Menglan Meanies
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2005
1
82
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Mengla,
China
Friday, February 9, 2007
With the room hunt out of the way, we went out in search of food. Restaurants are typically every third storefront in China. However, we continually find ourselves in areas where there aren't restaurants for kilometers. Such was the problem this night. Once we finally did find a restaurant, we couldn't seem to communicate our no meat wishes to them, so we left. Fortunately, there was another restaurant right next door, and they seemed more than happy to accommodate us. It was a basic place, similar to many others we'd eaten in where we could just point out the veggies we wanted, and in which we'd been served very tasty, very cheap food. The food arrived, and it was more greens than anything, but we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we dug in. Food in our bellies, we went to pay, expecting the bill to be 10 or 15 kwai ($1.25-$2), which had been the norm at cheap eats places throughout China. To our surprise, the woman asked us for 30Y (a shade under $4). While it's an insignificant amount, we were really upset: clearly, this woman was trying to take advantage of us because we are foreigners. I would have asked before we agreed to the food, but hadn't found a need to in the past, as the Chinese didn't seem to be into the scamming mindset. A bit of a verbal (and later, slightly physical) skirmish ensued, and we ended up leaving the restaurant on extremely bad terms.
So went our last major experience in China.
Final Thoughts on China
Food & Beverages:
Cheap, drinkable beer. Buy a huge bottle (660mL) in the store for only 3Y (about 40¢). Who can complain?
While we didn't eat terribly often, when we did, it was typically pretty good fare. A little oilier than in Vietnam, but usually a good variety of vegetables, and people were fairly accommodating with regards to our vegetarian requests. The one totally odd thing we found was that the Chinese use Japanese style tofu (the really soft and mushy stuff) - not Chinese style tofu (the nice and firm stuff). Where did it get its name from?
Flashbacks
Not sure how it took nearly a month in the country for me to remember this, but it did: Rock Erickson. Who is he, you ask? Well, he is a "composer" from Madison who wrote some songs about China way back in my middle school days. Just after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, good ol' Rock felt it worth sending sentiments of his solidarity with the students' fight, and he penned some tunes expressing said camaraderie. My chorus teacher, Ms. Lee, always on the lookout for something fresh, discovered Rock's songs and decided they were just the thing for our chorus to sing. Word of this middle school chorus singing such inspiring hymns got out, and eventually we found ourselves lining the halls of the Capitol rotunda, belting out the lyrics (whilst holding candles, of course), in front of dozens of news cameras.
A note before I share some of Rock's heartfelt words with you: we were not impressed. It seemed Ms. Lee was gaga over these songs, and clearly others were as well since we had reached the Capitol steps. But not us. Let me clue you in as to why that was the case:
China, oh China,
We share the tears on your face,
China, we love you,
Sincerely, The Human Race
I'll let you be the judge. Anyhow, it was very amusing to recall this during our travels. I shared it with people we met, and they all gagged when I sang the songs for them (and 'twasn't because of my voice...).
Miscellany Lingering Thoughts and Impressions:
Smoking. BAH! By far the most annoying thing about China is the smoking. As mentioned before, smoking is omnipresent in China, and it doesn't seem there are many restrictions on it. We've spoken to those living in China about it, and discovered that the Chinese do know about the health risks involved in smoking, and they apparently don't care. That, or they use the argument that their grandfather/sister/mother/grandmother/brother/father/etc. smoked for seventy years and never was ill. And, further, the way the Chinese smoke is also very irritating: they are not the least bit conscious of their smoke - they'll blow it right in your face without really thinking anything of it. I certainly hope that things change in the future; if not, the smoking, combined with the ills of the awful pollution in the cities, are going to cause cancer rates alone to skyrocket.
Yao Ming, baby. He's everybody's hero, and basketball is huge in China. Interesting tidbit which Konrad shared with me: Yao Ming was "genetically engineered" by the Chinese government. No, not in a lab, per se, but they found an extremely tall and talented female basketballer, paired her with an equally capable male basketballing giant and out came Sir Yao.
Speaking of outrageously rich people, there's some serious money in China. Capitalism has treated them well, and their wealth appears to be on the rise. The Yuan was the strongest it had ever been when we were there. The middle class in China is larger than the whole of the United States. As a result, the majority of tourists in China are domestic rather than foreign, which is the opposite of the tourist scene in every other Asian country we've visited. Unfortunately, not everyone is reaping the benefits of this new-found wealth. We've been told the disparity between the rich and the poor is the largest anywhere in the world. No doubt, if left unaddressed, that will lead to some serious problems in the future.
So, will we go back? Perhaps (Konrad says no; I remain a bit less certain). Do we regret our visit? No, but it probably would've been better at a warmer time of year. We're glad we went, but we wish we hadn't spent so much time there. I can tell you that we're awfully glad to be in Laos and have China behind us.
