Thoughts on China

Link to today’s pix… (Note: this is the same album as the pictures of fireworks in the next post)

Well, today had some really nice times, mixed with some unpleasantness. I wanted to go to Longjing, the town that is in the middle of the Longjing tea growing area. I was told by a hostel employee to take the K4 bus as far as it went and then the K27 bus from there, as far as it went. Well, somewhere along the line, the directions didn’t pan out, as there was no K27 bus from the station where the K4 bus ended…I walked for quite a while, then rode another bus for a while, until I ended up in a poorer section of town where I was obviously out of place. I finally found a taxi who took me to Longjing. He said he was from there and had a friend who grew and processed the tea. We went to her place, where I bought quite a bit of tea (I’m sure it was overpriced, but I know it is expensive tea and the quality of this tea was very good).

Anyway, I said that I wanted to take some pictures of tea plants (again, in broken Chinese). The driver took me over a hill and I got out to take some pictures. After this, I asked him to take me to the tea museum, when he said that he could not. I did not speak this in broken Chinese, and I had pages from a guide that had the tea museum spelled out in Hanzi (Chinese characters). Well, first the driver drove me to a jade place (I thought, what am I paying this guy a taxi fee for, if he won’t take me where I want to go)…I said, in very plain Chinese, my most practiced phrase, anyway…不要 (bù yào, or “I don’t want”). Then, he took me by a silk place, again with the meter running. At this point, I was getting angry, but realized that anger does more harm than good. I was going to get out of the cab and find another way to go, but I realized that I had no idea where I was and that there weren’t many taxis there, so I told him 不要 one more time and asked him again to take me to the tea museum. This time, for some unknown reason, he complied. So, he ripped me off for some taxi fare and I’m sure he got a tidy sum from his “friend”, the tea lady. But, I had some very good tea and was at the tea museum none the worse for wear…

The tea museum was a pleasant place and there was no entrance fee! There were two students, majoring in English at the local university (a boy and a girl), who volunteered there to give tours to English speakers. So, not only was it free, I got a free guided tour, as well! While it was interesting, I knew most of the information already, having studied a lot about tea on the Internet. There was, of course, a tea field just outside, so I got some better pictures than I was able to get from the side of the road when the cab stopped.

I went from the very generous Iraqi, to the rip-off cab driver, to the very generous tea museum…well, you get the pattern…and, unfortunately, the day was not done yet!

I took the bus back to town from the tea museum (fooled you, you thought I’d catch another rip-off taxi, didn’t you…). I put my stuff up in the room and walked a ways from the hostel, when I thought I ought to rent a bicycle. Well, all the rentals had these very small tires and were really too small for me. The one I found that was big enough and in good shape, the lady wanted Y20 ($2.66) an hour for…that’s highway robbery! As you may remember, I BOUGHT a decent bike in Beijing for Y348. So she could buy another bike after only 18 hours of rental!!! I talked her down to Y10, which was still expensive, but I just wanted to ride, so I went ahead. She took down the last four numbers of the serial numbers of the 4 Y100 notes I gave her as a deposit. Well, the bike ride was fine, though the bike didn’t have a bell (a definite must have with the traffic here). But, when I got back after 3 hours, the lady said it was Y15 an hour. The lying snake! She pointed to some characters she had written on the receipt and insisted that she told me it was Y15. Well, none of the characters were numbers, that I could see and I argued with her. I didn’t really care, at this point, about the issue of losing face, as she was blatantly trying to rip me off. Unfortunately, she did, since I didn’t have change, I gave her a Y50 note and she only gave me back Y5 change. I would have gone to the cops, but I had no idea what she had written as she told me 十元 (shí yuán, or 10RMB) an hour, but I just chalked it up to a learning experience. Anyway, as I was about to leave, I noticed that she didn’t give me back my deposit, even though I had produced the receipt. I asked her for it and she said she gave had already given it to me. Being mad and flustered, I thought that maybe she had, so I emptied out every one of my pockets, but none of the Y100 notes matched the serial numbers she had written (at this point, I was glad she had done that, since she insisted she had given me the deposit). To make a long story short, she finally found the four bills in her counter and gave them to me. I felt like doing a lot of things, but, I put on a smile, put all of my emptied pocket items back where they belonged and walked away…In the end, it had cost me about $6, but it was the thought that counted…and it still steams me when I think of that lady…especially when I found out the next morning that the hostel I stay at rents nice big bikes, with a bell and a basket, at 10RMB for the first 3 hours and 5RMB an hour after that!!!

So, on day 2 in Hangzhou, I had some good and some not so good experiences. I still hadn’t made it all the way around the lake, or seen many of the sites, or eaten Beggar’s chicken at a famous restaurant here, so I booked one more night at the hostel…