Tavel Blog

Our bags are packed with only a few last minute items to toss in tomorrow morning, but I’m still working on my “To Do Before the Trip” list.  That is now longer than my “Don’t Forget to Pack” list.   I’m working on the important things first and I’ll see about the stuff at the bottom of the list (like clean the toilets).  Either the boys will do those things or ignore those things.  Which ever, I’m not going to even think about them after I walk out the door at 4:45 AM.  Vacation begins!
I’m praying that two weeks from now we return to a country heading in the right direction.  I hope our citizens vote to save the family, save marriage, save democracy, save faith and freedom. Yes, the economy is in serious straits but we need to look down the long road.  We must choose to save the values that this nation was founded upon so that the Lord will keep His hand of blessing on our land.

The Bible teaches that the “Eye of the Lord” is on us, and I’m grateful for that.  His eyes are upon us no matter what part of the planet we are on.  We are now also under the watchful eye of the U.S. State Department.  Citizens traveling abroad can register with them we just found out, and so we did.  And there are about a quarter of a million closed-circuit television cameras in the city of Beijing alone, so Big Brother will be watching, too.

Seems like every week I learn about something else that I am ignorant about with regard to international travel.  This week it’s Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.  When an American citizen comes back to the U.S. after traveling abroad, s/he must clear customs. One of the stops is filling out one or more entry forms.  You need to declare everything that you have purchased on your travels and pay import duty tax on those items.  If you have new items that you don’t have a receipt for, you must pay the tax whether or not you owned those things before you left the U.S.  For example, John bought a mini laptop and a digital camera several weeks ago.  To avoid the tax on items already owned, he must complete a Certificate of Registration (CBP form #4457) and submit proof of purchase to the CBP.  The items on the certificate must be physically verified by a border agent.     So on our short layover in Atlanta on our way to China, we need to find Border Protection and get our proof of ownership paper certified.   Before being cleared to board our aircraft, we could also be selected for a random search of our luggage or even a personal search by Border Protection — not counting searches by the TSA (Transporation Security Administation).  Well, at least now we have a heads-up and won’t be totally shocked if we are chosen for that experience.  And I guess it will be preparation for lack of freedoms in a non-democratic land.

The freezer is now stocked with fifteen TV dinners for the boys’ dining pleasure while we are in China.  But these aren’t the Swanson aluminum tray meals of the 1950’s that I remember with the processed meat, fake mashed potatoes and tiny green peas.  With names like Cavatappi Bolognese and Ravioli Pomodoro, there are some interesting choices which also include lasagna, scalloped potatoes and meatloaf, and vegetable lo mein.  They’ll be on their own for breakfasts and lunches, but, at least after a long day on campus, dinners will be more than sandwiches, cereal, or, more likely, granola bars.  While John and I are feasting on baked snake or fried silkworms, they’ll probably be more than happy to eat something that they recognize.  Their palates aren’t quite as adventurous as ours!  I hope to sample as many as possible of the Eight Great Traditions (regional cuisines of China) plus the local foods.

The “laowai” in China is advised not to take some of local behavior too personally but to be flexible and prepared for people to act very differently.  Spitting is very common, even indoors.  Pushing and jostling in crowded areas, jumping ahead of people in line (queues), as well as ignoring rules (such as “no smoking”) happen often.  Locals often laugh aloud at foreigners and catcall — actually yelling out “laowai” as they walk by.  Anyone who looks obviously different will be intensely stared at.  These behaviors are seen more frequently in the rural parts of the country but also take place in the large, metropolitan areas.

There’s a list of scams a mile long to beware of.  A big one is counterfeit money.  The 50 and 100 note yuan are often passed along to unsuspecting people by the street vendors and taxi cab drivers.  We need to keep an eye out for the color, the watermark, the paper, and the braille dots in the lower left corner of the front side.  The color, apparently, is hard to imitate, and the watermark on fake ones is not clear.  If we could  carry around a black light,  we could see if the paper was too bright.

Then there’s the tea house scam.  Tea houses are everywhere — pleasant respites to sip tea and relax in beautiful surroundings.  But beware! Students “practicing their English” invite you to a tea tasting: trying different teas, learning about what ailments or parts of the body the teas were good for, what water temperature was appropriate for that tea, how to properly hold the cups, etc.  Then at the end you are not only overcharged for the tea, but also charged for the room, the tea pot, the lesson, among other things.  Duped tourists have been known to pay several hundred dollars!

Of course, like in other countries, there are the taxi drivers who take you out of your way and add many miles to the trip.  (Some rickshaw drivers do the same).  The taxi drivers must have government licenses but some do not, and you have to be knowledgeable about what their license plates must look like.  In China, well in Beijing and Shanghai anyway, all taxis charge you by the mile and sometimes by the minute (at red lights and in traffic jams — any time you’re traveling less than 12 km/hour).  The customer also pays for tolls.  Government taxis all have machine printed receipts that spell out all the details of the fare so that’s another word to learn — “fapiao” (receipt).  That way you have some recourse if you feel gypped.

And  there are the pickpockets!  Everywhere.   We must carry our passport, money, credit and debit cards, and all important papers with us at all times — in a “secret” security belt under our clothes.  My backpack has steel enforced straps and hidden zippers and a way to hook it to my chair in a restaurant so it can’t be snatched away.  Oh, the stories I’ve read from those who learned all these lessons the hard way.

Might it be less dangerous to go swimming with the crocodiles in the Nile?!

We will be so blessed to have two wonderful guides for 99% of our trip.  They both grew up in China, and so, of course, speak fluent Mandarin.  There are 56 ethnic groups in China, each speaking their own dialect but the majority of the people all over the country speak Mandarin also.  While the guys are at the conference together, the ladies will be sightseeing and shopping all over Shanghai.   There are very few people in China who speak English, and so taking taxis, buses, and trains would be challenging without a native speaker.  In many of the larger restaurants you can get a menu in English but quite often, the prices are higher.  The streets signs are written two ways: Chinese characters and romanized letters called pinyan.  But it’s even hard to read pinyan because even though the letters are ones English-speakers recognize, they are not all pronounced the way we do in English.  So you may know the name of the road you are looking for, but you won’t recognize it in writing.

Our friends are staying an extra week so John and I will have to get from Beijing back to Shanghai by ourselves on the last day — over a thousand mile trip — to catch our plane back to Atlanta.  We are trying to decide if we will take the overnight sleeper train or if we will fly on one of the local airlines.

Taking the 12-hour train ride  has advantages: we’d save hotel expenses, it’s cheaper than flying, and there aren’t as many delays.  But in the “soft sleeper” compartments, there are 4 bunks, and there would be strangers sleeping in the other two.  On the other hand, flights are often delayed up to 4 hours and they are expensive but we’d fly right into the airport where we will be catching our international flight and so would not have to maneuver our way across the 25 million-peopled city.  Final decision to be announced.

Back to the dark ages, we go.  No personal cell phones.  It’s amazing that in just a very few short years, we’ve become so accustomed to having instant communication.  Well, we will have a laptop.  The “ultra-mobile PC”, the  Eee, a mini-laptop.  Lightweight, 10″ diagonal screen.  Just enough to check our email, use Skype to communicate with the boys, and download our photos and videos each evening.