Thanksgiving in China... and the Worst People EVER

Everyone in America should be thankful this Thanksgiving that they get to eat real Thanksgiving food and not KFC. That is the closest Ben and I could come to real thanksgiving. Lame.

Lately I've been pretty busy with school stuff, but Ben and I got out this week to do some souvenier shopping. We went out twice. Once last Saturday and once today. I'll begin with last Saturday.

We headed down to a neat old Chinese style market place near the Yu Gardens. This place had old curved roof architecture, which was cool. As foreigners, we have become accustomed to being bombarded with salesmen who try to get us to by their crap. In market places like this, we are particularly targeted. However, we have mastered the strategy of saying in Chinese that we don't want their stuff and to go away. Usually that is all that is necessary. Shop keepers intentionally race the initial prices of things because we are white. Our Chinese helps us to lower the prices. They try negotiating in English with us, which would give them the advantage, but we pretend to be German and that we can't speak any English. This usually helps the price drop, particularly when we say we are Fudan students. They respect that.

Anyway, we got a bunch of crap on Saturday. Negotiating with those people is exhausting, but not nearly as exhausting as it was today.

We headed out to a different market this time. At this one, outside they were selling their usual crap, but they also were selling puppies, and what seriously looks like weed. Who knows.

At any rate, upon entering we were bombarded by the usual sales people. This time though, they were much more agressive. Here is the tale of just ONE of the many that followed us:

He approached us and asked "Buy a watch? Buy a bag?"
We said "Bu yao, xie xie" (don't want, thanks)
He said "Well what do you want, I can find it for you"
We replied (in Chinese) "Sorry, we don't speak English well because we are German. We don't need your help. Goodbye"
He continued to follow us. He spoke primarily in Chinese to us after that, but kept reverting to English, as the common assumption is that white people ALWAYS and ONLY speak English.
We asked him to leave us alone. We told him we were just looking around. We told him we don't understand him.
He countered by insisting that without his help, we are hopeless to find anything that we are looking for. He said "I am your friend, I will help you find it for very cheap"
I said "You are NOT my friend. I do not know who you are. Please leave."
He laughed. He kept following. He poked us and tapped us and yelled HALLO to get our attention. We tried to lose him but he would stay up with us.
I checked my heart rate. It was about 100 bpm- which is rare for me, even after some hard miles. After about an hour of extreme harassment (not just from him) we had enough. Ben and I spun around on the man. Ben looked as big and as mean as he could. I did likewise. Ben shouted "GO" I shouted "GO AWAY! NOW. YOU ARE NOT OUR FRIEND, WE DON'T KNOW YOU!"
Shopkeepers in the area stared and laughed. The man, clearly a little frightened, backed away. Both Ben and I are significantly bigger than all the little Chinese people, and I think we startled him.
He didn't stop following us though. Occasionally, he yelled up to us from a short distance away "You'll never find it without me!" We ignored it, but kept thinking "you don't know what we are looking for...ASS"

Eventually we left the building completely. He and the other people stalking us followed. We entered a different market building. They followed. At this point, we had bought nothing, but were already exhausted. Another man approached with the same bullshit. We said, nicely as if we had been defeated "please. pleaase go away. We don't need your help." He laughed and said "No, we are friend and he can help us find what we are looking for." Ben and I both turned on our heels and left. About 10 guys followed us out of the building, down the street. Waited as I angrily bought some squid on a stick, and CONTINUED to follow until we were across the street and leaving the market area completely. They really don't realize that their pestering made them LOSE MONEY. We had every intention of buying things, but we refused to be hassled. Further, they weren't pestering locals. Only us. This is natural, because tourists usually buy more, but the judgement is made completely by race. They insisted on speaking English. We asked why. They said because that is our language. We lied and said that it wasn't, which could be true, but they make judgement based on race. As we walked through the streets on our retreat, we were stared at on all sides by workers, salesmen, police, shoppers, and everything else- because of our race. Students approach us to teach them English- because of our race. What is the worst is that they INSIST that race relations are perfect in China and that there is no racism. They believe that only America has race issues. It is complete and utter bullshit.

Anyway, after all that crap, I couldn't go shopping any more. I couldn't do homework or eat. I went back to the room and took a nap, during which I dreamed that various friends and family members were stalking me through the streets of Shanghai, ordering me around. It was annoying.

I woke up for Thanksgiving dinner. We took a rickshaw out to the cool plaza near campus where all the western style restaurants are. We found KFC, ordered the largest feast we could find, and ate fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Then we hit up Dairy Queen and got Oreo Blizzards (with crappy Chinese ice cream) for dessert. This was a very high point in the day. I'm very glad that I will be in America for Christmas.