Chinese Conspicuous Consumption

There has grown up, in some of the larger cities of China, the practice of hiring fake foreign servants - thus saying "I am so rich, I can afford to employ foreigners to do things for me". This has led to a whole industry of foreigners, mostly students filling these roles; agencies specialising in providing people to fill the jobs; and agents who find people jobs play acting these jobs. Thus if I were signed up with one of these agencies, I might get a call from the agent saying - tonight you are an Indonesian chef. And I would go along to a rich Chinese's party (typically) and play act being an Indonesian chef. Generally, but not always, you need no knowledge of the role being acted. Sometimes though the actor is expected to put on a highly credible performance, and persuade the audience that they are, in my example, a real Indonesian chef. These acting roles pay well enough that if you are a regular on the circuit, you can earn a good living by western standards, let alone Chinese ones. This practice has been spreading westwards (from the capital to the provinces). It has reached Chengdu, but not yet Xining.  It is of course a form of prostitution, but it also strikes me as peculiarly Chinese.

There are of course other things that can act as warning signs when one is in a strange place. One I recently encountered was taking a taxi to a place in Xining. I got into the cab and negotiated the destination. Then I noticed the steel tube behind the passenger side front seat. This tube, apparently was welded to the floor, but was secured to the side of the car using the bolt that holds the seat belt in place. It became evident that this piece of tubing was not only holding the passenger seat in position, but was also holding the side of the car in. There was a gap at the base of the door frame, between the door frame and the floor of the car. And as far as I could gather this was a perfectly legal taxi - his licences were up to date; he was using the meter; and, by Chinese taxi driver standards, was a perfectly competent driver.

The other warning sign I have come across, was in talking to the only Russian traveller I have encountered on my travels. This is a doctor from St Petersberg, of mixed Belarous(?)/Ukranian origins. One of her grandfathers had sought asylum in West Germany; had been enticed back by stories of what was happening to his family; to be slapped into a camp in Siberia for a good number of years. Her parents, her father particularly, had gone through the break up of the Soviet Union, and persecution for being Ukranian. She had encountered difficulties in getting qualifications because of the remnants of the Soviet bureaucracy and its insistence on controlling the exact residence of all its citizens.

So when a person with this background describes Chinese bureaucracy as "without common sense" (incidentally the best definition I have come across of bureaucracy); and describes Chinese control of its subjects (but especially control of people visiting the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)) as "very Soviet"; I tend to take more notice of her comments than those of some other (particularly American) travellers. This was all prompted by the recent changes to the regulations concerning who can visit the TAR. It has been the case for a long time that to visit the TAR, you need to be a member of a group; have a driver, car, and be part of an organised trip. However, when I set off, a group could consist of one person, though the rule about being a member of an organised trip were taken very seriously. The rules have been changed eight times while I have been in Xining, and now a group has to be of at least five people; and they all have to have the same nationality (or rather the same national passport). This has made it very difficult for backpackers, and independent travellers of all sorts, but doubly so for such a rare traveller as a Russian. She has had to completely alter what she is doing.