What Bugs Me About China

We’re about two hours away from landing in Toronto. It’s been a long 13 hours being crammed on an airplane, but made better by changing seats with another person. Some way, somehow, I ended up getting two seats all to myself, allowing me to stretch out and sleep across both seats.

Well, China. You’ve been a slice, but I’m thankful to be back in Canada.

Hainan Airlines charged me 490RMB (roughly $75) after weighing in my luggage. The tourism board gave us a lot of literature and information pamphlets during our stay and I suspect that’s where a lot of the excess weight came from. I was a frustrated, but ah well, $75 for pretty much a free trip is peanuts as far as I’m concerned.

The last 10 days have been a bit of a blur. I know after I saw that dead body on the road, we spent two days in Zhengzhou (pronounced Joan-Joe), which definitely had an up-and-coming city vibe.

We hadn’t had much free time until then so while Brick and a few other women went to get a two-hour-long foot massage, Cindy, Eughette and myself hit the downtown to peruse the shops and vendors.

We thought we were going to be okay going by ourselves, but our tourism escort insisted coming with us. Man, that guy was high stress. He was worried about what we’d photograph and write and just wanted to get us back to the hotel as soon as possible. He said he’d get in trouble by the government by showing us the markets and taking us to places where there were homeless people (which, by the way, the local government was embarrassed by).

We tried to reassure him that photos that we took there were for personal use and not for publication, but he was still nervous. We told him we have a bigger homeless problem at home and that just because we saw a few people sleeping on the street – that, in itself, doesn’t tarnish China’s image.

He wanted us to take photos of a historic landmark instead and at one point, put his hand in front of Eughette’s camera lens. She got upset, telling him he can’t tell her what to take photos of.

I saw a lot of that sort of nervousness or censorship during my 10 days in China – about what the Western press would say. They showed us a lot of cultural history, lots of chariots, pits and ceramics but I’m disappointed they didn’t reflect on today’s China.

What do Chinese teens do, how are they being raised, trends, changes over the past decade or 25 years?

Are they ashamed?

It reminds me of the incident at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when Chinese officials replaced a little girl singer with a thinner one to show on TV.

I wonder if they understand that we don’t care about image when it comes to certain things, that we’d prefer honesty instead.

It’s funny that a lot of the things they taught us involved religion or superstition, but 90% of today’s Chinese citizens are atheists. The saving face thing – that’s still a very real concept in the east.

When we were in Sanmenxia, they took us to the village where the underground houses are. We arrived and the guide Helen told us, “We’re so lucky, we’re about to see a wedding!”

Before I got off the bus, I asked Helen whether it was staged for us, or a real wedding. She said it was real. The ceremony began about an hour later and as I was snapping photos, I asked her whether we were intruding. She said not at all. Chloe was right beside the minister and I was right by her when I noticed the “groom” was a woman.

Red flags.

After the ceremony was over, I asked another guide again, whether the thing was staged. He admitted, yes, it was.

“But that was because it’s so hard to organize a wedding here. That was a demonstration.”

That’s fine, but not just tell us straight up in the beginning?

Anyway, let’s talk about bugs. And walls. And Beijing.

Our last two days in China was spent in Beijing. We flew in from Zhengzhou and half of us headed straight for the Great Wall. You never just how expansive 8,000 km. is under you see it in stone form and watch it curve through the rolling hills in Badaling.

Carrying camera equipment up the steep sloping uphill was a battle, though. (As you can see)

But definitely worth it.



That was one thing I wanted to accomplish in the mysterious east. Here’s another: Cindy and I agreed to eat scorpions as homage to Karl Pilkington’s travels abroad.

We toured Beijing’s night market on Friday night and it didn’t take long before we found our snack of the evening – three of them that had been pierced on a stick for easy eating.



I nearly chickened out when I saw some of them were still alive, wriggling their legs.

Oh dear, I thought. Why hadn’t I taken a few shots of Pepto before this?

