China Case Scenario Handbook

My mom called early this morning. I hadn't really woken up, and I thought she was calling me because it was an emergency. When I finally understood what was going on, it was this: She was talking to a student who would be going to China, and the student wanted to know what to pack in preparation for the trip. Then, I thought it would be fun to post a retrospective about what was useful when I was living and traveling in China.

For living in China, my worst-case-scenario handbook of a brain came in useful. Apart from the obvious stuff, I took food that I knew I wouldn't be able to find and food that would be easy to prepare (e.g. required just water or just one added ingredient):

• Peanut butter
• Coconut oil
• Stevia liquid
• Granola bars
• Packaged crackers with cheese (you know they come with 6 in a package in different combinations)
• Lipton rice/noodles and sauce (select varieties--some need milk and butter)
• Guayaki mate tea (of which I still have the original package half-full)
• Flavored tea (Tazo Lotus/Zen, Stash Chai, Stash Peach Flavored)
  
• Minute Tapioca
• Almond flavoring
• Cinnamon
• Sunscreen (which I replaced in Hong Kong when it ran out)
  
• Deodorant (I hear that Chinese antiperspirant/deodorant isn't formulated for people of non-Asian decent, I never tried it)
• Books (like novels-I assumed English books would be hard to come by-for the most part I was right, but we stocked up in HK and passed things around)
• Macaroni and Cheese (which can be made without the butter-we could find milk, but butter was a little more challenging and expensive)
  

I have some weird tastes, and probably want things that other people wouldn't, but this is my personal list to combat homesickness and to make sure I had something to eat if I didn't find food that I liked right away. I should've also brought dry lentils and vanilla, but I thought I would be close enough to India that these would be readily available in Southern China. For the things I didn't bring, I would write the Chinese characters and pinyin on a note pad before going out. Sometimes I would research the use of a spice in Chinese medicine, and take the written name to a Chinese medicine pharmacy. This was how I acquired two nutmeg seeds, and I was so excited, when the pharmacy workers let me smell them in the jar to make sure they were the right thing, that they gave them to me for free.

Now, in traveling, I found some other things to be useful. See photos, numbers correlate.

1. Bandana - My hair is not black. When I went somewhere outside the university, especially if it was a place where there weren't a lot of laowais (foreigners), I would get yelled at, petty cabs would stop in front of me so I couldn't cross the street, people would stop me on the street to try and sell me things...I found that wearing a bandana (usually brown) would make walking around more bearable. I don't know if it was because the color didn't stand out as much as my hair color did, or if it was that people thought I was Jewish and respected me more (the Jewish theory comes from Peter Hessler's Rivertown, which is a great book about living and interacting in China).
2. Bag - Someone told me not to take a purse to China. That was dumb advice. When I got a cell phone, I had nowhere to carry it, so I tied a bandana between my belt loops to hold my cell when I went into the city. I had to order a bag while in China. The bag I have is called Pacsafe. I ordered it from China and received it just in time to go traveling to Xi'an, but I ended up using it everywhere. The strap is reinforced and has a feature that allows you to take it off clip it to a chair or table if you're sitting somewhere. The top zipper is covered and there is a clip for the zipper pull when the zipper is shut that makes it hard to open. The bag body is reinforced with wire netting between the outer and inner layers. There had been stories of people standing on buses holding bags, only to discover when they got off the bus that the bottom of the bag had been cut out, the contents gone, or that they ended up holding only the bag's strap with the bag body and contents gone. My Pacsafe is pretty much cut-proof. Also, carrying it across my body and under my coat made it hands-free and difficult to grab.
   
3. Hiking sandals - I ordered some Chacos while in China. Most of the laowais I knew had them. They are sturdy, and not slip-ons. They can be washed in a washing machine (although, if you're walking around China, you may not want to wash them with clothes), and they dry quickly. I wore them traveling in warm places and generally for teaching and walking around our city.
4. Wide scarf - I bought my green scarf in our city, and I wore it everywhere. If I forgot my bandana, I would cover my hair with it. If I was cold, I would spread it out and use it as a shawl. I bought them as gifts because I like the one I have so much.
5. Money belt/pouch - Don't keep money, ID, or passport in a bag. I have one that goes around my neck and hangs on my stomach under my shirt. I don't prefer the belts because they are hot and you have to reach into your pants to get anything, which is somewhat immodest. One of my colleagues had a similar pouch to mine, but the string attached was very long, so he put it around his neck AND in his pants. I found no problems keeping things safe by my stomach, though.
6. Hand-sanitizer - We called it "sauce," and we would pass it around when we first sat down to eat together at restaurants or after getting off the bus. I've heard that hand-sanitizer doesn't really work, but it makes you feel better when you're about to eat and you just got off the bus where people were blowing their noses into their hands.
   
7. Facial cleansing cloths - There are some travel packs of pre-moistened facial cloths. I took some from the US thinking they might come in handy. On the way to Xi'an, my colleagues and I stayed in a "hotel." The cost was 30 yuan, which was about $4 at the time. Three of us shared a bed in a room that didn't have a sink. There was a bathroom down the hall, into which we peered on arrival and we immediately decided that we would not use the bathroom under any circumstances. It looked like it had never met cleaning products before. We brushed our teeth using an outside hose, and decided we didn't need to wash our faces. I had these facial cleansing cloths, so I used one, and what came off my face was black dirt, soot, and pollution. So we all used the cloths that night.
8. Pepto-Bismol chewable tabs and travel baby wipes - Pepto is good for minor discomfort from eating something weird. Baby wipes have a number of cleansing uses, and they are nice to have if you experience (erm...) intestinal pyrotechnics.
   
9. Crystallized ginger - I used this for motion sickness. Dramamine makes me too drowsy. Ginger that is preserved like this doesn't spoil and packs a punch that takes care of that sick feeling or takes your mind off it.
10. Pocket dictionary - Not a phrasebook. If you don't know much about Chinese, reading a phrase from a phrasebook will be unintelligible to native speakers. However, if you can look up keywords about what you want, I think it's better. I bought my small dictionary in China. It was 3"x 6"x 1" and included English-Chinese, Chinese-English, with pinyin and characters. The print was very small, but it was useful. One time I was trying to ask a seller if she had a certain product. I took my dictionary out and showed the word, but she said it was too small, so I recopied it in my notepad. Another time, I had a great conversation with a carving artist, from whom I ordered numerous name chops (stamps), just by using my Chinese and filling in blanks with key words from my dictionary. On subsequent visits, he used his son's cell phone, which had a Chinese character to English translation ap. He was patient in conversation and would always ask me to have tea after placing or picking up an order. Ah, Southern China Hospitality...
11. Trail mix or granola bars - Trail mix was a delicacy, since we didn't even have many of the ingredients. I mixed peanuts, sub-par raisins, and M&Ms to make trail mix a few times, but it wasn't the same. On Ten-Ten holiday, the holiday for hiking, we hiked to a Buddhist temple in the hills. One of my distinguished colleagues had a bag of Trader Joe's trail mix, and it was heavenly. Granola bars were nonexistent in our city, so I stocked up in Beijing and HK. Both are good carry-along snacks.
    

Has anything been invaluable for you while on vacation (domestic or abroad)?
-吴碧芙