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More Xi’an
Neil continues, 
“I’ve been there about three times, with about five or six years in between. Each time… there’s a bit less of it. What’s left now has been pickled in aspic. They probably won’t knock down any more, but it’s been turned into a cutsie Camden Lock kind of thing, which I suppose isn’t too bad. It is for tourists. It’s no longer the Islamic bazaar that it used to be. It’s… something else… I suppose that enables the Chinese to think that they’ve got control of it, and it isn’t going to ‘fester’ into something they don’t want.”
Xi’an really seems like one of the places to visit, by all accounts. Well, all accounts so far at any rate. I’m conducting lengthy interviews with trip veterans whose thoughts, will filter down to… here.
They paint a picture of a 3,000 year old history colliding with bustling, youthful modernity. An ancient capital seat of major Chinese dynasties that is paradoxically both ‘happening’ and historically vibrant. And home of the famous Terracotta Army too. A must see.
We’ll be back, in detail, as I pick through the recollections of the travellers themselves. But for now…
The question was:
So, what do they think of us?
It’s hard to penetrate the tourist bubble sometimes. I’m sure that anyone who’s been out of their own back yard has experienced this. Language skills (or lack of same) are a major deciding factor in ‘de-bubbling’ yourself, for those not content just to hang out by the pool. There are unspoken assumptions, obligations, prejudices even, on both sides, just from the set-up: “I’m not from here: you are”. I’m hoping Neil’s (and others’) experience will help me get the insider view. For example, in our conversation on China, we got talking inevitably about Tibet. As well as the obvious, uncomfortable political connection, and also because of it, there is a certain outlook towards foreigners. Neil explains:
“Because of the happy-clappy Tibet fans who go there, the Tibetans realise that whatever they think of these strange people from California going there wanting to be Tibetans (i.e. ‘why would they want to do that?’), they do a favour for Tibet abroad because they talk up Tibetan independence, and repression of Tibetan culture…” Neil would summarise their outlook on these curious interlopers as: “It’s worth being nice to these people even if you think they are sometimes naïve.”
And as for the Russian view of travellers, and travelling generally:
“Russians are quite blasé about it, they understand that you come to their country in the same way that they go to yours.” International travel is common and they largely take it in their stride.
Mongolia?
“With Mongolia, the limiting factor is their desperate lack of money. Very few Mongolians have had a chance to go abroad. Even those who have a little bit of money have mostly gone to China. You can go there on the train which isn’t expensive and you don’t need as visa.
“It’s not a big issue, but there is a element of envy about ‘those rich foreigners who do things that we can’t even dream of doing’. I’ve had as little bit of that in Mongolia, in very out of the way places. But mostly it’s the opposite, it’s more a chance to meet some foreigners: ‘we don’t go there so we can ask them what life is like in their country’. Most of them look it as an interesting diversion from their everyday lives. I’ve been in poor, poor places in Central China, and I’ve detected a little bit of that same envy there. But it’s never voiced, and of course; I don’t speak Chinese so they wouldn’t be able to tell me anyway!”
Neil has picked upon a vibe though, roughly interpreted as: “Who the f***k do you think you are, turning up in our town? We’ll be nice to you, but it would be nice if you would just go away as soon as you reasonably could, thank you”. That’s quite a vibe…
Would you like violence with that?
There are ‘ways to express yourself’ and therefore your displeasure too. It may not be what you are used to. Over here there’s a burgeoning paralysis, an imposed impotence born out of the fear of being sued, should you act, often accompanied by a vaguely (or otherwise) implied legal threat. Over in the Siberian sticks they have next to no money anyway, and high-rent solicitors may as well be on another planet. Back to “The Vibe”:
“You can also find it in some of the Asiatic parts of Siberia, where they probably live poorer than most places in China, particularly Tuva (just North West of Mongolia itself), or places like that. I’ve never had experience of it myself but there was one of those vintage vehicle rally things that goes through Tuva… it’s been re-routed now. The contestants were stoned by locals in small villages. The whole thing may have been made up or exaggerated, there could have been extenuating circumstances lets say… but it’s not unheard of in those desperately poor, out-flung reaches of Russia for tempers to bubble over.
“You’ve got a situation where salaries and living standards in Russia are much more varied from region to region than they are in any EU countries. For example, I’ve got a friend in Barnaul (south central Russia), and her mum is head of modern languages in a secondary school. Her wages are $120 (US) per month, whereas for the same job in a Moscow school the wages would be ten times that. The disparity between wages for equivalent jobs with equivalent qualifications within regions of Russia is enormous. So when you turn up, there’s the automatic assumption that you earn more than even people in Moscow: ‘if the Muscovites earn ten times what I get then these people must earn a thousand times what I get’, and people start feeling a bit aggrieved.”
Next time: in Tips and Tales (Part 7).
Mongolian Show-Boating: well, not really. Do’s and Don’ts: some tips to avoid coming unstuck.
[Photos by John Bevan and Ian Beeby]