Also on the menu were seahorse, starfish, crickets, centipedes, silkworm larvae, various meats and corn on a stick.

Cindy, being the braver one of us, asked the vendor for a stick of scorpions and asked to have it “fried extra long” to ensure they were dead.

I asked for a seahorse. The idea of eating something cute seemed less intimidating to me.

But I was surprised when Cindy’s scorpions had shrunk significantly in size by the oil. She took the first one, Mike took the second and I said, “Okay, save the last one for me.”







The photos really say it all. I look very concerned in each frame. I’m very afraid of bugs or things that look like bugs – to the point of vacuuming them instead of touching them. I don’t know if scorpions actually file under the insect category of if it’s a distant cousin of the crab, but travel has a funny way of making you do things you would never do at home.

So when I bit down on the fried scorpion’s torso while everyone watched, I kept repeating in my head, “When in China…do as the Chinese do.”

And you know what? It wasn’t bad. I mean, it wasn’t good either, but the cook had seasoned it with chili flakes that it honestly just tasted like spices more than anything. The fact it had been fried longer also just made the thing taste crispy.

The seahorse was ready for me. This, on the other hand, turned out to be really dry. It tasted like how the sea smells. Of the two, I preferred the scorpion.

After some high fives and chugging of ice tea, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I did what I set out to do. But then, I felt sickly for a few minutes after I realized somewhere inside my digestive tract, there was a scorpion and a seahorse. I realized it was a mental perception and calmed myself down ¬– let’s carry on; there’s haggling to be had at the night market.

Cindy, on a crazy insect eating adrenaline rush, found three grasshoppers on a stick that was screaming for her mouth. She finished two – I drew my line at scorpions.

The grasshoppers, unlike the scorpions, didn’t shrink after spending time in the hot oil. Maybe that’s something to work up to in future.



Would I do it again? Maybe. Like I said, travel has a funny way of getting you excited about things you can’t do at home, especially that involves tentacles.

I'm looking forward to a burger, though!

Broken Down Buses; Dead Body on the Road

Dateline: Kaifeng.

6:27 p.m., Wednesday.

We’re currently stranded at the side of the road, outside of Millennium City Park in Kaifeng. We’ve been here for two hours so far. The Chinese equivalent of CAA arrived an hour ago, the bus started and then it died again.

The sun has begun to set.

I’ve been told another bus is en route to rescue us. TBA.

The setting sun is sort of alarming me because I’ve been listening to Max Brooks’ World War Z this morning. It’s in rural China, most likely where we are traveling, where the outbreak begins. I don’t get creeped out too easily, but passing by all the farmland to Kaifeng put bad images in my head.

8:30 p.m.

The World War Z still fresh in my head was not a good thing to have echoing when we passed by the body.

We managed to transfer to another bus, which would take us to our hotel in Zhengzhou City, located an hour away.

I was speaking to Brick and Barbara when I noticed the flashing lights of several police cars ahead. There were over a dozen people huddled at the side of the road. The bus continued to drive at normal speed, past the orange pylons. Then I saw her.

She must've been at least 50. Her lifeless body lay on the pavement, with her arms appearing to be broken. The worst part was: I made eye contact with her.

"Shit," I said aloud.

Everyone gasps, "What happened?"

I don't know what the story is but Mike suspects she was trying to cross the 10-lane highway and bam. Deer in the headlights.

I reminded me of a story I'll never forget -- covering a pedestrian death at Mount Pleasant and Balliol where John Hanley and I saw a poor old woman's decapitated remains after she was hit and dragged under a moving truck.

That woman had just undergone hip replacement surgery and was recovery. She hadn't been out in a long time, but it was that day she decided to go for a walk, wearing her Sunday best. A neighbour and friend of hers met her before she went out and had a bad feeling. She ran up the street to catch up with the woman, but by that time it was too late.

Making eye contact with that woman tonight makes me wonder what her story was.

On the Road to Henan: a Poo Story

Why does it smell like urine on this bus?

