ore difficult to digest than paying a few extra kwai for food in the market
are the "get rich off the foreigner schemes". These are designed to
trade some of your cash for an incensed humiliation that seems to
linger for awhile, leaving you with a distrust of even sincere
generosity. Thankfully, this feeling wears off!
or us, we experienced the festering embarrassment of being "had" in
Xi’an on the day we went to visit the Terracotta Warriors. We had
walked from our hotel to the train station where local buses leave for
the cities around the Warrior museum. We didn’t know which bus to
take, but the local attendants all thought they knew as they yelled
"Terracotta Warriors" to us in Chinese. When it was obvious that we
were still clueless, they tried to make it easier for us by pointing
to the Chinese characters. Hmmm. Finally, one brave man managed "Terracotta
Warriors" in English and our enlightenment made everyone sigh with
relief. We felt even more at ease when we were charged local price
without haggling. As the bus ride dragged on, we soon found that most
of the locals had departed, though we continued to see billboards and
signs for the museum and other
tourist attractions. We knew we were headed in the right direction.
ventually, our bus pulled into a small parking lot. Behind a high
wall, we could see three large red pagodas and through the entrance a
small battalion of Terracotta Warriors in formation. We should have
suspected something when the bus driver escorted us to the ticket
booth. The entrance fee was much lower than we expected and as we
paid, we were the only ones that weren’t smiling. It seemed fishy.
e looked around and questioned if we were in the right spot. It was
the off season, a colder, gray day - there were a few tourists, but
less than what one would expect an archeological feat like this could
draw on any day. We asked for our money back. That was the beginning
of our demise. Avarice (and the smell of a good commission) seized
our bus driver and two others to lie to us repeatedly that we were in
the right spot. First to one and then the other, they profusely
encouraged us to go in. These were the Terracotta Warriors. You can
see the writing on the wall already. Against our better judgment and
intuition, we began to doubt ourselves. Then, in one swift move, Dave
paid and we entered our fate. It didn’t take long to realize that we
had been had.
e were so angry! How could two reasonably intelligent people be so
taken? Ugh. It was obvious that we were NOT visiting the archeological
site, but where we were we weren’t sure. We’d paid about 5 USD to see
something, the question was "What was it?" If we didn’t have such a
sense of heightened frustration, we might have found more irony in it
all. We had paid to visit Emperor Qin’s Museum of Amusement.
mperor
Qin was the ruler who wanted to take a life-size terracotta army with
him to the afterlife. His amusement, as we discovered, was methods of
torture and execution against prisoners and enemies of the state. In
three large pagodas, we saw very elaborate dioramas with life-size
"Terracotta Warriors" engaged in treacherous and grotesque acts of
killing. As we left, the man in charge said "Thank you for coming." We thought
"Thank you for lining my pocket" was more appropriate as we trudged
another kilometer down the road to our true destination.
ore difficult to digest than paying a few extra kwai for food in the market
are the "get rich off the foreigner schemes". These are designed to
trade some of your cash for an incensed humiliation that seems to
linger for awhile, leaving you with a distrust of even sincere
generosity. Thankfully, this feeling wears off!
or us, we experienced the festering embarrassment of being "had" in
Xi’an on the day we went to visit the Terracotta Warriors. We had
walked from our hotel to the train station where local buses leave for
the cities around the Warrior museum. We didn’t know which bus to
take, but the local attendants all thought they knew as they yelled
"Terracotta Warriors" to us in Chinese. When it was obvious that we
were still clueless, they tried to make it easier for us by pointing
to the Chinese characters. Hmmm. Finally, one brave man managed "Terracotta
Warriors" in English and our enlightenment made everyone sigh with
relief. We felt even more at ease when we were charged local price
without haggling. As the bus ride dragged on, we soon found that most
of the locals had departed, though we continued to see billboards and
signs for the museum and other
tourist attractions. We knew we were headed in the right direction.
ventually, our bus pulled into a small parking lot. Behind a high
wall, we could see three large red pagodas and through the entrance a
small battalion of Terracotta Warriors in formation. We should have
suspected something when the bus driver escorted us to the ticket
booth. The entrance fee was much lower than we expected and as we
paid, we were the only ones that weren’t smiling. It seemed fishy.
e looked around and questioned if we were in the right spot. It was
the off season, a colder, gray day - there were a few tourists, but
less than what one would expect an archeological feat like this could
draw on any day. We asked for our money back. That was the beginning
of our demise. Avarice (and the smell of a good commission) seized
our bus driver and two others to lie to us repeatedly that we were in
the right spot. First to one and then the other, they profusely
encouraged us to go in. These were the Terracotta Warriors. You can
see the writing on the wall already. Against our better judgment and
intuition, we began to doubt ourselves. Then, in one swift move, Dave
paid and we entered our fate. It didn’t take long to realize that we
had been had.
