Archive for July, 2007
July 31, 2007 at 8:20 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Tourism, Traveling
The Sanctuary is a beautiful resort at Haad Tien beach on Koh Phangan. 
The design is amazing, integrating the natural habitat into every aspect of the main buildings. The setting is gorgeous, right on a palm tree-studded beach. The restaurant also had a great menu. They have many daily activities of yoga and other eccentric interests. However, that’s about the extent of the compliments I can give to the Sanctuary. Everything was overpriced for Thai standards, especially the food. The Thai food was rather bland. They frequently screwed up our order or forgot it completely. The system for totaling a guest’s expenditures, a cashless credit system that requires a deposit at the beginning and then full payment at the end, was a total nightmare. They claimed I didn’t give them a deposit, despite the fact I had a receipt showing the deposit. They also tried to charge me for services I never used. The system is a huge mess. While we met some interesting people, overall the crowd was, in my friend’s words, “too granola.” Perhaps the worst part of the Sanctuary was the staff & the service. The local staff were at times hard to communicate with and unresponsive. The foreign staff, including the property’s general manager, were unfriendly, unwelcoming, curt, and demanding. To say we felt no hospitality is an understatement. It got to such a point where we did everything possible to avoid talking to the foreign staff/management. 
The Wellness Center, on the other hand, was a very friendly, enjoyable, relaxing part of the Sanctuary. At first, the manager of the Wellness Center may intimidate inexperienced or unprepared would-be fasters; however this is for the best interests of fasters as fasting can be overwhelming for the the uninitiated or unprepared. After starting a fast though, the staff learns your name immediately, are very supportive, thoughtful, and accommodating. Everything goes as smoothly as possible. A great community atmosphere also develops among the fasters. Fasting here is about USD2000 per week less than comparative programs in California or Arizona with the same results but with the added of advantage of a beautiful beach. 
The fasting program is very structured with fasters required to take tablets or shakes every 90minutes, starting at 7am, which I found to be very inconvenient. Each day depending on the length of the fast, fasters also have 1-2 colonic sessions. Each person has different experiences while fasting, some very uplifting and some very weakening. On my 3.5day fast, the second day was challenging as I felt very tired and weak. I did have many benefits as a result of fasting. During my fast, my dark, under-eye circles nearly entirely cleared. While fasting, at first my skin got worse but then cleared and became smoother and clearer than its been in a long time. Surprisingly, I didn’t lose weight during my fast, but actually gained 3.5kilos. Perhaps the most pleasing results of my fast came in the days after my fast when I was slowly adding foods back into my diet. Day 1: Raw fruits, Day 2: Raw veggies, Day 3: Lightly cooked veggies, Day 4: Carbs, Day 5: Proteins. During this time my hunger was greatly reduced; I actually craved and looked forward to eating fresh fruits and veggies. Fresh fruits and veggies were far more appealing to me than cooked foods and proteins. Even now, whenever I have the chance I want to order salad. Many people have told me I look healthier than they’ve ever seen me. All of this after only a 3.5day fast! The fast, along with the vacation, also renewed my energy, excitement, and attitude. As you maybe can guess, I’m definitely a believer and will be back as soon as I can.
All in all, though, I’ll go back to the Sanctuary only to go to the Wellness Center and do another fast. In my opinion there’s no reason for non-fasters to go to the Sanctuary when there are other places on Koh Phangan with just as spectacular location but far better value and a much more welcoming environment.
Sanctuary website with internal links the Wellness Center and its fasting programs: WWW.THESANCTUARY-KPG.COM
Pictures from Koh Phangan and Bangkok, click here
July 11, 2007 at 10:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The way Chinese can acquire money is something that’s recently struck me as quite curious and if any of my Chinese readers has an explanation for it, I’d be quite grateful.
1) Money can be earned, legitimately from business, jobs, etc
2) Money can be acquired by begging for it, particularly on the sidewalks in Xi’an, Beijing, Shanghai.
3) Increasing in frequency, money can be gotten via theft and pickpocketing, notably in Xi’an.
4) Excessive amounts of money can be acquired by knowingly perpetrating scams against foreigners and by otherwise ripping them off.
However, the Chinese will not pick up and keep money found on the ground, nor will they keep money found laying as if lost. What is it in the culture that allows Chinese to rob, steal, beg, or scam for money, but will not take money that has been seriously left or lost?
July 9, 2007 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Perhaps you’ve heard of the split-pants phenomenon in China. Children under the age of 3-4 years do not wear diapers. They have a slit down the crotch of their pants so that they may relieve themselves freely. I’ve seen children, both of the split-pants age and older, urinate in just about every place imaginable. I will only mention a few memorable or noteworthy examples.
Shortly after getting off the plane in Lijiang (a beautiful, perhaps my favorite, town in China), my friend and I went into the airport bathroom. While I was waiting for her, a girl of about 8 came in with her mother, looked under all the bathroom stall doors and found that each stall was occupied. After a look of urgency and desperation at her mother, her mother nodded. Right in front of me, in the middle of the public restroom floor (not even near the grate in the floor), but 5 feet from an actual toilet, the girl pulled down her pants and proceeded to urinate, making a rather large puddle. When finished she pulled up her pants and her mother and she walked out complete normal and at ease. I stood there in shock.
