The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (and the Funny) Happenings

Photos above: Mom at the Forbidden City, Beijing, China and Carlos in front of McDonald's, just to show the influence and influx of western capitalism. And no, I did not eat there.

Beijing, China
October 22, 2009

Every large group trip has its misfortunes. Ours waited until we arrived in Beijing. I hope there are no more. I knew that we would be doing a lot of walking and many stairs today, so I put on my knee braces with the hope of them helping me to not dislocated my knee should I step down wrong. A woman in the choir, Afton, was not so lucky. She went down, apparently dislocating her left knee cap, and then fracturing it. She had it cast, but will need surgery when she gets back to St. George. That was the worst. The others are simply a series of unfortunate events. Yesterday we went to the Temple of Heaven and today, the Forbidden City. Outside of both there are many (illegal) street venders trying sell touristy gadgets (did you know that you can buy a watch with Chairman Mao in the watch face with his arms being the second and minute hands). But we learned from sad experience that many of the vendors are also thieves. My own experience: I worked a deal with a vendor to buy three picture books about the area attractions. Of course they wanted 100 Yuan each to start, but in the end, we agreed upon 50 Yuan for three. All I had was a 100 bill, so he made change. By this time, our group was leaving, I was in a hurry to catch up, and also wanting to not show my cash, so I saw that it was a 50, and stuck it in my pocket. Latter that night, I went to a convenience store to buy a soda, and pulled out my cash to find out that the 50 bill was really a 50 Ruble note. Even though it does have a value, it can’t be spent here, and I doubt it is worth even exchanging. It is worth about $1.70 US, whereas a 50 Yuan is about $7.50. After I paid the thief, he said, “hey I can’t take this 100 bill because it has a little tear in it.” I just waved them away and caught up to my group. In retrospect, I see that that was “Step Number 2" in “how to steal money from the tourists.” I believe he would have asked me for a different 100 bill, and given back the one with a tear in it, but it would not have been Yuan, but rubles or money from Taiwan, which is much more similar to Yuan, but the value of a Taiwan 100 note is only about $3.00 US. This happened to several of us. When someone then tries to pay for something with the foreign money, the vendors say “fake money! No fake money.” It just makes me mad. One guy had one of his 100 Yuan bills swapped with a Taiwan bill when his deal fell apart with a vendor. When he discovered it, he was ready to go back and extract some justice. Earlier today, I had reached a deal for some books with a street vendor for 30 Yuan. He said “I have change,” but as soon as I pulled out exact change (having learned my lesson) he said that he didn’t say 30 but had said 40. This was a blatant lie, and, I presume, an attempt to really make the sale for 50 or 100 by giving bogus change.


Photo: Carlos (that's me) with the #@*%!! vendor that ripped me off. I didn't know Mom had this photo until just a bit ago. Maybe I can now go back with a big stick... but I, would probably be the one arrested.

The other “bad” is that at least two of our group members fell victim to pick pockets. There may have been more, but maybe they were too embarrassed to fess up. One guy lost his driver license and a credit card. The other lost $200 US from his front pocket. It was so crowed in the Forbidden City, that you have people bumping into you all the time.

Now for the funny. There is one choir member, Winona, who I would guess is about 70 years old, short, and just funny. She has a very spry personality and is just fun to be around. When we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, we were each told we could pick up a bottle of water from the cooler in the front of the bus as we got off. Winona was in front of me getting off the bus. The person in front of her grabbed the last water bottle out of the cooler, so she grabbed a can out of the cooler and got off. The driver then saw we were out of water and grabbed a new box of water bottles and gave me one. I then continued on, catching up to Winona. I had my suspicions about the contents of the can, but just couldn’t decide whether to say anything or not. I know I should have, but just couldn’t make myself do it. So Winona pops off the can top and takes just enough of a sip to taste it (as she knew she didn’t know what was in the can), and oh, if you could have seen the expression on her face! She said, “what is this nasty stuff???” So I took the can, smelled it, and told her it was beer. She said she didn’t see how anybody could actually like the stuff, so I had a laugh at her expense and then threw it away. After that, I kept teasing her about “boozing it up” and asking her if I could get her a “cold one.” Winona being Winona, she didn’t keep it a secret, but told others in our group, getting herself teased by them as well.