Sunday. January 30, 2011

I have arrived in Shanghai. I spent my first night in an airport hotel. The rate was as much as my entire stay at the hostel, but it was certainly my fault that I did not change my currency beforehand. When I did exchange my currency, I saw that the exchange was awful. The spread between buy and sell was 20%. Be careful in Shanghai. I started today rather properly. I took a taxi into town and paid three times the rate I was told to accept. I walked around the People’s Square and visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. The exhibits were rather uninteresting, with the exception of the scale model of Shanghai.

On my way out, two ladies approached me outside the building and started a conversation in impressive English. They then invited me to join them for tea and chocolate, but I recall reading in the Lonely Planet guide that this was a scam. After drinking your tea, you would be given a bill for over $100 USD. Fortunately, I was able to avoid being conned for lunch. Since breakfast was a medley of vegetables and some rather unappealing uncooked meats, I grabbed a bowl of rice soup -- thinking it would make a decent breakfast -- only to find that it had something resembling goat testicles in it. I later found out that they were "fish balls." I wouldn't have put that past the Chinese though. The dumplings and oranges were good, but I couldn’t get over the fact that there were no cold drinks. All that was available was hot milk and a hot version of what appeared to be Fanta. I tried some of the vegetables, but the recognizable ones were cold. Considering they were presented in hot trays, this was my first glimpse at the Chinese work ethic. Three ladies stood around gossiping about what I can only assume was the most recent episode of Gilmore Girls. Ten minutes after serving myself, I noticed they were finally lighting the heating lamps for the vegetables I so coveted. Even though breakfast would only be served for another 20-30 minutes, they were finally coming around to doing their work.

The lunch fiasco is really what I want to write about. I was given a menu at a restaurant that looked pretty classy and I saw “Mutton was smothered in onions” and decided to order it. The price was listed as 28 Yuan and I was asked if I wanted rice, I accepted. The hostess who seated me took my menu from me and walked away. The meal was delicious and I was quite satisfied, but the itemized receipt I received was for 44 Yuan. The rice was 2 Yuan and the dish was 42 Yuan. I asked to see a menu and it showed 42 Yuan. I was not surprised, so I walked over to a table and asked to see another customers. When it read the same price, I knew I had been bested by the old bait-and-switch, so I paid.

Everyone warned me to be careful, but no one was specific enough. Three times in my first day, someone attempted to screw me out of my money. I used to pity these people because they are poor and lack basic freedoms of speech. Out of curiosity, I decided to google some things here in China. The first was obviously the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Surprisingly, it showed images of the student a foot in front of a tank. However, the Chinese railway strike did not hit any results, Gmail, Skype, and Facebook were all nonfunctional, and any attempts to access Korean or International Google were blocked. But I don’t pity these people, they have sewn their own fate.

Just like the North Koreans, the Chinese have earned their lack of freedom -- not as persons, but as a people -- through complacency. On the other side of the Pacific pool, I used to wonder how people (North Koreans) could be coaxed into thinking that a despot who doesn't allow his citizens to leave the country could be dubbed The Great Leader. It has become very clear to me since arrival. Confucianism. Even the South Koreans have Confucian customs, but they have the great advantage of being freed from the threat of despotic rule that was artificially rooted in a people's movement. This has brought them economic prosperity and freedoms -- with the exception of the great protectionism that Korean companies enjoy. While Koreans have Confucian society to blame, the same can not be said of the Chinese. Mao crushed that. (Why?!?) Most people here are rude, pushy, and ill-mannered. They have abandoned customs and tradition (two things I never thought I would be defending) and pushed aside the hope of communication freely and openly, for wealth, status, and selfishness -- the absolute polar opposite of everything for which this country's governmental philosophy is supposed to stand. It is utterly disappointing to be reminded that we humans cannot:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"