On Touring China

We spent all weekend touring two different cities relatively close to Suzhou. I'm too tired now to go into all the details of where we went and what we saw, but this weekend made me realize that there are certain things I love about touring China and certain things I am not big on.

I do not like touring China because:

1. China history is long and complicated, and I never learned enough of it in school to appreciate what I'm looking at. That compounded with not really being able to understand historical terms in Chinese makes pretty boring at times. I think I would enjoy all of the places we went if I at least knew the significance of them.

2. I do not like tour guides. I have nothing against our tour guide as a person, but as a tour guide I was not a fan. Tour guides in every country bother me, but maybe just because I've had more experience with Chinese tour guides they get on my nerves more. Our tour guide carried around a flag the whole time so we could always find him, and he was constantly yelling "tong xue men!" (students!) to get us to follow him every where. Also, he wore a microphone/speaker set that was kind of scratchy and he practically shouted into it. Plus, in his description of everywhere we went, he would always start talking about it and then say, "and why?" or "what does this mean?" and then answer his own question. It got a little annoying since that was usually the only part I actually understood.

3. Most tourist attractions here have such long paths we have to walk on. It's probably like that everywhere, but it seems worse here because it's so incredibly hot you're soaked with sweat looking at all the cement you still have to cover before you come to the end and you just want to quit. Plus, since you have to be ultra-prepared in China and have tissues, antibacterial gel, camera, snacks, etc in your purse, the heaviness of my purse was killing my back.

4. Chinese women do not like being in the sun so they carry umbrellas when they're outside. That's fine and dandy, but because most of them are shorter than I am, all of the umbrella pointy things on the end are right at my eye level. I was constantly having to shield my eyes as we walked through the masses to make sure I still had both of my eyeballs in the sockets by the time we finished the tour.

5. I hate cats, but I especially hate cats in China because I think they're really dirty. There were like 12 cats at every single place we toured this weekend. And all of them were skinny and malnourished and meowing and trying to get up on our legs. ugh it was so gross. I just feel like they reek with disease and filth and I can't stand that they are everywhere.

I realize that this list makes it seem like I hated this weekend, but I really didn't. I'm just really tired and a little culture shocked so things are starting to get on my nerves.

I do like touring in China because:

1. I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to see the places we do tour. Many people in China do not have the chance to travel and see landmarks that are so important to them, and knowing this makes me grateful that we are having such rich experiences here. It makes me really happy when I see an old couple touring some of the sites, because in my head I make up a story that they saved up money for a long time to be able to travel and afford to see it. I guess that's what happens when I'm tired of speaking only in Chinese and just have my mind to entertain myself.

2. Along with that, since it's such a big deal to travel, Chinese people take a ton of posed pictures. Every view of the building, and every cool rock and yet another statue of a lion, they are always posing in front of them for another picture. Half the time I don't know the significance of the thing they're posing in front of, but because everyone else is doing it I just pose and get my own picture taken. It makes it much more entertaining. Plus it's kind of humorous when they try to nonchalantly take a picture of the foreigners and we can definitely tell what they're doing.

3. The way signs are translated into English is hilarious. Stuff like "Environment to be cared by all" and "Only passengers ride who pay for wheel" makes me laugh. It's especially entertaining because when all of us are exhausted from communicating in Chinese, it's so easy to just point at the funny signs and laugh. I love laughing, but I've gained an even greater appreciation for laughter because it spans across all languages. And sometimes I'm too tired to say anything and can only laugh.

4. The first hotel we stayed in wasn't bad, but the hotel we were in last night was great. The beds actually had springs in them, and I slept so well. Plus there were two real pillows and I wish I could've brought the bed and pillows home. The bathroom was also very clean and had great water pressure and temperature. For breakfast this morning they had some chocolate cereal and orange juice and pineapple juice! I was super excited because I can only handle fried rice and meat-filled dumplings for breakfast for so long.

5. When we're very hot and unsure of how good our next meal will be, we can always turn to Magnums. I love that almost every stand or small store in China has an ice cream freezer, and if we're lucky they have Magnums. I already have not kept to my goal of one Magnum per week: I had two Magnums this weekend. But they are so delicious and it was really hot and we figured lunch wouldn't be that good. So it was definitely a necessity.

I will write about the weekend later this week. I'm exhausted.