China International Travel CA - New Website Announcement

Please visit the new and improved home of China International Travel CA!

We have redesigned our website to make it more attractive, easier to navigate, and more informative. Changes and new features include the following:

• Each of our standard tours has its own page featuring representative photographs and complete tour information, as well as links to PDF itineraries (English and Chinese), photo itineraries or galleries, a “place page” for each destination on the tour, and the tour’s Chinese information page
• Chinese- and English-language pages have been separated into distinct subdomains to reduce clutter and improve readability
• Our new “place pages” feature useful information about the destinations on our tours, in addition to the existing photo galleries:
  • A description of each place, with basic information and a map showing its location
  • Our photo galleries and photo itineraries now load much faster than before and feature sharper-looking images
  • Links to related blog posts and other sources of more detailed information
  • Tips and info for travelers specific to each place
• FAQ: Answers to questions often asked by our clients and China travelers in general
• The left-hand navigation menu has been replaced with drop-down options in the main menu to increase available space for content
• Search box: The new search function gives you a new way to find the content you’re looking for
• Coming soon: Our blog is being rebuilt, with new posts, reformatted and updated old posts, and improved navigability
• Coming soon: Comment forms on selected pages to allow you to ask questions, post reviews of places and attractions, and add your own observations and tips

We hope you will find our new website both useful and enjoyable! Please let us know if you have any questions or are unable to find something from our old site.

Note to our Blogger readers: Most of our old posts from this blog are being revised and reposted on our new website's blog. We will provide links to new versions of old posts for your convenience. This Blogger page will not be fully maintained, and not all future posts will be added here, so please refer to the blog on our new website for the most up-to-date posts and information.

China International Travel CA's New Digital Brochure

Announcing the arrival of our brand-new digital brochure!

Download it for a convenient introduction to us and our services:

• All of our standard China tours in one file
• More detailed itineraries than our old brochure
• A wide array of stunning new photographs
• Complete booking information and forms
• Optimized for the iPad, with internal links for easy navigation
• Perfect for offline browsing, anytime, anywhere
• Share it with friends and family

Get it today and start planning your dream vacation to China!

Mind the Gap: A Documentary About Sustainable Urban Transit

China International Travel CA recently learned of an interesting and important project that we have chosen to support, and we hope you will too.  These kinds of cultural exchanges are a critical part of the international effort to fight climate change and create sustainable modern societies.  In this area as in many others, the United States and China have a lot to learn from each other.

MIND THE GAP: A documentary project about sustainable urban transportation

MIND THE GAP events focus on Citizen Participation – sharing ideas of what you can do to improve your transit carbon footprint. We bring together local speakers and artists who share ideas about walking, biking, public transit, and new forms of car sharing. We also provide information on ways to get involved with the legislative process affecting urban transportation.

FUNDRAISER FOR FILMING IN CHINA

Dates: May 27 - July 5

Where to donate: MIND THE GAP Kickstarter Campaign

Amount: Accepting donations from $1, no amount is too small

Goal: $3,500 by July 5

Thank you gifts: We have organized thank you gifts for you from donations as low as $10

KICKSTARTER DETAILS:

Kickstarter is a platform that allows independent artists to raise funds needed for their projects. With film grants shrinking and many grants unavailable to filmmakers until their filming is complete, this is a great way for the community to get involved and help make the film they want to see.

A message from the director, Laura J. Lukitsch: I have been working on pre-production for MIND THE GAP for over a year now and am at the stage where I am ready to film. I've been doing research and filming in California, but it is time to see and film what is happening in other countries.

At the end of June I leave for Beijing. I need funds to be able to travel, for equipment rental, crew, and a translator.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1804332874/mind-the-gap-a-documentary-about-sustainable-urban

If you can, please give Laura a hand!

Forklifts in the Night, Exchanging Autos

During the period of my life when I was studying abroad in Taipei, Taiwan, I was an inveterate walker. Whenever I visited a new place, I would buy a map and set out on a peripatetic exploration at the first opportunity. And while in Taipei, I routinely spent long stretches of time walking around the city by myself at all hours, familiarizing myself with its geography and making serendipitous discoveries.