There aren’t any bathrooms on here and we’ve been on the highway for an hour, passing by more rural parts of the country.

Oh Asia, why do you hate my weak stomach so? First, Seoul left a bad taste in my intestines when I ate smoked salmon on a trip two years ago that left me glued to a heated bidet seat for several hours.

And today, the eggs did me in at our hotel in Sanmenxia, China. I suspect it was the scrambled eggs or the boiled egg I had. Either way, it was bad news bears three hours later.

We had finished a visit to a village 22 km south of the city to check out the Patio Houses, which are “cave residences,” homes that are built underground. (I’ll get back to that later after telling you about this craptacular business.)

My stomach ache intensity went from zero to 60 in a matter of minutes that left me keeling over. Our next stop was a tomb museum and after informing the tourism people out my ailment, the driver put the pedal to the metal and an escort brought me to the museum’s washroom.

The exterior of the bathroom entranceway was covered by plastic sheets – the same ones you would see in a grocery store’s meat department. The lights didn’t work. I was running out of time. Then it occurred to me I might actually have to shit and squat at the same time. Thankfully, there was a single western toilet stall. I took my position. I cannot thank Ernest for recommending I bring Wet Wipes. It would have been a very messy situation had I not because there was no paper.

What do Chinese people do? Walk around with shitty bums after going to the bathroom in public?

The most soothing thing to me during that experience was the sound of bells chiming outside.

And then I realized that the flush button was broken.

Well, glad there wasn’t any lights after all. I didn’t look back.

Anyway, we’re only at the museum for a short while and we head back to the hotel. I barely make it to my room before all hell breaks loose. Thankfully, that was the worst of it and after two shots of Pepto and a nap, I’m 100% again.

We’re heading into Luoyang City now. Population: 6.5 million.

It’s a far stretch from the 16,000 people living in the village earlier today. There are roughly 200 families that live in these patio houses. A flight of concrete steps leads you down into a courtyard area and there you’ll find the rooms to the house – bedrooms, a kitchen, washroom. It’s very bare bones, save for a couple paper decorations, which is the local’s specialty into Chinese folk arts.


The farmers don’t make very much money, maybe $260 a month. But their values are not complicated. Grow crops, provide for a family so their children can have a better life. We were told the farmers never go into the city…and why would they? They have everything they need right in the 30 square kilometers.

Most of the houses we passed by were above ground – most were by sheer definition, shacks. Some were missing roofs. Chloe asked if I thought anyone would have iPods there. Umm…probably not.

Being in a place like that certainly makes you appreciate the simpler life. I think Dave has helped me a lot with being more open-minded with small towns. There is a world outside Toronto and big cities and it makes you more humble when you see it first hand.

It actually annoys me when people speak negatively about smaller towns – even though I used to do the same a year ago. Experiencing them has changed my outlook and gives me a different perspective, even though I may not prefer to live in one right now.

National Jennygraphic continues…

The Eighth Wonder of the World...I Say My Stand-Up Without Flubbing It

Being on this train brings back fond memories of being in South Korea and riding the rails on a bullet train at 200+ miles per hour.

We’re leaving Xi’an and heading to Henan province, which I found out, is not the same as Hunan province. I thought there might’ve been some overlap via Cantonese to Mandarin translation, but that’s not the case. I was looking forward to discovering the origin of the Hunan Beef recipe.

The next few days will be busy and we’ll be living out of suitcases, staying at different hotels each night and cramming in as much of our itinerary as possible. One night in Beijing. Wish we could’ve stopped off in Shanghai. Uncle Chuck and Aunt Rosemary will be disappointed. Whenever I tell people their names, they always say, “Shouldn’t they be called, ‘Ling’ or ‘Ming?’”

Yesterday, we visited a hot spring where an emperor bathed with his favourite concubine. China is full of heartbreaking love stories similar to the style of Pinkerton and Cho-Cho San. In this case, the top concubine was asked to kill herself by the emperor after she poised a threat to China – the rebellion army saw her as a weak point to the ruler. She ended up offing herself. I suppose that’s a bit patriotic.