Dali, another beautiful city in western China, has gutters running down the sides of the street which is meant to direct rain and mountain spring water close to the town. In this gutter water I’d seen people wash their vegetables and do their laundry. I also saw a man hold up his child over the same gutter so that the child could relieve itself. (No wonder I’m always sick.)
These two incidents happened when I was in China two years ago. Since then I’ve seen countless more children pee, in my mind, in very inappropriate places and so it shocks me less now. Nonetheless, now, 3 years later including after a solid year of living in China, there are times when I’m still floored as related below.
In Shanghai(!), while on a public city bus, an older woman had a split pants baby on her lap. The child seemed to indicate it needed to go the bathroom. The woman did a quick look around, angled the baby, and then hissed, apparently indicating that it was alright for the child to pee. Where did that woman aim that child? Squarely at the back of the seat in front of her. The piss proceeded to roll around the floor of the bus. I was horrified. Then the old lady sitting in the front seat, not seeming to notice this situation, turned round and started cooing at the baby and playing with it. This situation so bothered me that I repeated it to my Chinese teacher. She didn’t flinch, didn’t seem the least disturbed, and even seemed to pass it off as normal. I held my Chinese teacher in rather high regard considering her fairly educated, so her lack of reaction was even more shocking to me than the actual incident itself. I couldn’t believe her educated self could consider this normal and acceptable behavior.
By contrast, a trendily dressed young Chinese woman, while walking through a dirty part of Shanghai, watched then stormed off with disgust and indignation as a girl of about 7 pulled down her pants in the middle of sidewalk and urinated, not more than 15feet from the entrance of a public toilet. This woman’s reaction pleased me greatly as I was much relieved to find a Chinese person who agreed with my opinion that this behavior is dirty and unacceptable.
Someone once explained to me that the reason the Chinese let their kids pee in public places is because they believe the children’s wastes are quite pure and therefore not harmful. Can’t say I agree… Anyway, after these incidents and many, many more and with my total time spent in China, I thought I’d seen it all, until recently when I was in Beijing.
I went into one of the newest, most high end shopping malls in Beijing and found the premium grocery store in the basement. While waiting in line to check-out, a kid was running around and amusing one of the clerks, then the kid pulled down his pants. The clerk seemed to understand what was going on and alerted the father, who happened to be in front of me in line. He went over, scooped the kid up, did a quick look around and then held the kid over a new, shiny, stainless steel trashcan. When the kid had finished, the father pulled up its pants walked back to the cash register and pulled a bill out of his pocket and handed it to the clerk. The father’s pants were completely covered in urine. Momentarily, I stood there stunned, then regaining composure and with mounting disgust realized the clerk would take the bill from his hands and then run her hands over my groceries and then exchange money with me. Truly grossed out by this thought, I stormed out of that line. In passing the trashcan, I noticed it too was covered in urine and a pool was forming around it. I was aghast at how in such a supposedly upscale place in one of the most modern cities in China, with a family who apparently had enough money to shop at such a premium store, such base, uncleanly things could still happen. Could they not afford diapers? Or had they learned nothing and taught their kid nothing in all the time they were able to acquire the necessary wealth and status affording them to shop at such a store? Absolutely inconceivable. Furthermore, having watched ‘cleaning’ in countless places around China, I knew what would happen next (though I didn’t stick around long enough to watch): they’d pull out a dirty, plenty used mop, absorb the pee off the trashcan so as to render it no longer noticeable, move the pee around the floor just enough so no one would slip, then put the mop back in the corner to be used again without any cleaning.
Is it any wonder I’m frequently sick is this country?
Feel free to add your similar stories in the comments below. I’d love to see who has the worst. (After reading my blog, my friend said her boyfriend got peed on on a bus and jumped up screaming and the lady didn’t apologize or even flinch.)
July 8, 2007 at 8:02 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Tourism, Learning through Foreign Cultures, Peace Through Tourism
In my job as a tour leader in China, I have developed a secondary purpose for myself. Beside fulfilling my role and duties as a tour leader, I’ve also started educating Chinese people as to Western standards of politeness, appropriateness, and generally just good behavior. Undoubtedly this sentence reads as very arrogant and culturally insensitive. However, much of what I try to ‘teach’ the occasional Chinese is already being strongly suggested by the govt in Beijing. Furthermore, if China wants to be an appealing and attractive country to foreign tourists, investors, etc, it’s people need to minimize those habits which Westerners consider repulsive. By giving a few examples, I hope I shall seem less ethnocentric. (My apologies for the generalizations but all of these scenarios I’ve seen across the country, from big cities, to small middle-of-the-country towns.)
