BU YAO! Being a tourist in China

Before I left on a holiday trip to China, I had done a bit of research on useful phrases: Ni Hao! Being the commonest that you could say morning noon and night and anytime and serves for your hello, how are you etc. However, as any tourist or obvious non Chinese looking person like us will come to discover, you are an easy target for the fall out of commercialism. Everyone wants to make a buck – by hook or crook! The day started with very heavy rain and thunderstorms that seemed to come out of nowhere. No problems, we were still in our dazed jet lagged state and needed some more sleep.


Time was 10.am but our bodies were saying 6am. We eventually got out of our hotel around 5.00PM and decided to visit the Bund which we´d heard and read was the place to see, especially in the evening.

On our way we caught a few glances from passers-by and just smiled. Shanghai is a very busy looking place. People always on the move; families, friends, lovers, cars and cars and cars! Signs were ubiquitous in Chinese calligraphy and sometimes with an English subtitle (Thankfully). So we located a post office! Walked in to buy stamps and that did not go well as the young man could hardly understand my needs and we left empty handed. As we went further and approached the centre of Shanghai, the amount of people increased tremendously. It was a sea of heads. Then loads of shops, restaurants and stores and the bright lights, this was Shanghai, the real business city of China! Then it started as a trickle as we moved on, one person approached us and offered to sell us watches, we politely declined, but he persisted. I dug into my pocket and found my piece of paper with Chinese phrases and remembered the way to emphatically say no ... bu yao! I said it and he just moved off before you could say Jack Robinson! Wow! It works! After then, you got all kinds of people trying to sell things to us: men, women, young and old at every turn. I had a weapon and every Chinese sales person, hustler understood clearly to mean NO! And an emphatic capital N, O / Go away/ I am not interested. My day was made and I learnt the best lesson of the day. We kept on walking and even stopped to have a very good meal at a pizza hut restaurant which ended up doing Chinese food as well!
Passing through the Nanjing road we finally made it to the Bund. Aah! What a feast for the eyes, the towers, lit up buildings and loads of people as far as the eyes can see. It was worth the long walk. Some may manage to blend with the locals but a family of 4 black people amongst a crowd of Chinese and Asian people, couldn´t be more obvious. Fingers pointing, smiles, whispers, and secret photographs from some and a few pretending to look at their IPods while taking photos of us. One of my daughters took it back to them by asking if they wanted a photo at times and took a few pictures with them. We seem to be Stars in the midst of mere mortals 
A great day, that will never to be forgotten.