by Charles DeBenedetto
(Muslim Street Market, Xi’an, China.
Photo Credit: topchinatravel.com)
It
is unbearably hot. Sweat pours into my eyes, burning, before I have time to wipe
it away. Desperately, I want to order an iced beverage from the many tea shops
that line the streets, but I cannot. I am a little savvy by now, and I know
that they use unfiltered tap water for the ice cubes, and that it will make me
sick. As I walk the crowded market streets, my hands never leave my pockets,
one hand grasping my phone, the other my wallet. I wear my backpack on the
front.
I
am not in Taiwan. I am in Mainland China.
A
man with physical deformities, globular, amorphous legs and arms of abnormal
size, is kowtowing, begging for money. I have been told that the money
collected by people like him will go to organized crime groups. Still, I look
again sadly before continuing on.
A
stout man in a sweat-stained T-shirt stops too closely to me. He is holding a
colored paper and a tiny pair of scissors. Before I have time to move around
him, he begins to cut deftly, rapidly, stealing glances up at me before going
back to his work. I feel uncomfortable. After about thirty seconds, he has cut a
perfect silhouette of my head, complete with my large nose and the straw hat I
was wearing.
I’m
wary. I don’t want to bite. “Cool,” I say flatly.
“Thirty
yuan” he says matter-of-factly (the “yuan” is the Chinese currency, and at this
time six yuan was about one US dollar).
I
really want to say, “I didn’t ask you to make that for me,” but instead I say,
“Oh, I don’t have any extra spending money.” It is a lie, and he knows it.
He
looks attacked. “But I already cut the paper!” he says angrily.
Again,
I really want to speak my unspoken thoughts, but I refrain. I simply say, “I’m
sorry,” and continue walking.
He
follows me for quite a while before relenting.
Zigzagging
through shops, some have specialties, like calligraphy or porcelains, while
others sell kitschy T-shirts and Communist merchandise. (If “Communist
merchandise” sounds like an oxy-moron, that’s because it is. “Chinese
Communism” should be understood to be an authoritarian government with a
capitalist market.)
In
one of those kitschy shops, there is a T-shirt with former President Obama
wearing a Chinese Communist red-stared green hat, with the word “Oba-mao” on
it. Walking past it, I come across a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book, and I
decide to buy it so that I can better understand the appeal of his personality
cult. I inquire about the price. The shopkeeper, a gruff older man with gray
hair and stubble, says “one-hundred yuan.”
The
price sounds pretty good if I were in America, but I know I am getting ripped
off. As anyone who has been in China for more than a week would do, I feign
anger and say accusingly, “That’s too expensive!”
Without
even blinking, he says, “Okay, fifty yuan.”
“I’ll
think about it,” I say coolly as I leave to aimlessly wander around other
stores and kill time.
Twenty
minutes later, I return. I ask about the price again, and now he says “twenty
yuan.” I talked him down by eighty percent! I agree to the price, and I leave
with a slight smile, feeling very proud of my achievement.
Back
in the dorm, I excitedly tell my Chinese roommate about my experience. I pass
the book over to him so that he can see it. Flipping the pages absentmindedly,
he says sadly, “This book is only worth about five yuan. You were still ripped
off.”
* * *
My
time in the mainland was interesting and exciting, but also very uncertain. I
grew to dislike going on adventures and exploring, because it felt as though everyone
was trying to trick me. Western people, especially those with little Mandarin
ability, are perceived as the perfect combination of wealthy and easy-to-scam,
even though, with my substantial student loans, I did not feel affluent or
superior. Even ATMs could not be trusted, as some are rigged to eat your card
and make as many purchases with it as possible before you can call your card
company and de-activate it.
Whenever
I was taken advantage of, I tried to be forgiving. “They are trying to scam me
because they live in poverty, and I should just hope that they can use the
money they get from me to eat a warm meal,” I would think. Despite China’s
strong appearance, the Communist Party has reported that there are about 600 million
Chinese people earning a living of only 140 USD a month, which is tremendously
inadequate for even a spartan lifestyle. We can assume that the actual number
of impoverished people may be higher.
But
a society where nothing is certain – all prices are negotiable, and quality is
always unclear – is not one that I want to be a part of. Of course, I made
friends in China and met some wonderful and good people, but I voted with my
feet when I chose not to settle down there.
I
chose Taiwan because, contrary to China, there is virtually universal trust in
both the market and the government, and Taiwanese people trust each other and
many have high virtues. Almost every foreigner in Taiwan remembers fondly the
first time they left their keys in the ignition of their scooter all day, only
to return after work and, shaking their head, wonder how many people walked
past it and decided not to steal it. Whenever I buy something, the price is
fixed and fair, and I am not told a higher price in an attempt to scam a
foreigner.
And
on a hot day, I do buy an iced beverage, and I know that I will not get sick.
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