China - bringing out the worst in us!

I'm not sure if our loyal blog followers out there have detected a change in tone in our last few posts? Just in case you have I thought that we might owe you an explanation.

We have been in China for a month now and I think that we have a developed "China Sickness", this disease is caused by a combination of factors, including but not in order of importance:

• the pollution
• Shanghai zoo
• having a sick belly most of the time
• the inability to speak the language
• being pushed out of the way
• being stepped on
• the sound people make before they are about to spit
• the sound people make as they spit
• slipping over in peoples spit
• China Dailys (newspaper) view of the world according to the party
• people staring at you
• people ripping you off
• being poked in the eyes with umbrellas
• oily Chinese food
• CCTV9 the only English TV station
• taxi drivers pretending not to understand you when you only want to go a few km's
• weird STD lotion sachets in hotel rooms
• smoking, especially in internet cafes
• not letting people off the train before you get on
• the little green man not meaning that its safe to cross the road

In order to combat "China sickness" we have in turn developed a few strategies to make ourselves feel better, including and not in order of importance:

• eat lots of steamed buns
• keep your elbows out at all times
• lower your shoulder when anyone walks into you
• if someone whacks you in the head with their umbrella, whack them back
• laugh at the badly translated English signs eg "*$%# the vegetables" and "carefully slipping"
• take it in turns to be sick
• cry at the post office
• see Kungfu Panda at the movies
• say "nehow" to little kids that are obviously dying to talk to you
• make friends with little girls on overnight trains
• eat sunflower seeds
• spit whenever/wherever you need to
• visit sights where there are no Chinese tourists
• drink Carlsberg beer in a Aussie sports pub
• drink Aussie beer in an Irish pub
• eat home cooked lasagna served with mash potatoes
• Starbucks and KFC

Despite all these measures after a month in the country and visiting 3 big cities in a row unfortunately "China sickness has taken a grip on both of us, its kind of like when the "nothingness" destroys Fantastica in the Neverending Story. I can think of no other way to describe our helpless situation.

I had a little altercation with a lady and her umbrella in my eye yesterday at the Terracotta Warriors, just in case you were wondering no it was not raining! This was the last straw for me. I do realise that in a country where the population is over a billion getting what you want could sometimes be a tad difficult. It seems that people here are so obsessed by the fact that they are one of a billion that they have somewhere along the line forgotten that they are one of a billion (ie that other people exist too). They are too obsessed with pushing everyone else out of the way to realise that other people matter. Not to mention the spitting.

So what to do? I think the Village People had the answer when they sang "Go West". So tonight we head off on a mega train journey (36 hours) from Xian to Turpan in search of blue skies and a Chinese tourist free zone.

Don't get me wrong here, we are having a great holiday. However dear reader please realise that the cultural awareness that we have developed in China has bought out the worst in us.

But as they say "if you can't beat them join them!" (imagine the sound of me hocking up some phlegm in the background).