Chinese people (both males and females, though males to a greater extent than females) spit everywhere, regardless of indoor, outdoor, clean floor, dirty street, other people nearby, at the dinner table, in train stations, in train cars, everywhere, literally. The actual act of spitting is preceeded by the most repulsive, sickening clearing of the throat hack imaginable (apparently quite common in India, as well). This is a sound which makes Westerners cringe and unfortunately can be heard at all hours of the day and night, including late at night in crowded train cars. On occasion when I’ve been nearby someone who has just made the most menancing clearing of the throat sound, followed by a large spat I give them a disgusted look and say in Chinese, “that’s disgusting, I hate that, it’s horrible to hear.” Certainly, my 1 comment won’t stop that person from spitting but I just hope it makes him more aware of how we perceive it and in turn makes him consider the time, place, and company before letting out another one.
Chinese people, particularly those with a little money but not much education, have a strong sense of entitlement and superiority. Because they have some money, they see themselves as superior to other poorer Chinese people, particularly those whose responsibility it is to clean the streets and otherwise take care of the trash. As such, they feel it is their privledge, their right, to throw litter or trash onto the ground, again both indoor and outdoor. They do this with the, mostly correct, expectation someone else will clean it up. In one particular instance, I was enjoying a drink with my group on Bar Street in Xi’an and one of the waitstaff of the bar across the road had found a deck of cards that was incomplete. He proceeded to start 1-by-1 flinging the cards through the air and letting them drop into the middle of the road. He showed no intention of picking them up. At that point, I walked up to him and in Chinese said, “What are you doing? You’re making the street dirty. Why are you making the street dirty? Do you believe China is a beautiful country? Then why are you making it dirty? You need to pick them up.” Then I started picking up the cards and handing them back to him and again told him to pick them up. He stared at me stunned, then his friend came over and did the rest of the job picking up the cards. In another example, last evening, while on a Yangtze river boat, a boy of about 8 threw trash over the edge of the boat into the (granted, already filthy) water. I yelled at him, “that’s bad, don’t do that” multiple times. And the parents, in a distinct mocking tone repeated my words, while the older girl of about 10 with them apologized in a rather ironic manner. On more than one occasion, my passengers who are on vacation in China have picked up trash dropped by Chinese people.
The Chinese are notorious at failing to line up, queue, and have patience. Frequently, while standing in line to pay for something at a store or to use a public bathroom, Chinese people have pushed past me in order to get in front of me in line. This action almost always receives from me the following indignant reply, “Line up. Line up. We are in line. Please wait.” Most of the time, this puts the cutter, perhaps a bit irked, back in their place, with great pleasure to me.
I have seen Chinese adults cut all their nails (either hands or feet) in the most ridiculous of places, places almost as ridiculous as those I’ve seen children pee in China. For example, I’ve seen a mainland Chinese woman cut her nails in the somewhat crowded lobby of a 5-star hotel in Hong Kong. Recently, when a man was cutting his nails, not 5 feet from me on an overnight train, I was compelled out of disgust and fear for my eyes to tell him to stop and to express how unpolite that was. He was kind enough to stop.
The noise level in China is absurd. Whether its loud voices, cranked up loud speakers, unimaginably loud cell phones, full volume TV sets, or crazily loud car horns, a high level of noise is gauranteed in China. Of all of China’s, or Chinese people’s, unrefined quirks this one I’ve perhaps come to terms with most. Nonetheless, there are definitely times when the noise seems truly ridiculous and something must be said along the lines of “That’s too loud. You voice is too loud. Please turn it down a little. Please turn that off.”
By contrast, perhaps the most disgusting and bothersome is the smoking. China is the largest cigarette market in the world. The govt makes 14% (?) of is tax revenue from cigarette sales. I could go on with the statistics. Chinese people seem to pay little heed to No Smoking signs either indoor or out, nor to people with sensitivities to smoke such as children, nor to nearby diners. While in the museum at the Terracotta Warriors, a Unesco World Heritage site, 3 men were sitting on the floor, smoking. As the smoke blew in to my passengers faces, I said the them “There is no smoking. You’re not allowed to smoke here. You can smoke outdoors.” With this, they scrambled to put out their cigarettes and rush out the door (leaving the butts on the granite floor.) Most people are generally responsive to requests to move the smoking away from us, however, frequently this involves switching the cigarette to the other hand as if then, the smoke will blow a different direction. I’ve encountered very insolent people who continue to smoke in the middle of a sleeper train, even after being asked repeatedly to go elsewhere.
Part of my job description is to promote ‘responsible travel.’ This term is normally meant to apply to the foreigners coming into visit a country so that they should act and dress appropriately, promote the wellness of the country they are visiting, and not leave the area worse than they found it, but perhaps better. The last part is exactly what I’m trying to do also while adopting a more liberal interpretation of the term, ‘responsible tourism.’ I hope that by reacting to certain Chinese behaviors, as mentioned above, I can make China a better place and make it more appealing to foreigners and more sensitive to their sensibilities. In doing so, I wish that through tourism China can continue to showcase its beauty and history to the world and that future travelers to China can find it a bit more pleasant than past and current travelers.
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