the feckless father: China Blog #14

We arrived safely in Xi'an, and checked into our very nice hostel. It was clean, plus a real toilet that actually flushed and didn't stink too bad. It was a really cool place, and had little court yard and balconies for each room. From there we walked to the Muslim quarter and scrounged for food and souvenirs. There are some really interesting looking people here (see attached photo of lady with silver hat).

Of course the place was packed, and the crowd was pushy, but we seemed less of a spectacle in this town. Xi'an seems a MUCH more cosmopolitan city than Zheng-Zhou, even though there is roughly the same amount of people, over 8 million. People didn't stare as long at us, sometimes just nodded said " 'Ello!" There are some real snappy dressers here, and some real "poofs" of boys- super girly looking kids with great big bee hive hairdos, bleached blonde.
The shop keepers in the little covered alleys had a smattering of English; enough to be really aggressive and irritating. "Ello, you like shirt? You want good deal? Only 400 yuan, No? 300? No? I tell you, my sister in Beijing gets 450 for dis same thing, but for you? You are my good friend, like my brother! (then pointing at Herself), Is she your husband? Such a nice couple! For you? 250! Final offer: 200. No? Ok, 100 yuan. Etc, etc," Nonstop chatter; once I refused to say anything more to her until she shut up and let me think. Very persistent, these vendors. I don't really think of myself as a particularly shrewd bargainer, but I guess I'm not bad for a westerner with what must look like a big sign flashing "Rich American" over my head. At least I'm not embarrassed to ask, start low, and keep after them. The hard part for me is to not get irritated at them, they just feel so very mercenary; using everything they know about our culture to get you to pay more money for their product that they are selling. Trying to ingraciate themselves to you, because they know that Americans are "nice" and polite. Elvis does a good job of being polite and still firm, while smiling. My method is more to make them understand as quickly as possible that I am totally and wholely uninterested in what they are selling, when they approach me and start yapping. I think that I should learn a little something from him. It just goes against everything I stand for in my own business; I don't want somebody to pay 100 times what I get for it from everybody else, I just want to sell a good product for a fair price. I'm sure I'm not doing anything for America's good name over here, but these people can just be so pushy! Once we were in a long line to buy bus tickets, and a guy just walked right up and cut in line in between us Anglos. So I just took my big fat back pack, and pushed in line right in front of him and backed up and turned left, pushing him out. He was left standing out of the line entirely, so he didn't really have any choice but to go get in the back of another line.
One thing that I feel compelled to mention in the midst of complaining about the difference of cultural stuff is the positive part of it: I think I mentioned before that there was hardly a time that my parent in laws had to stand on the bus or subway; someone young would jump up and let them sit down. Another thing that I didn't mention is the helpfulness of the young people. They really, really, really, want to help, whether it is interpreting, showing around, or whatever, even people they don't know; they just have a general feeling of wanting to help you out. One little example, and it is a little odd, but it is fitting, was when I was coming through Chinese customs at the airport. Most or all of the officials seemed really quite young, and Herself made the comment that they probably have the best English. Good point. But anyway, I got ready to go through the metal detector and started to remove my belt, because of the buckle. The young official indicated to me that wouldn't be necessary, so I didn't, but in order to not hold up the line, I left it half buckled with the end of the belt flopped out. Well, of course it set the buzzer off, and the young man on the other side of the detector had me step up onto the wooden box and hold my hands up while he ran the wand over me. While my hands were held up and he "wanded" over my belt buckle, he noticed that my belt was untucked, and with quick, deft movements he just tucked me back i! I had to chuckle; how very personal, but I can't imagine why else he would do such a thing, he was just being helpful...
Xi'an must be a city of much wealth, in the downtown area we were in there were lots of cars and nice ones at that. Nearly all of them were Acura's, Lexus, BMW's, Mercedes, land rovers, escalades, jeep suvs, etc; mostly what we would call luxury sleds. This China fits more with my notion of what China is like, the architecture is more like what I expected, has more of an ancient Asian feel to it, although I strongly suspect it is more for the sake of others like me (with round eyes) than for any real cultural reasons, since it seems like it is primarily a tourist trap. I'll do some more pictures in an additional email of some local architecture.