Tips before a trip to China, #2: Clothes

Clothes : To launder or to simply buy new?

There are two schools of thought. One says – clothes are so cheap in China, just pack the minimum, and buy everything else you need there. When there’s no more room in the suitcase, just leave your old clothes behind.

The other says: I rather like my clothes and feel comfortable in them; don’t wanna leave them behind. Besides, I don’t want to go bargain hunting.

My travel mates and I were of the second persuasion. Which isn’t to say I didn’t buy anything nor yearn to spend a bit more time in Yangshou shops. I bought a couple of skirts (or frocks, as Kathy called them, since they’re dual-purpose) on West Street; a purportedly 100% silk kimono; and a couple of certified 100% silk knit camis in the silk factory in Suzhou, because I’m a sucker for pretty, soft camis. But all that is still a far cry from cramming your suitcase with cheap Chinese merchandise.

river in the center of Yangshou

West Street, Yangshou, during the day

“Cheap” is a trick term. The merchandise is only cheap if you know how to bargain, which I certainly do not. Which is how I ended up paying for the skirts, and a pair of flip-flops, about the same as I’d pay for them in my home town of Rishon LeZion. A rough guide to bargaining is to offer 50% of what the vendor is asking for. You don’t have to know Chinese for that; the vendor types in the sum on his handheld calculator, and you shake your head vigorously and type half that sum. He/she reels with indignation, or insult, or amusement (it’s difficult to tell which) and types in a sum. You make a counter offer. And so it goes until one of you gives up and indicates “okay okay, you win, let’s get on with it!”

Twin Peaks Cafe, West Street, Yangshou. Barely visible at the bottom of the photo: Kathy on the left, Susan on the right.

West Street, Yangshou, at night. The place is hopping!

Another consideration is timing: Say you didn’t pack a cardigan/sweatshirt for a rainy day; or a pretty blouse for a festive evening aboard the cruise ship. How do you know you’ll be close to a decent shop, and have the time, to buy the missing item when you need it? There are no such guarantees on an organized trip; you may want to go shopping, but your tour guide may have made other plans.

Say you’ve decided not to count on shopping. That means you’ll have to do laundry along the way. Doing laundry is fine, provided you’re staying more than one night at the hotel. If you’re staying just one night, the clothes may not be dry by the time you have to pack and check out. Trust me on that. So try to pack clothes that dry quickly and don’t need ironing. But that’s elementary, my dear fellow travelers; surely I don’t have to tell you that.

If you’re staying in a decent hotel, it will offer decent laundry services, which aren’t cheap. We paid 329 yuan for 21 items at The Green Lotus Hotel in Yangshou; and 243 yuan for 24 items aboard the Century Sun cruise ship. Or, you can be adventurous and hire the services of a local washerwoman: 

Woman doing laundry along the Yangtse river

Woman doing laundry along the Yangtse river

Tips before a trip to China, # 1: Learn Chinese

Tip #1:  Before your trip, learn Chinese.

Just kidding. Unless you’re a superb linguist with an affinity for exotic languages, you don’t stand a chance. You’ll be lucky if you master the pronunciation of a few basic phrases such as nee hao – hello; zow sha how – good morning, and pee jaw – beer. And even then, you probably won’t get the intonation right and the locals will either laugh out loud or stare at you blankly. The famous example has to do with the various meanings of the word ma, which can mean – according to the tone – mother, horse, insult, and possibly a few other meanings. 

As we were strolling the paths of the Panda Sanctuary, Pete and I happened to muse aloud how long it would take a foreigner like us to learn basic Chinese; enough to get along on a daily basis. A young French chap nearby who overheard us smiled and said knowingly, based on his own personal experience, “Two years.” 

Panda Sanctuary, Chengdu. No connection with reading and writing Chinese.

But even more than the spoken language, it’s the written language that mystifies me. As we drove by a Sheraton hotel in the center of Beijing, I looked at its name in Chinese characters:

 How is it, I wondered, that three simple syllables in English – shé, rah, ton -- each in itself without any meaning -- get transformed into a row of nine complex drawings?

Or consider my own name, consisting of two super-simple syllables: ni – na. On our visit to the lovely park of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an, we were given a fascinating talk and demonstration of the development of Chinese script by a charming artist and teacher, whose name I’m sorry to say I didn’t write down. He then kindly wrote our names for us, with brush and ink, on rice paper. My name, if you please, is:

 Just imagine if I managed to adopt this as my signature! I think my checks would be safe from attempted forgery.

But seriously: With a good teacher, you can definitely learn to identify a few helpful words. Such as the signs for Gents and Ladies that appear on toilets. In the big cities the relevant doors have a standard drawing of a male and female figure, and/or carry the English words Male and Female. But out in the country they often only carry the Chinese characters. Hint: the Ladies toilets is on the right. Why? Because the woman is always right, quoth our guide :-)

At the Big Wild Goose Pagoda visitors' center; the artist at work

At the Big Wild Goose Pagoda visitors' center; the sign for "woman"

 

What's wrong with these Chinese kids?

