Not my favorite day in China

I truly did have a Tony-the-Tiger-Grrreat time in China. I echo Chad's blog. Beijing was especially pretty in April with blooming trees and beautiful parks. I traveled down a day early by myself to meet up with my college friend Kate whom I shared many quality Virginia days enjoying the outdoors with. She is teaching in TainJin, a city just a 30 minute train ride from Beijing. The trip on my 4 hour fast and reliable train to Beijing from Shenyang was enjoyable and entertaining. While I have some stories from it, it was relatively uneventful. I met Kate and we ate a yummy Persian meal with some of her co-workers. She helped me connect with other friends of a friend who graciously hosted me and took me to church with them the next day. It was wonderful meeting Joy & Tazz (from America & South Africa respectively) and making new friends. Travel is fun for such things. Joy makes SCRUMPtious coffee cake and their insider's guide to the city made me probably too confident in my ability to be a tourist.

After attending an international church service we were eating Easter Sunday lunch at Domino's Pizza (someone reminded me half way into a delicious slice of Hawaiian pizza that I was eating pizza and missing grandma's cooking.. sad). Let me back up to say that never before had a so wished my camera had sound on its little video recording as when we walked in the door. One thing I have heard in general about Chinese is that they like it to be noisy when eating... guess it shows people are enjoying themselves. So the music was blasting! in the restaurant. The song of choice -- Frosty the Snowman!!! True story! I looked at Joy (who's been living in China about 3 or 5 years for an explanation) who shrugged and said, "Well, they know its a holiday." HAHHA. Beautiful.

After lunch I struck off on my own to meet up with friends who work at a Christian camp in New Jersey who happened to be in China the same exact time I was. Long frustrating story made short, the China Mobile phone I'd borrowed from the team ran out of minutes and I gave up hope of finding them. So I decided to go in search of the hostel the team and I would be staying at that evening. With 4 hours until I had to meet the team at the train station I sat down outside the subway and got out a city map to try to figure out where to the hostel. Just as I got out target #3 (target 2 being my backpack and target 1 being my white skin) these friendly Chinese young people came along offering to help me. They were friendly, I didn't know where I was going and I had a few hours I didn't know what I was going to do with. We conversed a bit and one gal even knew some Cantonese.

They were students studying in Beijing and asked if I had time to view their exhibit. I eagerly agreed thinking, this will be a cool story. We went a few streets away, into a building, up an elevator and came upon some art work. I do really like Chinese artwork on scrolls. I'm not much of a gusher but I did my best to look around, comment on different pieces and act impressed. Then it hit me, "Crap, I'm going to have to buy something." It started getting awkward as they all followed me around and stared at me. I hadn't bought much yet so I didn't have a good sense of what a rip off would be but when the one gal started offering me "deals" I wasn't too amazed. Another awkward half hour went by with them giving me some water and me looking at sketches trying to figure out what to do. Awful. I purchased some artwork and then made them take me to the door of the hostel. If I had to give them this much money, no cruddy map they'd drawn would do for directions. Oh, and another guy in their group conveniently was a 'travel agent' and gave me his contact info if we decided we wanted to go see the great wall while visiting Beijing. Greeeat.

With still some time before going to meet Stacy & the team I explored the hostel. When it was time to head to the train station I used the bathroom... and read this... " WARNING: Beware of poeple approaching you on the streets claiming to be students or artists. They will often offer to give you a tour, show you an shop or take you to a tea house. They will tell you these services are free but in the end you will be asked to pay a huge price and threatened with the police if you do not pay. They are often very friendly and convincing so many tourists have been easily fooled. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! Enjoy your stay at WangFuJing Hostel."

I have never felt so violated in my life! Let's just say that I didn't give anyone the time of day as I traveled to and from the hostel to collect my friends and I was SOOOOO glad to have the comfort of their company. Now I understand why the Lord instructed the disciples to travel in pairs. It took a few days for me to process that incident. And I still can't quite enjoy the artwork without feelings of, I don't even know what, but a story I do have. And a memory of my not-so-favorite day in China.