Beijing 2015 | The white devil rate

I  approached the ticket window outside the sprawling Leshan sanctuary in Sichuan province -- an entire mountainside covered with towering 8th Century buddhas and smiling bodhisattvas, perched inside caves and atop rocky peaks.

The attendant looked at me plainly. She didn't size me up as another foreign mark. A big nose. A rich man.

The color of my skin, the language on my passport; none of it mattered. Not like the nightmare of those early days, when prices soared the moment anyone spotted my round eyes, my foreign face.

"How much for two tickets?" I asked.

She looked at my Chinese wife standing next to me.

Three-hundred-forty yuan, about $60. Thirty bucks apiece.

I slid four 100 yuan notes under the window and back came the tickets, with 60 yuan in change.

China has changed since I first arrived here in 1995. Not only is there a one-price system for all, foreigners are free to visit the nation's farthest reaches that were once off-limits, like this city of Chungdu, a former national capital 1,600 years ago.

For four days, Lily and I ventured outside Beijing's hustle-bustle to Sichuan province, three hours away by air in China's vast western reaches, where life moves more slowly; the gaze of the central government is more muted. We were also on our own, free from the pressures of family, where I could watch in awe as my wife operates within this ancient culture, like she did before she emigrated to the U.S., before there was a me in her life.

We flew solo a lot like this at first, before Lily's brother made his fortune and our trips to Beijing became like a stay at a five-star resort. My wife has come to like and expect the luxury treatment -- the spa trips, being ushered to the best restaurants, the shopping trips.

I want to break away. Rather than be chauffeured around in her brother's Mercedes S-Class 600, we crowd our way onto diesel-spewing buses and negotiate with bootleg cabbies; we wade, sweating and tired, through teeming bus train stations with bad food, deplorable public toilets and gruff ticket-takers who herd us like lowing cattle.

People, so many people. Non-stop people.

The trouble with sightseeing in China has always been this: At any given time, in a nation of 1.4 billion souls, there are hundreds of millions of people traveling at once, and many of them (if not all, it often seems) want to go to the same place as you do.

That means, there is rarely, if ever, an empty seat aboard a plane, train or automobile. If anything, people are turned away. Flights are overbooked, waiting rooms jammed, just by the nature of the gargantuan hordes that take to the road. And embarking on any form of public transportation is not for the faint of heart: people rarely wait their turn. They cut in line, elbows brandished. Especially in provincial areas, among the working classes, an invitation to board any flight is like a clarion call to a stampede, with people pushing past as others try to stow their gear. It's not like anyone is trying to be rude. They want to get to their seat and you, my friend, are in their way.  It's as simple as that.

Holidays are the worst; with a mass movement of humanity -- everyone wanting to get to their home city or village, often thousands of miles distant. At such times, it's a wonder the earth doesn't wobble off its axis.

In 1995, before Lily and I set off on a trip to Shanghai, her sister said dismissively. "What's to see there, other than the back of people's heads?" Sure, you want to see the sights, but so does everyone else. While traveling in the U.S., my father-in-law once observed that if, say, the Grand Canyon existed in China, it would be impossible to stand and contemplate the world from its rim; there would be too many others in line ahead of you.

But where the natives see only hassle in traveling within China, I see adventure.

At first, though, even buying a ticket in China made my blood boil. Back in the 1990s, China's bedeviling two-tiered pricing system meant cheaper rates for natives and an exorbitant rip-off for foreigners. A ticket to a museum, for example, would cost Lily two yuan. For me: sixty.

If China ever wants to attract foreign tourists, I griped, they can't do this to people. What if we went to a movie in Los Angeles and you had to pay 30 times my ticket price.? We tried various ruses: I hid nearby while she bought two locals-only tickets, hoping I could slide by the turnstiles  It never worked. I was a marked man.

A train trip to Qingdao and Shanghai in 1995 brought my frustrations to a quick boil.

Back then, travelers couldn't buy round-trip tickets. You had to show up at the station the day of your train, maybe a day earlier at the most, and buy your ticket. When it was time to come home, you had to troop back and endure maddeningly long lines that never seemed to move; people standing so close to another another, I could smell the thousand-year-old egg and rice the guy behind me ate for breakfast.

Standing in line in the station at the coastal city of Qingdao, I learned that for the overnight train to Shanghai, I had to buy a first-class ticket, while Lily could go standard fare -- for the same class seats. I submitted my passport and begrudgingly paid my fee, the attendant shoving back my ticket and change with a huff. No first-class treatment here.

