no escape from japan in china

Oh Japan. Even when I go overseas, I still feel your influence. Another week of public holidays meant I had to travel somewhere and take advantage of it. The result? China, a little more expensive than I was expecting it to be, but still awesome since it's a country I've never been to before and never thought I would in my lifetime get to see.

We just recently discovered the awesomeness of online tour packages from Okinawa, where we realised we could find tour companies' "tours", which can involve as little as flights and accommodation, or be complete with giant Japanese tour bus, tour guides waving flags for tourists to follow, and be packed with inadequately-short stops at a bunch of famous tour places. While we went for the DIY Okinawa tour last time, only having 4 days, we opted for the latter this time, to make sure we could see everything we wanted to, without the hassle of planning it in another language.

I started getting super excited when I got my package from the tour company - it came with stickers we had to wear to identify ourselves as members of the tour group. While I laugh at the busloads of tourists following flags everywhere else, I've always secretly wanted to be mindless and just follow a flag to take me to all the places I should see.

Arriving in Tianjin with our stickers attached, we were greeted by a nervous looking tour guide, who obviously was shocked and freaked out about greeting non-Japanese people. After the awkward greetings and the sighs of relief when she realised we could understand Japanese, we were taken to the transport outside to take us into Beijing. so much for my dreams of being on a big J-tour bus.

Turns out, there were other Japanese people on the same tour as us. Just separated. Apparently, the tour company was worried after seeing our foreign names that we might not be able to understand the Japanese tour, so decided to separate us from the rest of the Japanese goup. While it did give us the freedom to just hang with who we came with, it was almost like being put in the "special" group for people who couldn't interact with the regulars. It was a little insulting.

But oh Japan, while I do feel insulted that you separated us from the regular group, which while feeling mean is probably something done out of consideration of us, you still gave us a tour guide that spoke Japanese and not a single word of English. Despite your concerns about us not understanding the Japanese tour. Even our Japanese-speaking tour guide was asking why we didn't request an English-speaking guide.

The weirdest moment came as we were buying snacks for a Chinese circus show. Finding all these awesome-looking snacks, me and my friends were discussing what to get in English, while conveying that in Japanese to our guide for her to order for us in Chinese. The shop lady was just giving us weird looks and laughing, since she had no idea what language to speak to any of us hearing 3 languages flying about.

Oh Japan. Thanks to you, my whole image and experience of my first new country-visit outside of Japan is all in Japanese.