"Did you see many pregnant women [in China]?" - My eldest, who became a mother nearly a year ago, wanted to know. "And babies? Prams? Pushchairs? Baby-carriers?"

Even without her asking, I couldn't help noticing that pregnant women were indeed few and far between. I definitely saw one during our 20 days in China; perhaps two. You've all heard about China's one-child-per-family policy, so the scarcity of pregnant women sort of made sense. Our guides on this trip, incidentally, most of whom are parents, had quite a bit to say on the subject. And I shall report. But getting back to Daria's questions: Actually, we saw very few prams and pushchairs. And even fewer baby-carriers.  But we did see babies. Or rather, toddlers. And this is what got to me. See for yourselves, and tell me:

What's wrong with these pictures?

Mother & child on the Bund, Shanghai

Mother & child on the Bund, Shanghai

Father and child, Shanghai

Grandma (?) and baby, Shanghai

Mother (?) and child, China

Father and daughter, China

Mom and kid, the Bund, Shanghai

Mom (?) and kid, Shanghai

 There are more photos, but you get the idea.
At first I made allowances. I said to myself, Hey, you're a mom, you remember what it's like; you go out with the kid, and after walking for an hour or whatever, the kid gets tired and starts nagging, "Pick me up...".

But this was far beyond the natural "pick me up". This was the kids' usual mode of conveyance. Toddlers half the size of their petite mothers are being carried and coddled, all over the place.

I am told that this is part and parcel of the general trend of spoiling the kids rotten.
In 1949, at the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the country's population was around 400 million. During the 1950s-1960s Mao Zedong encouraged women to have children, calling them "hero mothers". Giving birth to 7 or 9 children became the norm. By the time of Mao's death in 1978 the population had more than doubled due to Mao's policy. And that's when the serious "cutback" policy was instituted. Severe punishments were meted out to families who dared have a second child. Many pregnant mothers were forced to have an abortion, even in advanced pregnancy. And since baby boys were favored, many baby girls were abandoned.
The laws were somewhat relaxed in the 1990s: Farmers were allowed a second child, once the first reached the age of four. Ethnic minorities (constituting 7% of the population) are allowed to procreate freely. And in the big cities, though in principle the one-child law still applies, if you can afford to pay the high fine, you can have another child. Or you can find ways of getting around the law, like traveling abroad and giving birth there. Provided, of course, that you have the wherewithal. Like  elsewhere in the world, if you have money, you can buy your way around the law.

I don't know at what age the doting parents and grandparents of only-children begin making huge demands on them, pushing them to achieve. Laura's (our guide) 8-year-old daughter gets up at six every morning, leaves the house by 6:30, and goes to sleep around eight thirty. In addition to school, she takes piano and dance lessons, English, Chinese and math. Many parents force their children to do homework until 11 pm. Every child belongs to the school in his/her district. If the parents want the child to attend a better school, they must "contribute" around 30,000 yuan (approx. 3,000 pounds or 5,000 dollars) just as an entrance fee; and the sum can reach 100,000 yuan.

Eventually, we heard more bits and pieces from our other guides about the difficulties of raising a child in China. But I'm not sure this is the place to spill the beans; we're just tourists, here today, gone tomorrow, whereas our hard-working guides are probably in China to stay.

- To be continued -

Humming in the Rain on the Great Wall of China

Can't write I was ''singing in the rain" on "The Wall" because that might confuse innocent googlers who are searching for, say, musicals by those names; you know -- Gene Kelly, Pink Floyd... And also because I didn't in fact sing. But I was definitely humming with delight, despite the fog and the rain. Though the limited visibility was a bit of a disappointment, the winding wall still exerts an ineffable charm.

The Great Wall of China on a rainy, misty day, dotted with colorful umbrellas

A View from the Wall

 Michael and I had brought umbrellas along, but decided a plastic raincoat would be useful; which it was, to a certain extent, since the wind was blowing and umbrellas flipped, turning inside out, or upside down. The peddlers at the bottom of the hill were doing a brisk business selling raincoats to ill-equipped tourists. All around us were tourists with plastic raincoats: yellow, blue, red. So we didn't feel too silly. It's easy to look silly when you don the plastic thingy over your coat and backpack, making you look like a clumsy hunchback.

Nina in plastic raincoat and Pooh umbrella, on the Great Wall of China

Laura's original idea was to have a picnic lunch, complete with bubbly, on the Wall. But that turned out to be out of the question. So the "picnic lunch" (Subways and soft drinks) awaited us in the van, but we did celebrate our courageous outing with a bottle of bubbly:

Pete opening the bottle of bubbly; Michael in red raincoat & green umbrella; Laura with black umbrella; Kathy on the left with big raincoat.

Be careful if you climb The Wall in the rain; the cobblestones are extremely slippery. And it's difficult to take pictures with one hand, while the other is hanging on to the recalcitrant umbrella, or to the wall to steady yourself, or both. Also, the rain splashed the camera lens, creating an "artistic" effect, i.e., blurred and smeared. (So I bravely deleted them.)

- To be continued -