face off -- chinese style

as promised i will back date a bit and tell the story of our face off at the great wall of china.

for all of you who think you might be cold right now, beijing is a 1,000 times colder. we stayed there 3 days. it required lots of layers and purchasing of a few more coats -- hard to resist those knock off mountain hardware and northface jackets. the 3rd day turned out to be our trip to the wall day.

there are several sections of the wall that one can visit, the most popular, easily accessible and nearest is BaDaLing. not wanting to buy a guide book we went to a foreign book store and read / copied all the information we needed for buses, etc. somehow the book failed to mention that the last public bus for badaling left at 9:30am from the station. we arrived at the bus stop at 9:45am and after a lot of going back and forth with some chinese bus stop guy it was figured out that badaling was not in the works for the day. we took the next option to simatai - another, but less developed section of the wall, and much further away. fortunately, we were able to catch the bus out to the nearest city in the area.

for the most part i can ask directions and generally be told what the best route is, so when our bus attendant (a young woman who goes up and down the aisle collecting bus fares once you have boarded) said that we had to take a taxi from the city to the wall i accepted that this was the only option.

because we spent the morning running around beijing trying to catch the right bus it was close to noon by the time our bus pulled up to the city (which i can't remember the name of). the first stop some greasy taxi driver ran on the bus beelined for us and said "taxi"? i told him i was going to wait for the last stop. then i thought -- "maybe we have to get off sooner than the last stop for a taxi." so i asked again and the girl said that we could get off anywhere for a taxi and told us that it shouldn't cost more than 200 yuan for the taxi fare.

we got off at the next stop and started the taxi negotiations. in retrospect i'm pretty certain we were picked by the greasiest taxi driver, Mr. Zhang. at first he wanted 500 yuan, at which point i walked away in disgust. suddenly the price dropped and we agreed on 200 plus a 40yuan parking fee. next thing you know we were on our way to simatai.

on our way there Mr. Zhang mentioned that he knew of a farm house that would feed us lunch for around 5-10yuan each, were we interested in that? it was very clean. in-between all this he told us varying details of the area, since he was native, and some historical facts of the wall. we thought lunch at that price sounded decent so we agreed on the lunch option. (5-10 yuan is about $.75-$1.50).

arriving at the farm house about 1 hr into the drive we were given a menu from which i ordered a few dishes and didn't pay too much attention to the prices. the little farmhousewife was thrilled to have us as no one, and i mean NO ONE else was there. it was a cold but clear day, and NO ONE was there. after ordering she suggested that i replace my beef and pepper dish with a farm raised chicken dish. OK, but once again, i didn't ask price.

we wandered around the small 5 family village, talked with some of the locals then went in for lunch. i had invited Mr. Zhang to eat with us as it is customary to treat your driver to lunch in China. he readily accepted. the tofu was burnt, the greens dish was OK and the chicken was a whole chicken chopped into about 20 parts and stewed in chinese liquid something. it involved a lot of bones and picking to get at the meat. none of it was very good. Mr. Zhang ate everything heartily and then collected all the chicken bones to take home to his dog, or cat, i'm not sure which. at the end we were served 3 mantos (steamed buns), which i had not ordered and believed that they were complimentary.

the farmhousewife was cute and excited when she brought us the bill for 200 yuan!!! about $30us. after a moment of not talking i started asking the details as i was in more sticker shock than i've been in in years. i can get a bowl of noodles that i can't even eat all of for 5 yuan in the city ($.75). sure enough it was all priced as advertised. the chicken just happened to be 88yuan and the mantos had been ordered by Mr. Zhang without him consulting me at all. it was at this point that both Lisa and I's blood pressure almost shot out our ears as we realized that our driver was taking us for a ride in more ways than one - we are convinced that he got a hearty kick back from that meal, along with a bag of chicken bones.

the drive to the wall was 10 more minutes and he offered to buy our wall tickets as he had a special "lisense" that got us in cheaper. i have since learned that drivers get a kick back from this arrangement. even though it was cheaper for us we didn't want him to get anything else off our dollar.

it was cold as cold! so we took a little, and slightly scary, cable car to the top where we then hiked up and enjoyed as much of the wall as we could in 1.5 hrs - while warding off little farm ladies selling picture books and t-shirts of the wall. they followed us the whole way up and back. it was a cold day to stand on the wall and not sell anything - cause NO ONE was there.

still stewing about the driver's inability to hide his dishonesty, i inquired 2 different times as to how much the parking fee was for a taxi and it turned out that it was only 5 yuan. it was at this point that i began to lose it and started composing the biggest ma (scold/yelling) i could come up with for Mr. Zhang when the face off time came, cause it was comin'.

after a quick consultation with lisa and then finding out that there was a 4 yuan bus leaving for town at 4pm (we had 10 minutes), we decided to pay Mr.Zhang 1/2 his driving fare and 5 yuan for the parking fee = 105yuan. because i knew what would happen i was dreading it, but i was more mad than i've been in - probably my lifetime - so i decided to go through with our plan.

lisa ran to catch the bus and i shoved the money at Mr.Zhang and i started making my way across the parking lot for the bus, loudly declaring that he cheated us and i was not going to be riding with a schister such as himself. i was surrounded by 3 of his comrades who tried to wall me in from going to the bus, but i pushed through them an marched on. the march was quite the parade - me yelling about him cheating foreingers and how could he represent Chinese people that way and them yelling that there was no way that we were going to take that bus!!!

lisa was already glued to a seat in the 4th row and about 15 other local Chinese were waiting to ride back as well. i got boarded in a yelling heat and plunked down next to Lisa. my companions followed, also yelling. they started calling me all kinds of things like that i had agreed and i should pay the whole fare no matter what, they were going to call the police, etc. i was yelling here and there to go ahead and call the police, that he cheated me on lunch, and over charged me on the parking fee and i wasn't going to ride back with a ...... you know how it went from there. lisa sat next to me refusing to move, not understanding a word, but getting the idea - every once in awhile i would translate. she just kept saying "there is no way i an riding back with him."

this went of for about 10 minutes and when it became apparent to our fellow busmates that they were now impacted. they started encouraging me to get off the bus and resolve the matter so they could get back. NO!! then the attendant yelled at us to get off, and just ride back with Mr.Zhang - "would you ride with someone who cheated you?!" i yelled back, NO!

from the back of the bus came 2 older women who had seen plenty of these face off's in their Chinese lives (as this is often how public conflicts are handled), so they jumped in and started negotiations. "Give him his fare and we can all go," they encouraged me. NO! i pulled out 40 yuan cause i knew that i had to help him save some face otherwise it would go on and on and i personally wanted the ordeal to be over. he refused, so the yelling and negotiations continued. after the bus driver yelled at me to get off and we refused the diplomats in the back leaned over my seat and said that if i gave him 60 yuan he agreed to leave. i pulled out another 20 yuan handed him the wad.

THE SECOND he accepted the money all the bus riders pushed Mr.Zhang and his comrades out the door and the bus driver started up the bus to take off. once the doors were closed i apologized profusely, took off my face a few times while they warned me more than once to not ride with those "black people" (the chinese term for bad people is black people for a black heart). i told them i just didn't know that there was another option, etc, etc.

it was quite the day. we saw some of the best sections of the wall that i have ever visited and it was topped by a real Chinese face off - something i haven't done in a long time.