EPT
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"NE HOW NE HOW NE HOW," blast tiny Chinese people in a packed street of Shanghai. "YOU WANNA T-SHIRT? HELLO! T-SHIRT!" The streets were loud, bustling, people were driving their cars even more insanely and in breach of traffic laws than even koreans could ever dream of. On a warm day we strolled through a Chinese ancient mansion built by some rich dude for his parents. I have no idea what the name of it was. Infact I didn't care at all. I'm not much of a sight-seer myself but...what was that? Frog on a stick, Birds on a stick. Mmmmmm tasty now thats interesting. As we slowly waded through the sea of people which was about 10% non asians. This was day 1 of the adventure and I wasn't sure what to think about China at this point. The city of Shanghai is very grand itself. A city ten times larger than Seoul (though only about the same population) and it had huge magnificent buildings anywhere. Seoul is all that I can compare China to right now so if you don't know anything about either than tough luck. The city itself as a whole was very grand, but at the microscopic levels it was extremely dirty. All the taxi's were scrubby old Volkswagens with huge cages designed to protect the driver from the passengers. "DVD? DVD? YOU WANNA DVD? 50 CENTS A DVD!" Is whispered or yelled by creepy looking chinese guys in semi formal streets all over the place. The people themselves looked very similar to Koreans from my ignorant perspective...except shorter, their language is uglier, and absolutely no good looking girls anywhere. After visiting that market/mansion we went to some skyscraper tower thingy that is the symbol of Shanghai. It itself was impressive but once we got to the top the view was pretty ugly. It was semi cloudy, there was some polution, and most of the buildings looked dirty. After having our first chinese meal we called it a day. God damn that shit is oily I was praying to god that I did not get diarrhea.
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"How much is this dress shirt?" "ONLY 480 WEN (wen yawen RMB, WHATEVER it is...CHINESE money and 100 wen = about 12 or 13$) YOU KNOW BEST QUALITY OKAY?" Says a girl that must be no older than 16 working at a bustling shopping zone of Shanghai that only sells fake goods. I was informed that you should pay no more than their initial offer divided by six. "I'll give you 80" "NO NO NO NO NO NO," says the girl as she busts out a hand held calculator, "OK HERE FINAL OFFER 350 YOU BUY OK? BEST QUALITY HELLO!"
"80."
"300 OK?"
"80."
"250 BECAUSE YOU HANDSOME"
"80."
"I LIKE YOU YOU MY FRIEND 200 OK?"
"80."
"200 ONLY I CAN FINAL OFFER HELLO OK? YOU BUY!"
"You're annoying me now, 70."
"WHAT NOW YOU SAY 70 HAHA OK HEY HEY 200 PLEASE BUY!"
"60."
*Confused chinese girl squint* "HEY HEY NO JOKE MAN FINAL OFFER YOU GIVE"
*Rekrul starts to walk away* "OK OK OK 60 GOOD YOU BUY 60."
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I still feel like I overpaid for that peice of crap rip off jacket. The market had everything you could imagine. All sorts of clothes, fake sunglasses which break after 2 days, hats, swords, chinese collectables, pokemon trading cards, swords, luggage. You name it the Chinese can fake it. This experience was definitely the best part of the trip. Arguing over mere dollars not because I wanna save a few bucks but merely because it's fun as hell. I could see white people getting ripped off everywhere. So many of them had absolutely no idea how to negotiate for fake stuff. There was an indian guy in the socks place negotiating trying to get 10 pairs of socks for ten bucks. The price started at like 20 but he was trying his best but at the same time trying to be courteous. He was a complete fish. Then giyom walks in grabs 5 pairs of socks and hands the girl two dollars without saying anything and just walks away. The girl selling the stuff froze for a second and then let out a huge smile as if to say "Ok this guy knows whats up may as well not fight it." Meanwhile the indian dude is standing there looking back and forth at the girl and giyom, scratching his head wondering what the hell is going on and what just happened. They have these kinds of places all over China. I went once in Shanghai and once in Beijing.
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Later that night we got to see our first chinese club. Chinese clubs are more like a combination of a club and a bar. They play a variation of hip-hop music and trance. We went to some place called "Baby Face." The place was packed by 9 PM. It was very very nice looking on the interior and had a dance floor and seats ranging from a shitty barstool table to a big fancy room with couches. We opted to get a big room which we had to share half half with someone else who came which was one chinese young guy and four girls. When trying to say hi to the guy when he came into the room he just kinda looked and then looked away. He was very shy at first. After one hour of drinking he finally came around and was slamming shots saying "SHANGHAI BEST GIRL OK? SHANGHAI NUMBER ONE. MY FATHER USA OK?" But, tired from the long day we opted to go home fairly early.
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First impressions of china at this point: It smells bad here. Ugly girls here. Ugly Language. Dirty landscape. Lots of fake shit. But for some reason Shanghai overall was a great experience and I love the place. It was probably the fact that everyone is so friendly and smiley compared to Korean people so that was incredibly refreshing.
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We then headed to Beijing for a 3 and a half day partying and drinking binge. Beijing felt more cleanly than Shanghai and there were bars and clubs all over just like in Seoul. I won't bother explaining all of this because all their is to it is drinking drinking drinking. Though, our final day we got to see the Great Wall of China in the morning, some manner fake lake some ancient king built, eat dinner in a rotating tower, and then go drinking again. Tour at day party at night. What a great trip!
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Rekrul/_072.jpg)
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On our way back to the airport we were already almost late and our cab broke down in the middle of a 6 lane highway. Some chinese guy was nice enough to stop his car, let the three of us in with all of our luggage and take us to the airport. Not only that, but we forgot a book in his cab and he ran all the way into the airport 15 minutes later just to give it to us. A little peice of random genuine kindness was icing on the cake.
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Thank you for reading,
Rekrul
