropical pools, and a large flat-screen television. It’s just that, between the cost of the room, the outrageous breakfast bill, my taxi fares and enormous research costs (beer), I could have bought a ticket to the real game. Oh well, it was game time!

Lacking any other source of supplies, I cringed and opened the mini-bar. You have to have a beer to watch a football game, regardless of the time, right? I’m glad Hilton spent a lot of money on soundproofing, because if the loudness of the game had not caused complaints, my screech of terror certainly would have. How can a five star resort only stock two beers in the fridge??!! I almost cried. There were candy bars, water, cheap gin, vodka and brandy, even condoms, but only two beers, one of which was a disgusting brew that I had gagged on the day before. Another bad sign.

Except for the opening kickoff, the day went downhill from there. I don’t need to tell people who watched the game and I don’t want to relive it for those who didn’t. Let’s just say that by the end of the game, I had used the entire mini-bar, except for the Snickers and the condoms. I had watched a truly disappointing game, gotten snockered and checked out of my room before the noon deadline. How do you follow that up?

I decided the only remedy was booze of a higher quality and headed back to the Rainbow, where I was immediately told that they had experienced a rush of requests after I had left the previous day and figured out a way to show the game. They had opened at 6:30am and had a good crowd of people who didn’t care enough to pay the Hilton rates. And I thought the day couldn’t have gotten any worse.

I couldn’t wait to get on the plane the next morning. I definitely needed a change of scenery.

Next week – Tsunami Central – Phuket, Thailand.