[pictures still to come]
Over the past month or so I have carefully and with (sometimes morbid) fascination observed the curiosities of day-to-day life in inner China and especially the “interesting” challenges that await a non-Chinese speaking foreigner in the provinces and villages where the locals possibly have never seen a foreigner before. Here are some examples, which I hope you find amusing because I certainly did:
Trying to get an Iranian visa photo done in China: Iran is one of the many countries I’m planning to visit in the next several months (although, in the case of Iran, “hoping to visit” is a more appropriate wording as evidently they refuse entry visa applications randomly and without explanation, so I actually have no idea if I’ll be able to enter the country). For my entry visa into Iran I need a number of different invitation letters and documents, among which is a visa photo of me wearing a black head scarf. I didn’t get this done in UK (no idea why, it would have been easy enough) so I needed to get it done on route. In one of the cities we were visiting I found a photo store, which appeared to do passport photos. Now all I needed to do is somehow explain to the store clerk (who of course spoke not a single word of English) that I need a visa photo for Iran (not passport photo because they are a different size), with black headscarf (not any other colour because my visa application will then be refused), with white background (not any other colour for the same reason as above) and absolutely no hair showing and no smile. Hmmm, let’s just say that it was quite an adventure and an exhausting exercise of body language to explain to the store clerk what exactly I was after. But, after about 2 hours in the store I got my photos: 2 visa and 2 passport because till the end the clerk wasn’t 100% sure which one I needed. I also had to endure bunch of local people in the shop pointing at and loudly commenting on my eyes, which, against black scarf and tanned face, appeared freakishly blue in the picture. Now I have my Iran visa pictures safely stored in my wallet and all that remains is to keep our fingers crossed that the lovely Iranian authorities will let me into their lovely country. I’ll keep you all posted on that one...
Trying to buy white wine in China: in the spirit of the preparations for going camping (i.e. buying lots of booze) we went to a supermarket with an ambitious objective of buying some wine (as the girls were getting sick and tired of drinking cheep Chinese beer). Red wine was easy enough: there were bottles of it stacked on the shelf so all we needed to do is choose one. White wine was bit more tricky. There was none of it on the shelves so we needed to ask the store clerk if they even had any. Of course, as in 99% of the cases, the locals didn’t speak any English. After many, many failed attempts to explain what we’re after, we did what we thought was a simple charade: we pointed at the bottle of red wine and then we pointed at a white shirt of a Chinese customer in the store. The store clerk’s eyes lit up and she said a relieved “aaaaaahhhhh!!!”. We thought “yes, she got it, we’ll be drinking white wine in no time”. Well, not so quickly. The store clerk went to the storage room for a minute and emerged with a box of.... laundry powder with whitener in it J We gave up our hopes of drinking white wine that night...
Trying to buy tampons in China: hmmm, that is a continuous experience, still going on in every city supermarket I get my hands on and still prving to be an unsuccessful mission. I am coming to a conclusion that they don’t sell tampons in this country. Miles and miles of fully stocked shelves with pads and panty liners of every imaginable brand, size and colour. Tampons – not a single one in sight. And asking a store staff girl if they have tampons was an adventure in itself. I was using every bit of every language known to man to explain to the poor and more (embarrassed by the minute) girl that I don’t want that thing that you put in your underwear at certain time of the month (i.e. a pad) but instead I want that thing that you put inside of you at certain time of the monh (i.e. a tampon). No luck. By now the entire female store staff have gathered and nobody had any clue was I was on about
Trying to ask where the toilet is in a restaurant in China: toilets in restaurants in China can be tricky to find. The more remote the city / village, the more obscure the location of the restaurant toilet: in back storage rooms, on the rooftop, in the restaurant owner’s private apartment, in the neighbour’s apartment etc. We were at a restaurant in a small town and, after couple of beers, I was desperate to go to the toilet. All my attempts to ask the waitresses where the toilet was failed. Finally, getting desperate, I crouched on the floor (as all toilets in China are crouching style) and made a peeing sound “psssss, psssss”. The waitress burst out in a mad attack of laughter and started waiving over the other waitresses to take a look at the crazy foreigner pretend-peeing on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. But my mission was accomplished: they did show me where the bloody toilet was and it was one of the best toilet stops I’ve ever had
Trying to buy 5 kilos of lamb meat on a local market in China: the rules of the overlanding life say that when we’re camping, we cook our own meals. There’s all the basic cooking equipment on the truck, gas stove and cook book with plenty of simple recipes. We have 4 cook teams of 4 and we take turns planning meals, shopping for them and cooking them. Few days ago my cook team was up. We wanted to make lamb stew. We went to a local meat market in a small town. No butcher had 5 kilos of fresh good meat that we wanted, just small leftover scraps. One butcher was extra nice – he signalled for us to wait 10 minutes and watch over his store while he’s gone. He jumped on his old little motorbike and disappeared. So we sat there minding his meat stand with the locals quickly gathering to stare at the strange white people behind the meat counter at their local market. After about 10 minutes the butcher came back – with a whole animal on the back seat of his motorbike, just killed and skinned! He emptied the blood and removed the main bones right in front of us with the biggest knife I’ve ever seen. I have blood spatter on my shoes to prove it!
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