Sep 8: Guides

Today, as we walked through a small museum that was once the palace of the Princes of Guilin, we were confronted with our first entirely non-English displays. We went through about two rooms trying to glean what we could from the photos and paintings, when a museum worker beckoned us from a room further away. She did this with urgency and so we came quickly, to find that there was a two-person dance going on for what was now the five visitors in the room. (Again with the live dioramas -- it's almost discomfitting. I mean, the two women weren't actually standing behind glass. . . but still.)

Suddenly the woman took us under her wing. She started in halting English, and then she just snow-balled and next thing we knew she was giving us a detailed tour of the palace and the grounds.

Eleni and I had no idea what to make of it. There's no tipping in China and she had never suggested she wanted to be paid as a private tour guide, which is what I'd expect in most countries . . . when she walked away 15 minutes later, I said: "I'm so confused!" To which Eleni responded: "Was she just doing her job?"

The answer appears to be yes. We have repeatedly found an over the top friendliness from people who are in service positions, that this Capitalist girl can't quite grok. Our guide on the Li-River-cum-Live-Action-It's-A-Small-World tour was a sweet young woman named Miss Cheng. On the thirty-minute bus ride between two stops she a) sat on a bench facing us on the bus and sang a song to us for entertainment, and then b) very solemnly taught us how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors before telling us we could now chat amongst ourselves for the rest of the trip. She sang a song for us! And not because she wanted a tip. I just, I just don't even know what to do with this.

There is, however, an emphasis on guide culture. Even the Chinese tourists (of which there are overwhelming numbers) always travel with guides. It seems to be seen as a politeness -- as well as an "obvious" necessity -- to be given a guide at any location. And despite years of trying to ward off the people who hawk tours, or the guides who come up to you at tourist spots, we are finding ourselves falling into the same pattern. It helps that everyone we've encountered exhibits a low-key non-pushiness even if they are on commission. Everyone offers us tour options in which you honestly feel they are offering you the most interesting thing in their opinion -- not the most expensive. They tell you all the options, including the ones like, "hey, you can take the city bus" and they aren't offended if you turn them down. It's the way tour guides should be. They're actually facilitating the whole process.

Which is not to say that they're not making a buck doing it. The tour coordinator in our hotel in Guilin handed us off to a tour coordinator in Chengdu--surely for a kickback that I don't begrudge him in the least. The new guy, Jimmy, picked us up at midnight tonight in Chengdu, took us to a hotel in the center of town, and arranged for us to get to Chengdu's Panda Research Center bright and early tomorrow morning in time for panda feeding time. It sure as hell beats our arrival in Guilin.

AND Jimmy's already announced he's going to hand us off to our next guide in Xian. . .