Playing on their home ground
Teddy Collins
Never try to outwit a Chinese on his home ground, you will not succeed. I speak from experience. On my first trip to China as a tourist in 1994 1 visited Beijing. Naturally I wanted to see the Great Wall. I booked on a bus tour and was collected from my hotel at 7:30am. By 9:00am we had called to numerous hotels to collect other passengers. I had no problem about this as I saw a great deal of the city as we stopped and started.
We headed off but soon pulled up at a factory shop. This became a pattern so we had three other stops before reaching our destination. All went well until the return journey when the same pattern emerged. All of us became annoyed, so at the third stop we refused to get off the bus saying we wanted to get back to Beijing.
The guide and driver weren't pleased as they saw the possibility of a handout from the factory shop disappear. Finally they gave in and continued on our way. Smug smiles of satisfaction could be seen on many faces thinking that we had finally outwitted the guide and driver!
We soon learned that we were the losers as the driver proceeded to drive along at what seemed like 10 miles an hour. Protests were useless so we found that we arrived back at our hotel at 6:30pm - half an hour later than if we had been obedient tourists and gone along with our tour guide's itinerary!
On a recent occasion I cycled to the campus where I teach and parked my bike were I always have. When I returned, the bike was gone. I thought at first that it had been stolen.
I had already lost two bikes this way. I approached a uniformed guard whom I had seen on arrival and asked if he had seen my bike. He indicated that he had moved it to another location as bikes were no longer allowed where I had always left mine.
I was not pleased and said to him that he should bring it back to the spot where I had left it. After demurring he did so. Full of selfï·“satisfaction I mounted my bike, only to discover the back tyre was flat. He had returned the bike but let the air out to teach me a lesson!
The apartment building in which I live is also used as a hotel. I'm on the second floor and can hear every sound from the apartment beneath me as the central heating pipes come up from the floor beneath, through an open space that acts as an echo sounder.
Some time ago the Chinese folk beneath me started a late night card game. At l:00am I banged on the floor with my shoe, to no effect. At 2:00am I banged on the central heating pipes, to no effect. At 3:00am I stomped downstairs and switched off the electricity!
I thought, now they'll have to go to bed! I was wrong. They sent for the resident caretaker who arrived at 3:30am and switched the power back on, so they resumed their card game!
On each occasion I thought I was smarter than the locals but I was always out-manoeuvred by them. That's why I have now learned to bend with the local lifestyle and mind my own business.
My advice is: don't fight back, it will only raise your blood pressure to no good effect!
