Porked

‘Getting porked’ is an expression I picked up early in my Federal Facility days from one of my mentors. As in: “Tour 2 porked us again” uttered when the outgoing shift left a piece of equipment down for us to fix. Or “We’re getting porked” when it was reported how much of a raise our governing branch voted themselves, all while trying to hold back on giving us our contractually mandated raise.

Somehow, pigs always end up maligned. Think about it: besides getting ‘porked’, pork barrel spending is rampant in government, the phrase ‘bringing home the bacon’ implies that some poor pig died in order for a slab of meat to be slung over some workman’s shoulder and brought home. Even in Animal Farm, that George Orwell fable, Snowball and Napoleon end up being bad guys.

You won’t see me wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan “Save the Pigs” anytime soon, but I might consider wearing one that says “Foreigners get porked”, if only Chinese people would understand the slang. And that is what this entry is all about.

As a rule, foreigners get cheated. In taxis, at the market, in smaller shops where bargaining is expected foreigners are looked at hungrily and salaciously. Allegedly, if you are a foreigner you are either too stupid to strike a good bargain, or unknowing of the art of bargaining. If the vendor even thinks that deeply into it, that is. Usually it is a matter of ‘oooh, a foreigner! Must be rich! I’m going to make a bundle today!’

I accept the concept of foreigners getting cheated. For that very reason I do my routine shopping in large stores such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour or Metro, or some Chinese equivalent to a big department store where the prices are fixed and advertised and no bargaining is expected.

Taxi drivers have been known to get very mad at me when I travel with my Chinese friends. I have an unusual amount of luck flagging down cabs, but when my Chinese friends get in the cab with me and tell the driver where to go, usually the driver goes on a rant about how they thought they would only be conveying a foreigner somewhere. That is because they intend to cheat me. I know. I have experience.

One time I needed to go to Wuhan train station, which is further than Wuchang train station (the one I always write about). As I only had a rough idea on how to get there and didn’t have time to try my luck with the buses, I hailed a cab. He chose to take me all around the city on 3rd Ring Road – the longest way possible that would afford him maximum fare. It ended up costing me 80Yuan to get there. Had I had the language skills – or a Chinese friend to debate the matter for me, it would only have cost about 30Yuan.

See how I get porked?

Another time I wanted to take a cab home from Metro. I didn’t mind taking the bus to City Center, so that my campus would only be a few minutes’ cab ride away, but I didn’t feel like lugging my heavy shopping bag all the way across campus to my apartment. So I hailed a cab. In all fairness he did tell me that he had to stop at a gas station to fill up, I just didn’t figure he’d start the meter until after he completed that chore. Or, when he did start the meter right away I figured he would go to a gas station along the way instead of in the opposite direction. That ride home cost me over 50Yuan. And this time I did have the language skills to tell him there was a gas station along the way to my destination. He countered with ‘but I have to fill up at a certain gas station’. I didn’t see why; he did not fill out any forms and his cab number was not registered. He paid cash for his fill-up.

No, I think he just wanted to cheat me.

So, as a rule I do not ride in cabs alone. And, I do not go shopping alone unless it is for routine, mundane stuff you can find at Wal-mart. But now is the time for Christmas shopping, and that involves bargaining, and again the thought comes to mind that, being a foreigner, I will be cheated. What to do?

I’ve enlisted the help of some of my friends and students. As they like to go out with me anyway, why not turn the outing into a profitable venture for me? They can do the bargaining and I will stand by, seemingly deaf and dumb and visibly foreign, laying out the cash only when the transaction is complete. Buy two of this with this student during one outing and three of that with that student on a different outing and there you have it: I’ve kept my promise of outings with students all while they help me.

That is fun, good and right, but at that rate, I’ll not get my Christmas shopping done till after Christmas! So I talked to Sam, who suggested I shop online. You see, I have in mind to gift many of my friends the same type thing, but not in the same style. By shopping online I can not only get a fair price – the computer doesn’t know I’m a foreigner, but I can get a discount for multiple purchases. Only two things holding me up there: lack of internet connection and the fact that my Chinese language skills are nowhere near good enough to negotiate online buys.

Again Sam volunteers his services. Not only will he direct me to the proper websites but he will also navigate though the screens until the buys are complete. I like that idea: I can get all of my Christmas shopping done with a few mouse clicks, I won’t have to go out into the crowded shops and I won’t break a hip kicking myself for my helplessness or from frustration at knowing I’m being cheated and being unable to do a thing about it.

So now things are looking up where Christmas shopping is concerned. As long as we’re looking up, let’s look at other good things.

All of the vendors around campus, along The Street and at the Farmer’s Market welcome me with open arms and charge me just as much as they charge the other shoppers. At the various restaurants near campus I get charged as much as the other diners, and usually get served extra food or larger portions. Because ‘the foreigner’ eats there, I tend to drum up business for them. Larger portions is how they show their appreciation.

Now: what am I going to do about the cab drivers?

Avoid riding in a taxi alone if at all possible. The bus system is more than adequate to ferry me where I need to go. Except for last night.

Last night, after Thanksgiving at Aloha’s, bus 202 was not running anymore – it stops at 7PM. That is the only bus that will take me directly back to campus. There are other ways back: take bus 208, then transfer to bus 222 and finally connect with one of the other 3 bus lines that stops in front of The Street. However, my belly was groaning with all the good food I ate and my head was verging on a migraine. I did not want to spend 2 hours getting home and there is always a proliferation of taxis in front of Aloha’s. While Carrie Ann and the Mapleleaf bunch hopped into their cabs I snagged the closest one to me. I told the driver my destination and mercifully, he said he knew right where it was at, clicked the meter on and off we go.

I leaned back, comforted that this driver did not want to talk, only to drive. And it seems he meant business… until we missed our exit off the highway. ‘Here I go again!’ I say to myself, resigned to being cheated yet again. But not this time!

The driver apparently realized he made a mistake and asked me again where I needed to go. I told him he should have taken the Wuchang exit and followed Zhong Shan Lou up to my road.

Brace yourselves now…

He stopped the meter and doubled back! He only charged me up to the time he realized he made a mistake and took me the rest of the way home without squeezing an extra fen out of the fare!

By no means has this one driver restored my faith in all cab drivers throughout Wuhan or across China in general, but he went a long way to comforting me about being cheated. I will still operate under the belief that, unless I patronize established shopping houses or ones where I am known I will be cheated. But I do thank this one driver for not cheating a foreigner whose head hurt too badly to argue.