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I’ve gotten lost once, on the way from my hotel to the stadium in Chengdu. My asking for directions mostly involved me saying football louder and louder while pointing in the direction that I thought the stadium was, and the Chinese employees of the Canon store looking at me like I was nuts. After several tries, they found someone who kind of sort, of spoke English (he understood football, at least) who drew me a little map and set me straight.
After finding my way, I had already walked a good distance with my heavy camera bag on my back, so I elected to hire a tri-cycle (what would be called a pedicab in NY) to take me to the stadium. My driver took off towards the stadium and as we were crossing a busy street we were pulled over by a police officer. There was a lot of talking in Chinese. Some of it sounded angry. I was tempted to just slip out of my seat and walk the remaining distance, but I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on and didn’t want to wind up as the lead story on CNN. I remained in my seat and after several minutes of this, some money changed hands and we started off in the opposite direction of the stadium. I gave it a few blocks as I thought we might have been rerouted, but then I tapped my driver on the shoulder and tried to indicate that we were going in the wrong direction and that I would get out and walk. She beckoned me to stay, but after a couple more blocks of getting further away from the stadium I pulled out five yuan, gave it to her and got off.
- I have a vague recollection of being warned about this before I came, but after a week, I still haven’t gotten used to the spitting. At least several times a day, I’ve been treated with the image, complete with sound effects, of a Chinese gentlemen hocking up a big one and spitting it out in the vicinity of my personal space. If my son is reading this, this habit is not okay!
- There are no fat people in China. At least, I haven’t seen any.
- Road rules and traffic signals are taken as more of a suggestion than as hard and fast rules.
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