We took one day to climb a famous mountain in China, 黄山 Huang Shan. Our tour bus dropped us off in front of a row of vendors trying to sell us everything from sneakers and sweatshirts to toy tanks and posters. We had already paid the tour guide for the tickets, but our guide had left, promising to return shortly with our tickets. It was obviously a ploy to get us to stand near the vendors for long enough to purchase something. John and I were the only non-asians we saw the whole day, so there were a lot of stares.

One man came up to Serena and told her that as our guide and as China's representative to the two foreigners, it was her responsibility to "save face for China" and fix the situation by calling the tour guide.

In contrast, another man on top of the mountain called us both "white devils," a popular derogatory term for foreigners used frequently in association with memories of the last hundred years of Chinese history where various countries looted many of China's historic sites.

The mountain itself was by far (-- by far!) the most majestic place I've been on earth. The views beat Mount Katahdin in Maine hands down. They beat the Diamondhead Volcano in Hawaii, and I'm not sure if I'll ever find a place to top what I saw there. I won't say much more about the scenery, please see the pictures: Pictures from Mount Huang.

When we finally reached the top, John and I went from very-interesting to absolute-spectacle. We posed for photos for about twenty minutes. Every group wanted a separate photo with just John, just me, the whole group with both of us, the whole group with just John, the whole group with just me. It was borderline insanity.

At one point we saw hundreds of Chinese soldiers. Serena tried to get a picture with them, but they would not. I thought perhaps they were not allowed to, but it seemed as if they were just too embarrassed. One man finally did agreed. I thought it unbelievably shocking that soldiers would be too embarrassed to take a picture with a girl. Serena said the men join the army when they are quite young, and thus have no experience with women. It is hard for me to fathom any of my army friends not wanting to take a picture with a pretty girl. Very interesting difference. I found myself wondering if this might translate into any meaningful differences in the way the soldiers would fight? 

In China, contracts do not mean as much as they do here. Because the law doesn't mean as much either. You can see right on the street that driving rules are guidelines, and most of the time people do not follow them anyway. Nonetheless, you would expect that if a company took the time to write up a contract and make you sign it, that they would follow it. 

Unfortunately, there is no real way for anyone to "fight" the system if a company or person wrongs you. So the contracts ultimately become meaningless.

Before going to the mountain, we had a special contract drawn up with the travel agency to say that we would be brought back to the hotel by 2PM, so we could catch our bus back to Hefei. When we finished climbing the mountain, the tour guide and Serena argued for 20 minutes, and she finally explained that he was going to take the tour bus to a "foot massage" place for an hour first - which was really just a shopping mall. We would miss our bus back to Hefei. The tour guide had connections with the mall and was probably being paid to drop the tourists off to shop. We took the bus all the way to the mall, and then wanted to find a taxi to our apartment. We didn't know how much longer it would be. 

Determined not to miss our ride back to Hefei, we found a cab and asked how long it would take us to WALK the remaining distance. They said it would take about 30 minutes, so we had to hop in the cab. We did, and honestly no more than a single minute later, we were at the hotel. The cab driver had lied directly to our face. It was shocking.