But she didn't bother to ask for Lily's documents; assuming she was Chinese, probably my tour guide. That oversight would soon turn my overnight train nightmare into a tense international standoff. 

Hours later, just before dusk, when we arrived in our first-class berth, equipped with two beds down and two up, we found two older gentlemen sitting on the lower bunks, smoking cigarettes. In a huff, I announced that we had booked the lower beds.

I was sorry, but they'd have to move up top.

They shook their heads. No, they were in the right beds. They didn't exactly say so, but their point was clear: They weren't moving.

Someone called the conductor, a middle-aged man in a blue uniform and bellman's cap. He looked at the tickets as we moved to the outside corridor. No, no, there was no mistake: We had been assigned the two upper beds.

That's impossible, I said, my voice rising in frustration. I was tired after another long day of getting gouged at every turn, of being seen as the sucker. I ready for a good night's sleep.

In MY bed. The one on the lower level.

A crowd quickly gathered. Faces peered out of doorways, looked on through the crook of an elbow, over a shoulder. Chinese revel in such face offs, such public theater, especially when a  foreigner is involved. We continued our back and forth; the conductor and I, neither giving ground, Lily translating my rant and his resolute replies.

"Why do you YOU deserve the bottom bed?" one woman suddenly spoke up from the audience. "Just because you're an American? Do you think you're better than Chinese?"

There was a round of nods; grunts of agreement from those around us, my judge and jury.

"No," I said, waiting for Lily to translate. "I don't think I'm any better than you are. I deserve the lower bed because I paid FORTY TIMES more for my ticket than you did."

Such logic fell on deaf ears. Of course I was charged more. I was American, and all Americans are rich, they said. How could Chinese be expected to pay the same rate? What kind of foolishness is that?

The crowd was getting restless. With no victory in sight, I gave in. I stormed into my berth and hurled by bags up onto the upper bunk, ignoring the two gentlemen below. My head atop the wafer-thin pillow, I felt the first tinges of a troubled stomach following several questionable meals of mystery meats and overcooked vegetables. The ceiling speaker, located right over my face, blared a Chinese opera with high-pitched voices.

I tried to turn the speaker down, but the knob broke off in my hand. My urge was to run to the toilet but the line outside was already ten-people long. I closed my eyes as the train lurched into motion.

The joys of foreign travel.

Things quieted down; for a while. The two elderly men, who turned out to be professors at a university in Nanjing, kicked back to rest as I suffered in my bunk, dreading the long night ahead.

Knock! knock! knock!

It was my buddy, the conductor, demanding everyone's identification. That meant I was required to surrender my passport for his perusing pleasure, which I was not exactly inclined to do. This guy had so far done me no favors; so I would do him no favors in return.

"Passport," he demanded.

"No," I said. "Bu ke yi." You can't have it.

You can't refuse me, he said.

Oh, yes I can.

He tried to enter the tiny berth but I used my foot to push the door closed. It locked.

He called out, but no one moved. Not the professors, not me, not Lily.

Then, apparently, he was gone. We lay in silence. Finally, my wife spoke.

"Listen, I'm going down to the next car and get something to eat. Can you stay out of trouble, just for a few minutes, until I get back?"

I promised to behave, too sick to my stomach to cause any more mayhem.

Soon after she left, however, I began to feel guilty. Here I was, a visitor in China. This man was just doing his job. He didn't make the rules. I shouldn't take things out on him. Somehow, I found myself in the role of the Ugly American.

I decided to try and make peace.

Big mistake.

I retrieved both our passports from our luggage and trundled down the corridor to the conductor's berth. He was sitting at his desk, and looked up at me wearily, as if to say, "Now what?"

I thrust the passports forward. At first, he almost looked surprised, but reached up to take them, rifling though the pages. Then he stopped. I think I saw an eyebrow raise. Suddenly, I remembered, and felt my stomach drop:

Lily had paid the ticket price for a Chinese citizen. The attendant hadn't bothered to ask for identification. If she had, Lily would have been required to pay the much-higher foreigner's rate for the ticket. The difference came to hundreds of dollars.

I reached out to take back the passports. He snatched them away from me. I think he almost smiled. He began talking. I didn't understand what he was saying but knew all too clearly what had just happened: the balance of power had shifted.

I was no longer the arrogant American refusing to play by the rules. Now I was just a schmuck without identification. I went to give Lily the news.