One of those discoveries occurred late one night when I was walking down a narrow sidestreet. I came upon a forklift that was unceremoniously picking up cars parked on one side of the street and depositing them on the other, proceeding car by car down the block. The scene was so surreal, and yet the manner in which the driver was going about his work was so casual, that I could only stare for a moment, chide my lying eyes, and keep walking. In the years since, I’ve sometimes wondered whether that strange sight was actually just a product of my febrile, sleep-deprived brain, which was on constant stimulus overload back in those heady days abroad—especially since it was the dead of night, and I had quite possibly been drinking beforehand. Now, however, after a quick search online, I have video evidence that such things do happen (in Taiwan, at least):

For all I know, this sort of thing is a routine occurrence that the locals don’t even bat an eyelash at. At the time, it felt as if I had wandered off into some kind of Bizarro World where people with forklifts can do whatever the hell they want, where Dude, Where’s My Car? has a radically different plot, and where street cleaners have a better option than punishing hapless residents with $40 parking tickets. (I make this comment as a former San Francisco resident who, like many others, unwittingly helped fill the city’s coffers by occasionally forgetting to move my car.)

But just as one person’s geeky is another person’s cool, what seems absurd in one society is completely normal in another—a fact I’ve often been reminded of during my adventures in China (and probably just as often living in the United States, which I’m well aware is by international standards a profoundly strange country). In any case, it’s nice to know that this, at least, was not something I merely hallucinated.

A little bonus anecdote: Thinking about different standards across societies, I'm reminded of the radically different idea people in China have of what constitutes appropriate driving behavior. After a Shanghainese friend of ours violated one too many traffic regulations (which presumably are more than just rumors in Shanghai, even if they’re not actually enforced), I asked her ironically if she even knew what a stop sign was. “You know, the octagonal red sign with a big ‘停’ (tíng, the character for ‘stop’) on it?” To my eternal astonishment, she literally did not know what I was talking about. I had to explain the existence and function of stop signs to a woman who had been driving—accident-free, mind you—for many years. And no, she wasn’t joking; although there are stop signs in Shanghai, there aren’t many of them, and the fact is that they just aren’t much of a factor in the decisions that Shanghai’s eminently practical drivers make. As I contemplate the traffic ticket my mother once got in a U.S. suburb for a “rolling stop” at a stop sign, even though the intersection was completely free of any pedestrians or other vehicles and she had a perfect driving record, I can only shake my head. Two different extremes, indeed.

If you don't recognize this, you're probably a
driver in a major Chinese city.

May 2011 Random Discovery Photo of the Month

Update – September 22, 2011: This post has now been integrated into this post about our Random Discovery Photos on our new website.

This month’s photo is one of innumerable jaw-droppingly (or at least double-takingly) random sights I’ve come across while exploring the vast human particle accelerator known as Shanghai. As you can imagine, in a city with that many options for shoppers, to be successful you have to find a way to stand out. This shop certainly got my attention with its mannequins, which are not only cutely cartoonish or disturbingly psychotic, depending on your point of view, but also used in an inventive way: ostensibly, the sole purpose of mannequins is to be an inconspicuous display device for items of clothing, but clearly the primary function of these particular mannequins is akin to that of the wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men used at American car dealerships. Otherwise, why would some of them be naked? Well, here’s some free advertising and attention for you, whoever you are—too bad I can’t remember exactly where I took this, or what exactly you’re selling, or what the name of your store is. (It does appear to be across the street from “Jun,” though.)

How could anyone get "overstocked" on something so awesome?

Adventures in Chinese Slang

One fascinating effect of China's continuing growth and modernization on its popular culture is the explosion in slang expressions that has occurred in recent years, in large part because of the use of the Internet by ever-larger numbers of Chinese citizens. As in the United States, wildly creative, funny, and vulgar new slang expressions can become popular overnight as a result of mass exposure online. The New York Times recently ran an article that quoted this People's Daily article about the most popular new Internet expressions of 2010.

If you're interested in learning some Chinese slang, either as part of a serious course of study or just for the hell of it, I highly recommend Eveline Chao's recently published book Niubi! The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School, which I've been enjoying lately. Many expressions I've heard my Chinese friends and in-laws use quite frequently (not the dirty ones!) but didn't fully understand are given a clear and thorough explanation in the book. If you want to really speak like a native and have fun with the dynamic, living language that is contemporary Mandarin, this book is a great resource. Here is a selection of some widely used expressions, along with some of my personal favorites that I've come across so far, in both my own daily life and her book. Click on the pronunciation key for each expression to hear an MP3 recording of it. (Warning: Keep in mind that although I’m always told that my pronunciation is good, I am not a native speaker of Chinese.)

