Before even getting to China, we were warned about the scammers that infested Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. People who spoke some English trying to get you to go to a tea shop, “art students” trying to get you to see their exhibit, or try to book a tour to the Great Wall, all sorts. Well, we met every one of them as soon as we stepped through the gates! It was almost comical because what we read was EXACTLY what happened. A guidebook said that the government has tried to crack down on it, but we can tell you that they haven’t gotten rid of all the scammers!
This was also our first of many experiences of Chinese people taking pictures of us. Some of them pretend to be rather shy while others are to bold as to ask for a picture with us. Two girls asked us for a picture and while I posed, Mike to a picture of the girl taking a picture of the other Chinese girl and me. We are famous here!
The Forbidden City is as beautiful as it is overwhelming. We spent virtually the entire day wandering through the temples, shrines, gardens and living quarters. We took about a million pictures and had so much fun doing so. Mike wrote about one of our favorite experiences in the Forbidden City.
An excerpt from Mike: Amy and I are touring around the Forbidden Palace listening to our English audio headset. It is very cold out - below freezing - and so we go into the souvenir shops to warm up. There are nice things and not very expensive either, but we don't want to have anything mailed back home. We come to another part of the palace that costs an additional 10 RMBs to get in (about $1.50). But it has a cool dragon wall that we wanted to see so we pay and go in. There are also a lot of other art exhibitions in this section as well.
Now, before we went in we were approached every 5 seconds about different scams that we have already read about, so it was nice to get into a place where it was relatively quieter. We go into another souvenir store and start walking around and a lady in an official outfit and a badge walks up and starts showing us around the shop, which was the nicest one we have seen so far. She explains about the Dragon and its nine children and what everything represents, all very nice but obviously trying to sell us on stuff. We pass and continue walking around the store when we see this guy doing some paintings.
She shows us his work and we notice that he paints by dipping his pinky into black ink and drawing/painting only with his pinky. The thing is, the paintings are incredible! So our interests are peaked and we end up buying a couple of his paintings, getting a photo with him and that is that (the paintings cost about 20 bucks each - I got the one that we actually saw him painting too). So the lady is very nice and explains a few more parts of the palace to us and offers to show us some more antiques and a room where one of the emperors slept. We say okay and we go into another room and another lady, very smartly dressed and speaking good English, starts showing us around the antiques. She's not trying to sell us on anything but explains that the government is trying to sell a lot because it wants to open a new wing in the palace before the Chinese New Year. She also mentions about all the fundraisers they are doing to raise money for this. She briefly mentions the nephew of the last Chinese Emperor, who is a great/famous calligrapher, sells some of his work at a discounted rate for this fundraiser. She shows us around some more and asks if she could take us to yet a further room to show us some stuff.
Anywhere else I would have thought we were going to get mugged or scammed somehow but the ladies all have IDs and are dressed very well. So we get into this room and she explains some more and there is this older gentlemen sitting down at a huge desk, calligraphy artwork everywhere, and a few more professional looking folks sitting around...and then me and Amy. She explains that this is the master calligrapher who is also the nephew of the last emperor of China! She then explains that he is here as a fundraiser selling his pieces at a discounted rate and giving all the proceeds to the palace for the opening of the new wing. So she starts to sell us on these scrolls.
I'm a little taken aback and ask again if this really is the emperor's nephew and she assures me he is. So after showing us some of his work, I was sold...again. We chose a scroll that allowed for two characters to be written and we chose Happiness and Love. He painted it on the scroll we picked out right there in front of us and I videotaped the whole thing and they allowed us to take a picture of him with us.
It turned out absolutely beautiful and we got it for around $50 total which I think is about how much the silk screen it is printed on would have cost us back in the states. Plus just having that little back story behind it makes it so much more of a cool souvenir to have at home! I checked it out online and it actually is legit - we got exactly what we thought we were paying for. So long story short - I'll be sending another package home!
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