"You WHAT!" she said.

"You GAVE him our passports? Why would you do such an idiotic thing? Didn't you remember that I paid the Chinese rate?"

Well, I, um, sort of did. But I just wanted to, um, you know, make peace.

Suddenly, I was fighting a war on two fronts. My wife stormed back down the corridor, me following like a punished schoolboy.

The situation was as bad as it seemed: Unless we paid up the difference between tickets, he would not return our passports, and would report us to authorities in Shanghai.

I slunk back to my bed and stewed. Finally, I decided, with Lily's consent, that the best defense was an offense. Just after dawn, as we drew within a few hundred miles of Shanghai, I confronted my tormentor.

"Listen, I said. "Either you give me those passports, or I will make your life miserable. I will call the American embassy the moment I set foot in Shanghai. You can't extort money out of me. My government will back me up. You'll be sent to Siberia.

OK, OK, Siberia was in the Soviet Union. But he got the point.

He looked at me. A look that I can best describe as almost pity.

No money, no passports.

I went back to my berth to lick my wounds. In the morning, we got to know our berth mates. The two professors were sympathetic to our plight. The system wasn't fair, they said.

They got off in Nanjing and introduced us to their wives, who were waiting on the platform. The trip hadn't been a total loss. I had met two wise scholars, two gentlemen who agreed with my point of view. I headed back to my berth, ready to luxuriate in the lower bunk for the remaining few hours to Shanghai.

And there he was. He was blue-collar, a working class man. And he lay in the lower bed, hands behind his head. The conductor stood outside the door, as it to gauge my reaction. He had sold the space to another Chinese passenger.

I skulked up to my bunk in defeat. Once the train started rolling, Lily turned to me: Maybe there was another way.

Ten minutes later, I had captured my prize.

We had tried the art of negotiation over warfare. In those days, we traveled with small gifts to use as bribes for low level officials. We reached into my pack and pulled out a few packages of Marlboro cigarettes, which were then prized over the cheaper Chinese brand.

Our man quickly went for the deal. When the conductor passed by and saw me in the lower bunk, he charged into the room. Had the American tried force?

Our new friend, smoking one of his Marlboros, explained the transaction. But my victory was short-lived. The conductor still had our passports.

The Cold War finally ended as we pulled into the train station in Shanghai. He won.

I handed over the cash, the documents were thrust into my hand without a word. In the end, I kind of admired the guy. He stuck to his guns. It was my first insight into the Chinese character, a lesson I would learn with Lily time and again in the years to come.

In any battle of wills, they are formidable opponents.

I behaved myself the rest of that trip. But there were other lessons to learn. In 1995, many Chinese, especially those in outlying provinces, had never seen a foreigner in person. For many, we were exotic characters confined to TV screens and advertising billboards.

For others, were we something else entirely: White Devils, the term Mao had given Americans during the Cultural Revolution, a historic time that had taken place only a generation before.

On any stroll through a crowd, I was greeted with shy smiles and parrot-like calls of "Hello! Hello!" Then there was the open-mouthed gawk. Unlike others, the attention never got on my nerves. I thrived in the spotlight. I tried out a few Chinese phrases, which were greeted with sheer amazement. The foreigner speaks Chinese!

In Suzhou, a provincial town outside Shanghai, Lily and I walked a marketplace one evening looking to buy a few of the town's famous silk scarves, which were arranged by the hundreds in tiny stalls on the market's main drag.

We walked from booth to booth, running our fingers through the fine silk, looking for the right color and texture. Soon, I noticed, a crowd had begun to follow us. It grew to 20 people, moving along with us from stall to stall, the onlookers transfixed with a pending transaction that seemed outlandish, as though some feral dog had risen to two legs, taken out its wallet and had begun bargaining for a good price. This didn't happen in Suzhou.

At one point, we held a scarf we intended to buy, holding back for a better price. A man reached out from the crowd and snatched the scarf from my hand. He stood there inspecting the item. What is so amazing about THIS scarf that the American wants to buy it? I couldn't help but laugh.

Not every interaction was so amusing. Back in Beijing, as Lily and I shopped in a Saturday street market, a stranger walked up to us and said to her, "What are you doing with this White Devil? Aren't Chinese men good enough for you?"

Lily was irate. "This is my husband!" she shouted back, even though we'd only been dating a few short months. "Get out of my face!"

