Two Chinas
There are two China's that tourists see. Fortunately our group got to see a bit of both of them.
We got stuck on a shopping junket and ended up touring a bunch of factories, which was really a 20 minute presentation on what the factorymakes, then you're set free for an hour in their shop to spend money. Out of the 4 days we were there, 3 of them were stuck doing the shopping crap. In between the shopping factory tours we did manage to squeeze in two hours at the Great Wall, a neat palace, Tienenmann Square and another not so neat palace.
We were very frustrated with our tour guide and expressed to him the things we wanted to see, but every request was denied with a barrage of excuses. The tour guide gets a percentage of the sales we make (a very small percentage), but in China for his income bracket every single penny makes a difference. We ended up buying a few trinkets here and there, but the icing on the cake was when we were taken to a Latex factory. Yes, a latex factory. Mattresses, pillows, etc...what a joke. We were past the point of patience and were just pissed about the whole tour experience.
Our tour guide was trying to talk us into a 4th day with him, but we all declined and he was a bit upset. So on the 4th day we all split up and decided to discover China on our own terms.
Three of us hired a guide who is a manager at a textile factory for his real job, has toured all over Europe and Asia, and when he realized that we didn't want to do any shopping but just meet and see 'normal' people in 'real' China, he was very happy.
He took us to a flea market for a few hours, drove us out to the country to meet his brother in law's family, which was really very interesting, then had duck for lunch, went to a vegetable market and played with some eels, then to Tienenmann Square for another 2 hours. A very amazing day, each experience could be 4 pages. China had been redeemed in our eyes thanks to our wonderful guide.
Others in the group had similar experiences, so I'm glad that in our own way we were all able to break free of our inept tour guide and see a part of China that he clearly wanted to keep us away from.
No images in this post...have to sort through about 8gb of images, and I cannot upload to this computer. More to come...
We got stuck on a shopping junket and ended up touring a bunch of factories, which was really a 20 minute presentation on what the factorymakes, then you're set free for an hour in their shop to spend money. Out of the 4 days we were there, 3 of them were stuck doing the shopping crap. In between the shopping factory tours we did manage to squeeze in two hours at the Great Wall, a neat palace, Tienenmann Square and another not so neat palace.
We were very frustrated with our tour guide and expressed to him the things we wanted to see, but every request was denied with a barrage of excuses. The tour guide gets a percentage of the sales we make (a very small percentage), but in China for his income bracket every single penny makes a difference. We ended up buying a few trinkets here and there, but the icing on the cake was when we were taken to a Latex factory. Yes, a latex factory. Mattresses, pillows, etc...what a joke. We were past the point of patience and were just pissed about the whole tour experience.
Our tour guide was trying to talk us into a 4th day with him, but we all declined and he was a bit upset. So on the 4th day we all split up and decided to discover China on our own terms.
Three of us hired a guide who is a manager at a textile factory for his real job, has toured all over Europe and Asia, and when he realized that we didn't want to do any shopping but just meet and see 'normal' people in 'real' China, he was very happy.
He took us to a flea market for a few hours, drove us out to the country to meet his brother in law's family, which was really very interesting, then had duck for lunch, went to a vegetable market and played with some eels, then to Tienenmann Square for another 2 hours. A very amazing day, each experience could be 4 pages. China had been redeemed in our eyes thanks to our wonderful guide.
Others in the group had similar experiences, so I'm glad that in our own way we were all able to break free of our inept tour guide and see a part of China that he clearly wanted to keep us away from.
No images in this post...have to sort through about 8gb of images, and I cannot upload to this computer. More to come...
posted by Michael at
7:55 PM
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