Trapped in a Beijing metaphor
Saffy: That’s what happens when you’re away on my birthday. Saffy turned 16 last June 15.
The day after ASEAN foreign ministers took a swipe at Beijing and then took it back because the Malaysians didn’t want to offend Beijing, I found myself in a taxi in Beijing, in the middle of a quarrel that started over nothing. The quarrel was instigated by the taxi driver, compounded by our inability to understand each other’s language, and aggravated by everyone’s tendency to start yelling as if turning up the volume would bring clarity to the issue.
In short, I had landed in a metaphor.
My two colleagues and I had gone to the Circle Market to buy souvenirs and Mao kitsch. The doorman at our hotel had called a taxi for us. It was past 6pm, rush hour, and the doorman said it might be difficult for us to get a taxi back to the hotel. The fare to Circle Market was 13 Chinese Yuan Renminbi (CNY, the exchange rate today being PHP7.07 to CNY1).
Circle Market looks like Virra Mall in the 90s. I was kicking myself for overpaying for a Vladimir Putin T-shirt for my sister that I could probably get cheaper in Greenhills, but I was in a hurry. Also, I just wanted the seller to get out of my face. We got our shopping done in an hour. There was a taxi on the curb, so we piled in and showed him the hotel card. So far, everything was fine.
A few blocks from the hotel, our companion, who was the designated wallet, noted that the fare on the meter was already CNY28, more than twice what we’d paid earlier. The route had not seemed longer this time around. “Maybe there’s a rush hour surcharge?” I said, not wanting to assume that we were being cheated, though the evidence was right there. Also I did not feel like having an argument in sign language.
A block from the hotel, the taxi driver stopped, pointed to the meter, and said, “Give me 100.”
From the BBC: South China Sea: The mystery of missing books and maritime claims
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 21st, 2016 at 14:01
We in Shanghai will not really bother to go to Beijing even at gunpoint, that city is dreadful, as the local Shanghainese would say, Even the birds will not shit in Beijing.
June 22nd, 2016 at 09:01
I have a chinoy friend who does business in China. She told me that those in the mainland constantly cheats her. If they can do that to my friend (who was born in China herself, speaks the language and lives there a couple of months in a year), what more foreigners.
June 22nd, 2016 at 13:07
Another study on Confucianism’s Five Relations/Bonds and its grades(or lack thereof) of humanity. Basically if you don’t fall within the Five Bonds you’re not human, you’re a valid target to be exploited.
Like in 2008; 300,000 babies fed with melamine because of quota; and “tofu-dregs” classroom buildings which killed 20,000 students during an earthquake. Or the 17-story building in Taiwan “reinforced” with cooking oil cans.
And the Supreme Geriatric is flushed with excitement because the PRC is now offering to build his railways, weeks before the Hague arbitration decision. SMH
Very excited about the APEC Summit in November in Lima, Peru. Current PAL flight plan: MNL->LAX->LIM; total flight duration 27 hours. May the Supreme Geriatric do not go bonkers mid-flight. :D
June 22nd, 2016 at 15:02
ros: Balon Greyjoy? Walder Frey?
June 23rd, 2016 at 02:31
Hehe… more like…
“Mern III Gardener, called the Madling, was a King of the Reach and head of House Gardener. Before the Andals came to the Reach, he showered gold and honors on a woods witch who boasted she could raise armies of the dead to fight off the invaders.”
Uses a hand as a symbol. *check*
Hailing from an agricultural provincial South. *check*
Mad. *check*
Proclivities with the occult and credulous to cult leaders. *check*
Ang Tunay na Mahirap.*che… Err… Sorry different guy. :D
June 24th, 2016 at 22:50
the distraction and switch will make for a good subplot in ‘now you see me 3’.