G&T Arrive in Shanghai and Decide the Chinese are Rude

12^th November 2010, Shanghai

A really rough night, it seems this train runs on the bumpiest tracks and often breaks. Add to this the stopping at 5am and 6am and our arrival at 7am and we were shattered. I don’t think we’d had more than 2 hours sleep between us. I’m really wishing we could have been in a DeLuxe soft sleeper, oh and the shared toilets are disgusting and smelly.

Upon arrival at Shanghai Railway Station we were greeted with a far more modern experience, however, as usual everything was alien and confusing. Now we had to book our tickets back to Hong Kong on 15^th/16^th or 17^th Nov. After much running around and asking questions we found the Ticket Office, of course it was not in the main railway station oh no it was across the street.

As I entered the ticket office, the scene was more that of a battle field than an orderly office of railway travel procurement. Being from that Isle of order, where queuing is made into an art form (namely Britain) this sight was truly shocking; the volume of shouting was so high that I could barely think. I found the English speaking desk, No. 10 and queued, only to have several people push in front of me, including an old lady who boldly walked passed 4 queuing people and slapped her cash down in front of the ticket office only to be served as I was in mid sentence; this was an experience which would dominate through out the day. I was told to move to counter 12, and patiently queued there. I had learned to put both arms out to the railing on either side to prevent would be queue burgers getting past. Fighting fire with fire.

The bottom line is that there were no Deluxe soft sleepers available on any of our target dates, so I walked away wearily as a man at the adjacent booth was being escorted out of the building by the security guards; he was shouting and cursing in a most animated way, bystanders were making that universal finger to the temple sign representing lunacy.

I tried a travel agent near the station, but it seemed we were out of luck. We took an uneventful cab ride to the Hotel (Howard Johnson Plaza) and checked in, our room was not ready, no surprise at 9am, so I attempted to sort out our travel arrangements. Within 30 minutes the guy at the concierge had booked us on a flight back to Hong Kong on 16^th Nov… now that’s service.

The lobby of the Hotel is quite impressive, and we sat in their coffee lounge and had a cappuccino and snack.

The room was then ready and we went to get a wash and reconnect with the sleep we were lacking from the night before.

We arose at 1:30pm starving, no dinner, light snack for breakfast. We went for the Hotel Restaurant, I had a combination of smoked salmon, gravlax and pickled salmon. Tes had Mee Goreng and asked for it extra spicy, she complained it was not spicy enough and they brought more chilies, Tes claimed that these were duds and did nothing to enhance the fieriness of the noodles, although she claimed they were good to eat whilst explaining what they had done wrong in the cooking process. A taster from me confirmed that, a) Tes was correct on the cooking process, and b) that the noodles were very spicy and my wife simply has an asbestos mouth.

Feeling almost human we ventured out into the streets of Shanghai… almost immediately I was reminded of why this pretty city is called “Paris of the East”. If you removed the Chinese characters and people you could easily be in some city in Europe, the architecture is quite something.

Our wanderings ended up in a Costa Coffee, I went to order and just as I was saying “A Medio Cappuccino Pl…” an old lady literally barged past me thrusting a 100 Yuen note at the cashier… I pushed back, and continued to request my coffee even louder. The young cashier seemed rather embarrassed and pointed out to the old lady that I was first. I took my Coffee, sat down with Tes and proceeded to have a loud rant about the rudeness of the Chinese people!

Really this is something that is beginning to get on both our nerves, the pushing and shoving, the queue jumping, the spitting in public places. For all the modernity of this country, they have no manners. Where I come from they say “Manners maketh man”, otherwise thou art an animal!

I have noticed that the under 40’s are not this way, it appears to be an exclusive right of the over 40’s to behave like animals. Could this be a hangover from the communist regime, where everything is equal and cheap or free… but if it’s free, and in short supply, then the only way to ensure that you get some is be there first.

Could this explain the behavior we see today? I’m thinking that next time I get barged in on… I’m going to say “It won’t run out you know? It’s not communist any more!” Maybe I’ll be arrested.

Upon reading this back to Tes, she reminds me that we cannot use Facebook and Youtube in this country to tell the whole world how rude the Chinese are.