加油 (jiāyóu)

literal meaning: “add fuel” (add + fuel)

colloquial usage: “Go!” or “Let’s go!” (a way of offering encouragement, e.g. to players in a sporting event)

酷 (kù)

literal meaning: ruthless, strong (e.g. wine)

colloquial usage: “cool” (a loanword from English slang)

给力 (gěilì)

literal meaning: “give power” (give + power)

colloquial usage: “cool,” “awesome,” “exciting” (northern slang)

无聊 (wúliáo)

literal meaning: “nothing to chat (about)” (nothing/lacking + chat)

colloquial usage: “boring” or “bored”; also used to playfully scold someone who’s making a joke of questionable taste

郁闷 (yùmèn)

literal meaning: “melancholy,” “depressed” (melancholy + depressed)

colloquial usage: “boring”/“bored,” “depressing”/“depressed,” “(I’m) bored/depressed!”

白吃 (báichī)

literal meaning: “blank imbecile” (white/blank + stupid/imbecile)

colloquial usage: “idiot,” “dumbass”

笨蛋 (bèndàn)

literal meaning: “stupid egg” (stupid + egg)

colloquial usage: “dummy” (not necessarily harsh; often affectionate)

滚蛋 (gǔndàn), 滚开 (gǔnkāi)

literal meaning: “roll egg,” “roll away” (roll + egg, roll + away)

colloquial usage: “Go away!”, “Get out of here!”, “Get lost!”

土 (tǔ), 土包子 (tǔbāozi)

literal meaning: 土 = “dirt” or “earth”; 包子 = “steamed bun,” a common food in poor and rural areas (“dirt”; “dirt” + “steamed bun”)

colloquial usage: 土 = “ignorant,” “uncultured,” “rural,” “untrendy,” “out”; 土包子 = “yokel” or “bumpkin” (also, anyone out of touch with or ignorant about modern or trendy things)

土得掉渣 (tǔdediàozhā)

literal meaning: “so rural that [one is] shedding dirt”

colloquial usage: “What/Such a bumpkin!”, “So ignorant/untrendy!”

狗屁 (gǒupì)

literal meaning: “dog fart” (dog + fart/butt)

colloquial usage: “BS!”, “Nonsense!”

废话 (fèihuà)

literal meaning: “wasted words” (waste + words/speech)

colloquial usage: “Nonsense!” or “Duh!” (“Well, of course, you dummy!”, “Thank you, Captain Obvious!”)

瞎说 (xiāshuō)

literal meaning: “speak blindly” (blind + speak)

colloquial usage: “to speak nonsense,” “Nonsense!”

拜托 (bàituō), 帮帮忙 (bāngbāngmáng)

literal meaning: “please”; “help [me] out”

colloquial usage: “Oh, please!”, “Yeah, right!”, “Come on!”, “Gimme a break!” (sarcastic)

吹牛 (chuī niú) [from 吹牛皮 (chuī niúpí)]

literal meaning: “to blow up (inflate) a cow” [“blow up a cowhide”]

colloquial usage: “to brag” (especially when making exaggerated or false claims)

牛 (niú)

literal meaning: cow, ox

colloquial usage: “awesome,” “badass” (For an explanation of the surprisingly vulgar origin of this widely used expression, see Eveline Chao’s book.)

拍马屁 (pāi mǎpì)

literal meaning: “pat the horse’s butt” (pat + horse + butt)

colloquial usage: “flatter” (especially to flatter someone in a position of authority or someone with the power to help you with something)

没劲 (méijìn)

literal meaning: “lacking strength” (lacking/no + strength)

colloquial usage: “lame”

面 (miàn), 面瓜 (miànguā)

literal meaning: “noodles”; “noodle melon” (noodles + melon)

colloquial usage: “wimpy,” “timid,” “weak”; “wimp,” “wuss,” “coward” (northern slang)

傻瓜 (shǎguā)

literal meaning: “foolish melon”

colloquial usage: “little fool,” “silly billy” (usually affectionate)

三八 (sānbā)

literal meaning: “three eight” (three + eight)

colloquial usage: “silly” (often used to describe feminine silliness), though it can have a stronger, more insulting meaning among some Mainland Chinese

书虫 (shūchóng), 书呆子 (shūdāizi)

literal meaning: “bookbug” (book + bug/insect), “bookish fool” (book + fool/idiot)

colloquial usage: “bookworm,” “nerd,” “a person with no social skills”

In her book, Eveline Chao doesn’t pull any punches; she includes a wide array of vulgar and extremely insulting expressions that I’ve elected to leave out of this post. So if you want to know when people are saying bad things about or to you (or want to be able to dish it out in return), you’ll find her book extremely useful.

