The Occidental Tourist - training writer recounts her visit to China

Training & Development, May, 2001 by Shari Caudron

A training writer goes to China with certain expectations and comes home with newfound knowledge. This is a story with lessons for anyone planning to train, work, or travel in other countries.

It's 1:30 on an overcast May afternoon, and I'm standing in front of a guest cabin on the Victoria Princess, a small cruise ship traveling down the Yangtze River in southern China. I'm pretty sure this is the massage room, and I'm fairly certain I scheduled an appointment. Still, I hesitate before knocking.

A petite woman with straight black bangs and wearing white silk pajamas opens the door. She is half my size, half my age, and twice as beautiful. Not that I'm beautiful but, well, you get the idea. Standing next to her, I feel large, pink, and hairy. She points to the massage table, looks up at me, and raises an eyebrow. Oh. It must be time to undress. I wait for her to leave, but she merely crosses her arms and steps to the side.

As I disrobe, I watch a barge drift by the uncurtained window. There are workmen in green rain slickers on the deck, heaving boxes and coiling rope. They try not to look in the window; I try not to look out. It dawns on me that the Chinese, who share tiny apartments with large extended families, have a different concept of modesty than I do.

Once naked, I start to slide under the sheet on the massage table and the small, now-frowning woman rushes up, grabs the sheet with both hands, and gestures for me to stand back. Then she smoothes the sheet on top of the table, points to my naked body, and jabs her index finger on top of the sheet. Oh! I'm supposed to remain on top of the sheet. Silly me. I lumber onto the table.

The massage begins, and the tiny creature kneads, prods, and pokes. She hammers my head. Pulls my toes. Cracks my back. My calves hover a half inch above the massage table. My hands squeeze into fists. This is not at all the relaxing massage I anticipated. This woman must be an interrogator for the People's Army because I'm ready to make up any lie to get her to stop. And I do want her to stop. But three reasons prevent me from saying so.

One, there's a language problem. She speaks no English; I speak no Mandarin. Two, I'm proud. She can't really be hurting me: She's a tiny dancer in a jewelry box and I'm Bigfoot. Three, well, there was a third reason, but I can't recall it because she is now twisting my head like it's taffy.

I leave the massage room and crawl back to my cabin feeling as if I've just endured an Asian hazing ritual. I had expected the kind of massage I'm used to: dim lighting, New Age music, and massage therapists who ask in hushed tones where it hurts. The kind of massage in which I'm allowed to crawl under the sheet and keep my private parts private. I didn't expect to be laid out like a corpse in an autopsy room and treated like a prisoner of war. But my expectations weren't in charge; I was in China. We were going to do things the Chinese way, thank you very much.

An hour later as I arrive at the safety of my cabin and unlock the door, the appalling truth hits me: I have become one of those travelers who is so used to having things a certain way and being a certain way that any deviation is considered inferior, abnormal, and just plain wrong. There's a phrase for people like us: Ugly Americans.

I slump onto the twin bed and gaze out of the window at the slow, brown river and misty, green hillsides. How did this happen? More important, how did this happen to me? I have spent weeks and months at a time living in other countries, learning the customs, and trying to figure out how to say and buy everything from light bulbs to tampons. I've negotiated with tow-truck drivers in Italy, confronted the threat of highway bandits in Guatemala, and shared cramped sleeping quarters on Spanish trains with Portuguese fishermen, whom I, aptly, taught to play the card game Fish, or Pescados.

I'm saying that I have always considered myself to be the antithesis of the stereotypical Ugly American traveler. I'm not loud, bossy, or insensitive. I'm not the cliche of a Texan with too much money or a woman I overheard in Portugal squeal to her husband, "Look, honey! They even have sheet metal!"

I don't expect sameness when I travel. I don't expect anything at all. Yeah, right.

As I stare at the water droplets on the window that frames the Yangtze River, I realize that the tiny masseuse with the lethal fingers taught me a lesson: I am full of it. I have expectations of other countries just like everyone else does. In fact, I probably had more expectations of my trip to China--and had more of them unmet--than anywhere else I have ever been before.

My struggle with unmet expectations started the second I landed in Beijing. After traveling 24 hours from Denver to Los Angeles to Tokyo and on to China, I was eager to see the "real" China. I wanted my first images to be bicycles, water buffaloes, and thin people squatting and eating rice out of wooden bowls. I yearned for dusty crowds and red lanterns and dirt floors.