Sierralima

The foreigner tax

There are a lot of non-government taxes around. The stupid tax (lottery) and ignorant tax (where a pretty girl calls you handsome and wants to practice English with you, and conveniently knows a good tea house to sit and talk at, then conviently orders expensive tea and doesn’t have the money to pay) are a couple. Another tax which is well known in these parts is the foreigner tax, where locals get a nice low price, but people who don’t understand the language get a higher one. This is not particularly suprising. I arrived in Xi’an today with Josh, and this hit square on with me. I was looking at the information counter at the airport and saw maps of Xi’an, of which we currently had none. The agent said the map, in Chinese and English, was 10 RMB. When I pointed to another one of the maps, she said that one was only in Chinese. 5 RMB. I laughed. I briefly considered buying the Chinese map, but spent the 10 RMB, feeling somewhat sad that I was supporting a business model not in my favor, and wishing I knew how to read more Chinese.

So the week has been interesting. Josh arrived on Tuesday night. I didn’t spend too much time with him while he was in Shanghai – too many things on my plate – but he seems to do quite well on his own. I took him to youth group and church so he could meet my friends, and we all had a good time. Now that I’ve taken a few days off work and left the city, I’ll have more time to spend with him. I’m not particularly excited about being a tourist again, but I’m beginning to think the time off couldn’t not have been better placed. I’ll know more on that later this week. I must say the weather is quite nice right now. After the hot humidity of Shanghai, the cool weather tonight feels wonderful.

I’ll probably go to bed early tonight. Hopefully shortly after I submit this. Maybe I’ll be able to catch up on some of my sleep. I’ll sure need it for the retreat next week.