Past Random Discovery Photos of the Month

Update – September 22, 2011: This post has now been integrated into this post about our Random Discovery Photos on our new website.

March 2010: This is not, of course, actual panda milk, but cow’s milk produced by a company with the name Panda Brand, but at first glance it’s pretty disturbing. Given that even within China the Cantonese people are known for daring to eat anything (“广东人没有不敢吃的”), one wonders whether this would be a Cantonese delicacy if pandas were not an endangered species. (photo by Ming Xia)

April 2010: “Adibas” shoes—In China I’ve seen every kind of attempt to narrowly avoid copyright infringement you can imagine (including a t-shirt with a familiar-looking cartoon dog called “Snooby”), but for some reason this one in particular cracks me up. In a similar vein, here are some amusing variations on the McDonald’s logo that I recently came across online. (photo by “Lanchongzi”)

May 2010: This leprechaun was apparently a participant in Beijing’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. He seems to be pulling off the unlikely role with self-applauding conviction, despite the conspicuous clash between his red beard and black hair. (photo by Ivan Walsh)

June 2010: I came across these “U.S. Army” pillows in a resort store in an isolated mountain area of Guangdong Province in 2009. (Interestingly, in recent years I have continued to see people in China dressed in clothing featuring the American flag or a reference to the U.S. military.) In that same mountain area, an area with almost no Western tourist presence, I came across cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon being sold in a roadside convenience store. Globalization is happening in some very surprising ways.

July 2010: In my many trips to China, I still haven’t tried scorpion, but these “scorpion kabobs” (for sale in Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping district) do look surprisingly tasty. You might need a toothpick, though. (photo by Thierry)

August 2010: On the same trip to Guangdong Province, I saw these birds (ducks, I think, but I’m not sure) being herded along the road like goats or sheep. Unfortunately, I could only snap this blurry photo through the windows of our bus as we navigated the traffic jam. Driving conditions were quite fowl that day, you might say.

September 2010: One of my favorite places in China is Lijiang, a remote valley nestled amidst spectacular mountains in Yunnan Province. One of its many charms is the laid-back character of its “old town” areas, where you can see sights like barmaids engaging in a spirited singing contest with competitors across the lane or dogs hanging out on roofs. (photo by Chris Feser)

October 2010: Last fall, on my umpteenth trip to Shanghai’s Bund (it never gets old), I came across one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen: this cat decadently ensconced in a chariot being pulled down the street by a hapless team of toy dogs. The chariot seems to be some kind of patriotic nod to the Shanghai Expo, which was still going on at the time but certainly didn’t need a gimmick like this to get media attention. Someone in the crowd of pedestrians surrounding the chariot, noticing my baffled reaction, said something I didn’t quite catch about how the chariot had achieved some level of Internet fame in China. I haven’t been able to confirm that claim, but I certainly would not be surprised if it were true. (On a side note, how is it that Star Wars computer wallpaper, among other completely random images, comes up in a Google image search for “Shanghai Expo cat chariot”? Looks like that algorithm needs a little tweaking, Google.)

November 2010: “Pennington Bear”—While visiting a newly developed pedestrian mall area in Xi’an last fall, I noticed a group of human billboards (can’t say what they were promoting, however) in various animal costumes and clown getups. You would think that the bear or cat costume this guy was wearing would be enough to get people’s attention, but no...for no reason that I can puzzle out, he threw in a Chad Pennington jersey for good measure. Chad Pennington, of all people—a player in an American sport that I’m quite sure had nothing to do with whatever they were promoting, a sport that as far as I know isn’t even marginally popular in China. For that matter, how did they even get their hands on a Chad Pennington jersey in Xi’an? Truly random.

