Travel to Live. Live to Travel

A funny thing about travelers is that they often do things that they would never do back in their own countries.

This is most obvious when it comes to eating. There are many travelers out there who would never dream of eating at a Denny’s or a truck stop, yet when in a foreign country figure these places are more “local” and “authentic.” Why? I suppose because in the third world people are poor, therefore, travelers should eat poorly as well?

I’ve always thought this a bit silly. Afterall, I seek out quality cuisine in America. I look for cute cafes with interesting menus, dive diners with a solid reputation–above all, I look for quality. So, how is a traveler’s experience cheapened when they do the same thing?

Another thing–why is it less authentic and local to eat, say, Italian food in Japan? I assure you, the Japanese eat it at least once a week if not more so. I don’t think any Brit considers themselves less authentically British for loving a good chicken tikka marsala (and some would say, not liking it makes you somehow less British.) Certainly, Italian in Japan isn’t “traditional” fare, but then again neither is a lot of things local, authentic Japanese people eat.

So today, Hugh and I decided to try and be a little “local.” Upon arrival, a local who was helping us set up showed us the closest restaurants and told us they were very good. We were a bit saddened to see they were mostly non-Chinese places, ooh, sooo NOT authentic (right?) She then pointed in a direction of more restaurants but added, “those are for the taxi drivers, please don’t eat there.” Now, if I were one of these stubborn authenticity-seekers then we woulda gone over there, but here comes the rub. WHY? You go to New York and your friend says, “Yeah, avoid those spots–not so good,” would you really go? Why do we travelers act so patronizing to our host countries sometimes? Cheap & bad =/= authentic.

So anyways, unable to take my own good advice, we contemplated eating at the Chinese Hooters for giggles (needless to say at Hooters China the, um, waitresses are a little less hootery…) but we decided to save that for when we were really dying for Western food. For some unknown reason we decided upon a Japanese restaurant that are fairly popular in China it seems. Here’s where the whole bit about travelers doing things they’d never normally do comes to play–we would NEVER eat at one of these places in Japan, a chain restaurant that serves cheap food poorly. Yet we did it in China. Not surprisingly, it was pretty meh. We followed it up by going to a “local” (and dead) ice cream parlor (and not the insanely busy McDonald’s or Haggen Daaz) only to be served ice cream with freezer burn and a mint coffee that tasted like antacid.

For foodies like us, this was depressing.

Am I saying all “local” Chinese places are bad? Of course not, I’ve eaten at some delicious ones so far and found cute cafes and wonderful modern places. Some would say eating at a place that costs more than 50 cents makes it less authentic, but I call those people stupid. From now on, I’ll take my advice. Eat with the locals, even if that means having Italian in Japan.

Despite our best efforts, today started off on a bit of a rough patch. Due to jet lag, we woke up at 5am and had little to do but try and steal internet and eat sandwiches with provisions (baguette, brie, and ham–we’re assholes) we had purchased the night before. Needless to say, when we decided to go out into the city around 10am we were stir crazy and hungry. This is unfortunate, since our first stop was the Bund–a collection of old colonial buildings on the waterfront and facing some pretty spectacular buildings on the Pudong side of Shanghai which are all super futuristic (and/or tacky.)

I usually love this sort of juxtaposition stuff, but instead we was hot and cranky and eager to find something to eat. After a remarkably long walk which wasn’t helped at all by the fact I decided to buy the WORST guide-book to Shanghai. It’s full of beautiful pictures and history on all the buildings, but it doesn’t tell you whether the building is actually functional (long history on the architect of a theatre, but no information on what actual is performed there) nor do the maps bother to list all the streets. I digress–finally, Hugh found a place and we were like, fine, lets go here.

Turns out it was a restaurant that has been around since the 1800s and it was at this restaurant that, finding myself simply overwhelmed, I almost burst into tears. I suppose it was a mix of the heat and the just being so unable to communicate when people think I can. I never know if someone is shouting, “Hey you! Watch out!” or what to do or say when someone asks me a question. You know, it was culture shock.