Twenty years later, nobody looks twice at a foreigner in Beijing. But here in Sichuan province, where outsiders are more scarce, a bit of the old China persists. Young women smile at me. At a crowded market, a teenage girl snaps a shot of me and then her boyfriend approaches and asks me to pose with her for a picture. As my wife sighs with boredom, I like to play a game of photo-bombing Chinese tourists. As someone poses within a crowd, I approach at the last minute and throw my arm around them, like an old friend. Or I sneak up behind the person being photographed, with the picture-taker laughing, snapping the shot.

There are countless opportunities. The Japanese used to be known as the world's picture takers. No more. Now almost everyone in China has a smart phone with a built-in camera. That means a billion pictures are being snapped at every conceivable site. There are picture-taking traffic jams at every scenic juncture. Hundreds of millions of Chelfies -- Chinese selfies -- being snapped by teenage girls at any moment, enough to keep photo-bombing me busy for a lifetime.

And here in the so-called countryside, the more-quaint provinces, it sometimes seems as though the past is still the present. On a mountain hike, we passed a vendor with a makeshift stand in the woods, selling bread and eggs. He called out to me to buy something and I responded with my old ruse.

"Mei you qian." I don't have any money.

"You're an American," he called back. "You make lots of money. What do you do with it all?"

Actually, I didn't have any money. Every year, the moment we set foot in China, Lily and I fall back into an old power play: She has yuan; lots of it. I have none.

"A man needs a few spare bills in his pocket," I reason, to no avail.

"What do you need money for? I pay for everything."

She insists she's actually doing me a favor. Money is dirty. Let her handle the heavy-lifting. Her brother never handles cash, allowing his girlfriend to carry it. Finally, after years of back and forth, I have resigned myself to a destitute state whenever I'm within China's borders.

One day, my wife and I strolled through the Wuhou Temple in Chengdu. It was her first visit to the city and she noticed some differences. "Chengdu women have very nice complexions," she said.

She was right. The women were creamy. Many went without makeup. They didn't need it. I was beginning to like this city.

We wandered into a tea garden within the temple park, with a scattering of tables surrounding an elderly man in a white beard and flowing robe, like some emperor from an ancient dynasty. He sat at his own table on a raised platform, under a tree with gnarled roots. He looked at us with disdain.

A server approached and wanted to know what kind of tea we wanted. My wife looked over at me, an unwashed foreigner who knew nothing of the various grades of Chinese tea.

"The cheaper kind," she said. The woman gave a knowing smile.

Then we asked about the man in the robe. Is he the tea master?

The server leaned in close, as if to relate some important gossip.

"Pian zi," she whispered.

Liar. As in fake. Phony. Windbag.

We ignored him, which made him more curious about us. He got up and walked past our table.

"Where is he from?" he said to Lily, motioning toward me.

"He's American."

He touched his ear.

"Mike Tyson. He ate someone's ear." And then he walked off.

Soon, another man approached, talking about ears. He wanted to clean mine.

Only in China. I sat back as the man used a light to inspect my inner ear canal, using tweezers to pull out bits of wax. I didn't see any cleaning alcohol.

"Americans have hairy ears," he announced.

And then: "They have big pointed noses as well."

I hoped he wasn't expecting a tip.

Then he pulled out a hunk of wax. My wife invited the woman at the next table to come and see. I sat there in silence, once again a creature in a cage. My wife gave him extra money -- $5 instead of $4 -- because my ears were so big, so dirty, so foreign.

We spent the rest of the day touring the city on foot. We saw vendors selling walnuts using ancient hand-held scales, right outside the ubiquitous Starbucks. We stopped for lunch at a hot pot restaurant. Sichuan province is famous for its hot foods, especially pots of seasoned water which is brought to a boil and used to cook meat and vegetables. My wife taught me to use my chopsticks to squeeze the excess water from my boiled tofu before eating it. I sat with my mouth numb from the spices.

Later, as we walked on the street, I saw a couple -- an older man and a much younger woman. They held hands and she was gently pulling his arm, imploring him. At first I thought they were old friends. Father and daughter? Lovers? It was a silent opera. I would never know. Then Lily looked up to see the building sign out front. It was an investment firm.

"She's probably trying to convince him to keep his money in her company's funds," she said.

Suddenly, it all made sense. A silent film with the dialogue suddenly added.

I wondered if the investment fees for foreigners were any higher. Jacked up. Inflated.

The White Devil rate.