December 2010: This ice sculpture of a tiger head appears to be eating a minivan. This photo was taken in Northeastern China near Harbin, whose outdoor winter display of giant ice sculptures is internationally famous. (photo by Ivan Walsh)

January 2011: This is another photo from Dayan, one of the “old town” sections of Lijiang, that exemplifies its relaxed and informal vibe. These boys, probably children of the local residents and shopkeepers, were playing some game of chance (and judging from their demeanor, actually gambling), but I didn’t want to interrupt to ask what exactly it was they were playing.

February 2011: I took this photo in the Shanghai Museum in 2005. The museum displays were fascinating, of course, but I couldn’t help being distracted by this completely inexplicable little cartoon figure featured underneath the museum pieces: it had alien or animal eyes, painfully splayed fingers, and unnaturally curved extremities, and it was naked except for some kind of cap, bikini underwear, and unidentifiable footwear, with two conspicuous little dots for nipples. It was a complete mystery to me how such a thing came to be used in the museum. Who approved this idea? Was it done by some mid-level museum manager as a kind of in-joke? Was the museum’s collection on loan from a friendly (if a little strange) alien race who had preserved our past for us? It was one of those amusing, perplexing details that reminded me as a Westerner how strikingly different the Chinese sense of taste and propriety can be—in the West you might see figures like this in a children’s museum, but not on displays featuring world-class works of art and artifacts thousands of years old! With my Western biases, I can only shake my head and say, “Weird.”

March 2011: Amusing examples of Engrish or Chinglish still abound in China. The most interesting ones occur when bad translations mix with cultural differences that defy easy explanation. I believe I came across this mysterious device in a shop in Shanghai. Even taking into account the clumsy translation, I’m not sure what a “fruit vegetable counteracts poison Machine” is, what it does, or why only the word “machine” is capitalized on the package. Can people use it to eat rotten or toxic fruits and vegetables? Do Chinese spies carry it around to detoxify themselves, using only whatever fruits and vegetables are handy, when enemy agents have slipped arsenic into their food? Whatever it is, it must have something to do with Traditional Chinese Medicine. A Google search for its Chinese name, “果蔬解毒机,” does generate over one million results (as of today), if you want to learn more about it. Personally, I’d rather let it remain an interesting mystery.

How to Apply for a Visa to China: Do's and Don'ts

Update – September 22, 2011: This post has now been reposted with images intact at this permalink on our new website.

DON'T try to express your interest in China by doing an impression of Kung Fu Panda while singing "Kung Fu Fighting."

What's cute in a cartoon will get you creamed in a consulate.

DO allow China International Travel CA to save those of you who live in the San Francisco consulate's jurisdiction a lot of time and trouble for a modest service fee: $10 if you're joining one of our tours; $20 for everyone else. We've helped many, many clients with their visas, and we can ensure that everything will go smoothly. We'll be glad to answer any questions you have about the application, submit and pick up everything for you, and make sure your freshly stamped passport gets back to you safe and sound with its "new visa smell" intact. All of our contact info can be found here.

DON'T talk loudly while waiting in line about how much you like Sharon Stone. She's not exactly popular over there.

Insulting the victims of a natural disaster: not Sharon's best career move.

DO make sure you go to the right consulate, depending on where you live. Consulates can only issue visas to people living in their jurisdiction.

DON'T stage a "laugh mob" in the consulate lobby in a misguided attempt to create good vibes and brighten everyone's day.

Laughter may be the best medicine, but an overdose might kill your chances of getting a visa.

DO check the links on our Booking page to make sure you have updated information from the consulate website about everything you need to apply.

DON'T try to give yourself "Chinese cred" by rocking a Fu Manchu look. To someone from China, it doesn't project the coolness you might think it does.

"Yellow peril" stereotypes are not the way to make a good impression at the Chinese consulate.

DO apply for a twelve-month multiple-entry visa, since it costs the same as a single-entry visa for U.S. citizens anyway. You never know—if you take one of our tours, you might find yourself traveling to China again very soon.

Although you can request same-day service if you're in a desperate situation (but check with your local consulate to be sure), DON'T wait until the day before your trip to apply for your visa. You never know when your application might be held up for some unforeseeable reason.

DO make sure your passport has six months of validity remaining and at least one blank visa page when you apply.

DON'T look scary...or try too hard not to look scary. Just play it cool and natural, man. Or if that's too difficult, just let the professionals at CIT handle it for you.

Who is less likely to be granted a visa: a victim of demonic possession, or Stuart Smalley?