But remembered this saying we invented yesterday–Think: Luke!

See, I have always greatly admired anyone who went to Japan with me who didn’t know anything about the language or the culture. Me, I studied it for years and came to Japan near fluent in Japanese. It was easy for me. I could have never done what some of my friends did. This is where the phrase Think Luke! came from. We tried to think of one of our friends, someone who came to Japan non-fluent but kind of had fun with that and had a good attitude, smiled, tried to be positive about it, etc. So we thought of Luke (if you’re reading this buddy, you better be flattered ;P) When you feel let down, think Luke!

China is the first country I’ve gone to in Asia where lots of people don’t speak English–cause, well, why should they? They do in Cambodia because the economy in Angkor Wat is based around tourism. I’m just grateful for my Japanese ability which means I can more or less understand signs and read maps and sometimes even make a decent guess at pronunciation.

So anyways, after a delicious lunch and a pep talk, we set off feeling better — found a Starbucks, got our caffeine fix, people watched, pep talked a bit more (which made Hugh feel better this time. We then managed to spend the next 12 hours wandering around Shanghai on foot, amazed at just how sprawled out the city was and how clean it was. There’s always this impression that China was dirty, told to me by my Chinese friends nonetheless. Maybe it is, but Shanghai is near spotless.

At night we had arranged to meet a friend for dinner, but due to my shitty guidebook we found ourselves lost in the French Concession. So we decided to ask a waitress at a cafe, who proceeded to take my book and ask another customer where the location of an unmarked road was. In the end, the waitress asked me if I could read Chinese–I responded that I could a little, and she presented me with a JAPANESE advertisement tourism book that just happened to have incredibly detailed maps of all of Shanghai including all the street names in CHINESE characters and not useless English ones.

THANK YOU!

Anyways, dinner was fun (Yunnanese food) and in the end we got to a taxi and managed to make our way home communicating with the driver only with what limited Chinese we have learned, which, well, made me feel really good. I know I could probably get by just speaking English, but I’ve always felt when in a country every effort should be made to speak as much of the language as one can until the locals laugh at you and speak in English to you. Most of our broken-gibberish Chinese phrases has been greeted with Chinese spoken at natural speed, which tells me either they think we can understand them because our Chinese is just so awesome or they don’t speak English at all–so Chinese it is!

Anyways, after walking around for 12 hours straight we’ve decided that tomorrow is going to be a day of rest….probably.

P.S. I can’t seem to access LJ within China, if anyone knows of a proxy server, please let me know.

Today is our official first start of our little adventures in Asia. It began fairly stressful yesterday–when I came down with a sore throat and a bit of a fever. However, we took it easy and I felt more or less better by morning.

The flight was uneventful and I fell asleep before the flight took off (as usual) to wake up to a very disgusting meal, thank you very much China Eastern Airlines. After lunch I gazed out the window until I came upon this vast expanse of chocolate brown below us.

Ah, could it be a desert? I wondered, No, we’re too far east–it must be post harvest rice paddies?

Then I saw a container ship cut through what I had previously thought was earth…

No, it’s the ocean. It takes a special kind of pollution to make the ocean look brown from 20,000 feet, I must say.

Anyways, so we arrived at Shanghai, took a harrowing taxi ride into the city and arrived at my friend Jon’s father’s spare apartment located in the expat district of Shanghai. We ate lunch, bought some breakfast supplies, than had traditional Chinese massages. All in all, a very nice start to our adventures. Honestly, I’m glad we’re able to ease into the China thing…. I’ve heard plenty of scary stories (all vastly exaggerated, I’m sure). We’re heading pretty far off the typical tourist path in the next few weeks, so it’s nice to have the chance to acclimate and learn a little Chinese first.

Now I just need to learn how to say, “I don’t speak Chinese,”