Lee and I managed to beat jetlag. Seriously, we knocked it to the ground. No battle, struggle, or even passive annoyance from shifting fourteen hours into the future.
That doesn’t mean that we didn’t find it a very useful scapegoat for being absolutely retarded.
On our full day in Beijing, I wanted to see the Forbidden City. Touristy, but hey, I had the feeling that either way I wouldn’t be doing much blending in with women and children in China. We got there using the Beijing subway system.
Awesome: Yes.
Comedic as all hell for someone over six feet to try and squat their way through: You better know it.
Sixteen stops, and a transfer later, we were so proud of ourselves that we sprinted out, and were sure we’d be able to make our way through the whole of China as “competent” tourists.
Ahh competency… That would be the last taste of that elusive fruit we would manage to lick for a long while.
Then, we entered the Forbidden City.
Well, we entered what the thought was the Forbidden City. Turns out, it was just a park with some statues and old lookin’ buildings that were just waiting to trick innocent retarded tourists into wasting their day.
We wandered around that park for about two and a half hours before realizing our sense of underwhelment could actually be an indicator of something amiss.
It wasn’t a complete waste of time. I was asked by some other, as Lee so lovingly calls Whitey Tighties, to take their picture. I was happy to be of service. The situation quickly changed as a few minutes later while wandering through a relatively abandon portion of the park an old Han man began to make rectangular gestures at me. “Hi. Yes. No thanks, I don’t need you to take my…” He slid his hand across my back, and ended the motion with a firm clasp of my jacket. I was hit by the realization this guy could be mugging me like a sack of temped soup crashing on my head. As I was thinking of ways to politely pee my pants and run the hell away, I saw that he had some friends who were turning around.
I came within a hair of dookying out a shooter.
With talons planted in my back, he starts to strike a pose.
My internal dialogue eats itself, and I work quickly to scrape up the composure and bodily fluids I had spewed about the floor.
A picture with Whitey is something I have a much easier time giving a stranger than something closer to me like, say, my entrails.
As we exited, and noticed the entrance to the real Forbidden City a good 1,000 meters away, we shared a good laugh together. The type of laugh that roughly is the western equivalent of Seppuku.
We blamed the jet lag.
Seeing two tourists’ faces twisted in some horrible mixture of pain, hilarity, and a massive quantity of self-loathing (recognizably American expression), a new Chinese “friend” greeted us by yelling “A HAPPY NEW YEAR”. Pushing aside every single piece of advice ever given to a stranger in a strange land, we whole-heartedly trusted our new friend.
“Why yes! We are from America! Why no! We don’t know where to eat, and would love it if you took us there! You just want to practice your already flawless English, aanndd for some reason your restaurant is in a shady-ass neighborhood? Why not?”
The place she led us to was nice. It was located in a caricature of a sleazy Chinese street, but it was nice. It was a teahouse, and inside we were seated in a private room. Our friend began ordering for us. Some tea, some dumplings, nothing seemed too amiss quite yet. More tea, some more dumplings, I was assuming a feast was a cultural thing. On the seventh order of tea, a spark of concern shot through my brain, “Oh my god, we have no control of this situation. Is this like a prelude to one of those stories people tell where they were like tricked, killed, then raped?!?”. Fortunately for us, she only wanted to do one of those to us. We found out which when the bill arrived. Only about ¥1350 (about 225 USD). What I didn’t know at the time was a normal three person meal usually doesn’t cost above ¥300. So I as typical happy go lucky American went along with everything.
“So that’s about ¥450 for each of us, right?”
Lee tossed in his third.
I tossed in my card for it to be charged for I assumed was my third.
It wasn’t.
I paid for all sweet ¥900. I tried to make eye contact with our friend, but just ended up staring at the orbital of her turned head. Like many frustrated and confused times, I thought it would be a good idea to head to the bathroom. Lee and I were looking around for the men’s room when a hostess/waiter/trickster-of-retarded-whities helped us out by leading us there. We didn’t get too worried when she took us outside, but the back alley we soon found ourselves pee-waddling down raised a few red flags. But lo and behold, at the end of babyrape ally, there was a men’s room sign. Bathroom trip successful, we had a moment to ponder how our fear of awkward confrontation just overpowered our fear of being mugged/butt-mugged in a strange and distant land.
After being screwed out of 225 USD, thoughts of how our friend may in fact be a poser manipulating tighties and tourists into blowing a hot wad of cash for a commission or even just mooching a free meal at an expensive restaurant started to bounce around my head. Just as my thoughts were evolving into ideas, and ideas into those very rare evidence supported arguments, she completely shattered my all too recently constructed reality.
She gave us a gift.
Lee and I both received a box of tea. I saw her pay ¥300 for it too, about the price of her meal. Each box contained some Green, Jasime, and a whole lot of confused feelings. Did we just get used for a free meal? Did this person benefit from our absurdly huge bill? Was this person actually kind, and just tricked along side us?
We weren't able to pick during our awkward walk to the subway with her. Although awkward, our “friend” did try to lighten the mood by explaining to a street vendor that I really didn’t need to buy their hat because I was in fact, from the North Pole.
It wasn’t until later that night when Lee’s dad explained to us in detail how thoroughly we failed the day as tourists that we came to the conclusion that she was paid by the restaurant. He told us, “In China, nobody’s your friend”, and that this kind of thing happens tourists and domestic travelers (himself included) all the time. But even wise old Pappa Zhu was scratching his head over why she gave us that tea.
“Only friends give gifts”
That’s why I’m convinced the second I take a sip of that stuff I’m gonna get poisoned, have all my limbs pop off, and die.