Lots of farmland outside my window.

The Terracotta Warriors were interesting to see, though I probably didn’t need to see three whole pits of them. The main pit has the majority – about 6,000 of the 8,000. It’s said that there are a total of 12,000, so about 4,000 more need to be uncovered. The emperor at the time wanted his spirit to live on through these figures. It was also a sign of his legacy to humans long after he died.



Doing stand-ups while shooting video is always nerve-wracking, but more so when I was under the gun in front of the army. People would walk by and I began to feel a bit embarrassed of speaking English because I felt they were looking at me weird. It took about a dozen takes but I managed to get a good one in.

A bit more history of the army: The clay figurines were discovered by a farmer in Xi’an in 1974 by accident.

The same farmer now sits there in the Terracotta Army Museum and signs books. You can see he’s lost all passion (if there was any in the beginning) for the archeology discover of “the eighth wonder of the world” and briefly mugs for the camera when someone pays him 50 yuan to take a picture with him. I just find it funny the farmer is an A-list celebrity of sorts there. Lindsay Lohan, the cast of Jersey Shore…and that guy, you know, that guy.

Welcome to Huashan North Station!

Exclamation mark!

I’m on a mission to find a box of chocolate Pocky. I want to see whether that is just a North American-made up product or if they exist in China.

I checked at the train station at a convenience store. No sign of the thin sticks of chocolate goodness in sight but I did manage to find a 5 yuan bottle of questionable booze that contains 52% alcohol content. I think 5 yuan is equal to roughly 70 cents Canadian. Buying that sounds like something a responsible person would do.

I’ve been bringing toilet paper and Wet Naps (good call, Ernest) everywhere. Been trying to get used to Oriental Toilets where you just squat. My biggest concern is pissing all over myself and my jeans, but luckily, that hasn’t been the case. If I ace that, I might start trying to pee standing up. I’ve always wanted to write my name in the snow.

Not related to bathroom etiquette, but this will be the next topic: the food.

We had one of the worst Chinese meals I’ve had in my life today. It was supposed to be a goodbye banquet for us in Xi’an but they took us to a very Western place. Chicken balls would’ve made it better. Our guide, Brick, said he’s “suspicious” when he sees the ratio of Caucasians outnumber Asians in a food establishment.

I’ve been to different places around the globe, but the best Chinese food I’ve had still is in Toronto, hands down. I feel lucky we have eateries like King’s Noodle to satiate us, MSG or not.

I tried my hand at calligraphy and found out, as I am on my feet, I am with black ink on rice paper – clumsy. I did get the museum of an art museum to translate “Yuen” into a Mandarin equivalent and write out the character.




Half of the trip is finished. Still enjoying learning about the roots of my culture, but starting to feel not really homesick, but a yearning to sleep in my own bed. I miss Dave and have been thinking about him lots.

National Jennygraphic continues…

Xi'an, I am. Yes, ma'am.

It's 5:55 a.m.
I am on the can.

By the way, China fills their toilets up with hot water. I can feel the steam right now on my rear end. Maybe if they took away the idea of "Tide Cold Water," things would be more green.

This will be our second day out in Xi'an (pronounced, "Shee-Ann") and I believe we're seeing the Terracotta Army. There is also a traditional Chinese theatre show scheduled along with another dinner banquet.

But let's get back to Pearson International Airport and Toronto – the real motherland.

Joe Warmington dropped me off at the airport and I checked into Hainan Airlines. They sent me up to the KLN First Class Airport Lounge and I immediately ran towards the mini bags of almonds and peanuts.

We boarded our plane at around 5 p.m. I was surprised to find out that fellow traveler Chloe Tse's mom works at the Sun and I was also about to fly to China with my city editor Jonathan Kingstone's mother. What a small world.

