Recommendations and Observations

The ten recommendations and observations below are tidbits that I wished I had known I went to China.

One: Home, home on the range where the sky is not cloudy all day. We never saw sparkling blue skies in China.

Two: The official currency of China is the yuan. While U. S. dollars are widely accepted, you will need yuans for taxis and some stores. Hit the ATM at the airport.

Three: Chinese Rockery (looks like termite bitten rocks) found in the Forbidden Palace and the Yuyuan Gardens contains rocks from the bottom of the Wukang in Zhejiang Province. Rice glue is used to fuse the rocks creating an artistic sculpture.

Four: Not for all the tea in China—notice they don’t say coffee. In general, we found the coffee in China to be a disappointment. Not only was it weak, but it was hard to get a second cup. An exception to this rule was the Shanghai Starbucks Reserve resembling Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Snaky clear pipes on the ceiling transport coffee beans in elaborate twisty routes throughout the store and individual tasting stations percolate coffee using myriad methods.

Five: The national bird of China is the yellow crane. In other words, they can’t build the high rises fast enough. They sprout up like mushrooms and indeed most are mushroom colored: brown, beige, tan, and ocher. There are 1.4 billion people in China, and they need somewhere to live.

Six: Cultural phenomenon #1 Queue jumping. Each culture has their own rules for queues. In parts of China particularly Beijing there was more of a shove and push mentality to line up. Our guide called it queue jumping.

Seven: Cultural phenomenon #2 The squatting toilet. Now I know that toilets vary throughout the world, but before I went to China I did not know that the squatting toilet is standard in China. The sit-down toilets are called “Western toilets” and except in the hotels, they are few and far between. I did have occasion to use the squatting toilet twice. The first time I half squatted not getting the notion and my thighs burned. The next time I realized I needed to squat on my haunches like the yoga pose Malasana, much less tiring. Full disclosure: After returning home I invested in a discreetly foldable Squatty Potty from Bed Bath and Beyond. Ergonomically, it works.

Eight: The perfect book to read in China is Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Sarah Jane Gilman, a memoir of her and her college friend in their off the grid journey to post-communist China in 1986. Harrowing and humorous if the two are compatible. Her introduction states, “All these events happened, and the people are real. God knows, I couldn’t make this up.” While Ms. Gilman ventured much farther afield than we did, it was illuminating to compare her China to the much different and more modern one we visited.Nine: Okay, this is a little complicated, but very helpful. At the time of our trip there was quite a bit of “restricted use” regarding being able to access Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. We used a VPN: A virtual private network which allows you to extend your private network (Like Google or Safari browsers) across a public network, and allows you to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if your computing devices were directly connected to the private network. Basically, this means that applications running across a VPN may get better functionality, security, and management of the private network. It is easy to download and seamlessly use the VPN’s to access the otherwise restricted sites. Credit: Raphael

Ten: Viking: Imperial Jewels of China from Beijing to Shanghai was the perfect choice for our first time to China. We loved the land and river combo. The local guides were amazing and helped us navigate the culture. I loved the cultural-travel learning curve–steep but so satisfying!