I show the beautiful stewardesses in purple my boarding pass and instead of the usual two-finger point to the right towards economy class, they welcome me to first class. Holy moly.

I felt like a hobo. Well, a hobo in first class.

Seriously.

I'm not used to this. I'm used to eating the scraps left from business class and my legs falling asleep from being squished. And if ever there was a flight to stretch my midget legs out, this was it.

Thirteen hours. YYZ to PEK.

Relatively painless made by getting to know Chloe, this sassy lesbian, next to me. We seem to have formed a bond – And before Jim Thomson suggests, I'm not implying we're bonded by a Chinese finger trap.

Also, a shot of Bailey's helped put me to sleep.

The airline staff gave us slippers, the seats reclined into beds, the blankets were duvets. I fell asleep trying to watch Easy A twice. Ah, life is good.

After 13 hours though, all you want to do is hit the hotel and go to bed. But we still had another four hours ahead of us by getting to another terminal to board our ride to Xi'an. Four hours later, we made it.

At the beginning of these junkets I always look for the one "problem" person in the group – the someone who makes it difficult, feels entitled. I'm still sleuthing it out but I think I might've figured out who killed Col. Mustard with the notepad.

Xi'an.

If you speak Cantonese, no one will understand you. It's strictly Mandarin and the two are not interchangeable. Also, I keep getting told I "can't speak Chinese," which makes me wonder if Mandarin-ites think they're all that and a bag of chips.

We left the hotel around 10 a.m. The jet lag didn't really occur to me.
First stop was the Wild Goose Pagoda. Legend has it in around 625 AD, this temple was built. The Buddhists took it as a sign from their God that it was good fortune when a wild goose dropped dead at their doorsteps, offering them animal meat after a steady diet of vegetables only. So they named this temple after them where many still come today to pray.
We also took a city tour where I found out just how crazy Asian drivers.

I no longer believe the stereotype that Asians are bad drivers. I wholeheartedly think Westerners couldn't cut it out here. There really aren't too many traffic laws, you see scooters with whole families on them splitting lanes, whizzing by pedestrians and between cars, buses and bicycles.

It's insane there aren't a thousand fatalities each day. You can with some of the photos I'm posting. So why are we called bad drivers over in North America? If you get used to driving this way in Asia and come over to Canada and pull the same shit, everyone will label you that. The traffic is awful here, especially around 5-8 p.m. Eight million people – one million of them have cars. Makes the DVP not even that bad.


The tourism association scheduled us to attend a conference with the head of Xi'an Horticultural Expo 2011, a big deal to the city. It's essentially a giant flower show they're construction for April and tons of work needs to be done. They want 12 millions of visitors to come to this city. What was weird was the news story for the Chinese reporters and TV cameras was us. Canadians were coming to the city, so they were treating us like A-List Celebrities (Maybe they heard we flew over first class?). But we'd ask questions during the conference and photogs would be trigger happy. It felt like the pressure was on.


The dumpling banquet at dinner was interesting. I think, 18 courses. I ate frog. I'm more looking forward to trying the scorpions on a stick.


Cindy, Brick (our tourism contact), Chloe and I toured the night market. It was very similar to Hong Kong's Temple St. Market, selling overpriced souvenirs to tourists, but with one very distinct difference: the smell. The smell of stinky tofu made Chloe wretch a few times. And nearly getting hit by speeding scooters cars and bikes in the tight alleyways. No one gives a shit about pedestrians so always look forwards and backwards. No one will stop if they hit you.

I am having a great time in Xi'an. My family (dad's side) is originally from farther south in Canton on the mainland, but this still feels like "the motherland."

National Jennygraphic continues...

Rush rush rush

I'm actually on the can as I write this because I believe in multi-tasking all the way.

Mostly packed up but need to still pick up a tripod from Henry's this morning, go to the gym and buy a dual-wattage travel hair dryer. I also hate leaving the kitchen a mess - it's one of those weird paranoid things. If someone breaks in, I want them to have clean dishes.

The day has begun!