Author Archives: Beau Woods
Who Are You Becoming?
Every decision you made (or didn’t make), every action you took (or didn’t take) today is who you will be tomorrow. Who are you becoming? If you’re not becoming something you will love, shouldn’t you be?
Shotgun Guide to Getting Around in China
Friend of mine is going to China for the first time. I wrote him some tips and I figured I’d share.
Language
Take your guidebook to learn things like “Hello” “Goodbye” “Thank you” and other simple stuff. They’ll do a better job teaching that than I would. But you won’t learn some essential things there. Like:
-Bu Yao – don’t want; use this when getting harassed by street vendors. A good quick “Bu Yao. Bu Yao.” will send them scurrying. If not, be more forceful with the words.
-May Yo – none left, we’re all out; you’ll hear this in restaurants or other shops when they don’t have any of something you’re looking for.
-Fu Yuan – waiter/waitress; you have to call them over
-My Don – check, please
-Everybody knows basic 1-5, most know 1-10, please, thank you, etc in English.
Shopping
-Whenever you get a first price from a street vendor, drop off a zero and counter with that. That usually gets closer to the real price. Don’t worry about insulting them, instead it makes you seem like you don’t care. Most of the stuff isn’t worth 1/10 of what they’re asking anyway.
-If you can, watch what the locals pay. Get used to the currencies and watch what is handed over and what is given as change. That’s your price. If you don’t see the locals buying it, you probably don’t need it anyway. If you think you do then ask how much for the thing the local bought and see what price the vendor gives you. You now know the ratio from real price to the tourist price and can gauge your purchase
accordingly.
-Never be afraid to walk away. There’s a dozen more little shops around the corner. Odds are the guy will call you back and give you whatever your last price was.
-Know how to tell genuine from imitation. Nearly everything is fake there. But many times the legit vendors will have the real stuff too. For example, jade supposedly never shatters, but glass does very easily. Ask if you can test the “jade” by hitting it lightly. If the guy says no, walk away. But more often than not he’ll smile, say no
and pull out something different from under the counter which he will let you test. Now he knows you’re not a sucker and you’ll get a better price as well as the real stuff of whatever you ask for.
General
-Many people will treat you like a visitor in their home. Often people will go out of their way to help you or to at least make sure you get where you’re going. Smile and be friendly to everyone and they’ll likely reciprocate.
-You’re not very likely to get ripped off, though there are some scam artists out there. Each locality seems to have their own scams and there are some well known nationwide ones (like the art student scam). Look these up and be wary. Women are especially vulnerable to scammers and pickpockets.
-If you look different than they do, expect to be the star of many photographs. You’re the freak show come to town, get used to it. They’re just being friendly.
-Don’t drink the water unless you’ve sterilized it. And even then be wary.
-Watch out for medications. Many that look the same may behave much differently. Case in point I took a cold medication there that made me vomit all night.
Download My Photos From Flickr
So you’re checking out my photos on Flickr and you really want to download a couple of them. What do you do?
You’ll see a link above the photo that says “All Sizes” – my mouse is hovering over the link in the screenshot below.
Once you click that button you’ll get a page which shows you various different sizes of the photo you can download. There’s also a link that says “Download the Large size” that does just that. These two items are highlighted in yellow in the screenshot below.
That thing at the bottom of the screenshot highlighted in green is the copyright notice. It tells you what permissions the photographer has given to the general public. In this case, I’ve allowed you to share the photo and do whatever you want except to make money. But if you want to do something else, feel free to contact me and we can work out a different licensing scheme.
On Choice
Is it by choice that the cricket chirps? My macrobehavior has no relevance to my immediate predicament. If I have wanderlust right now does it really matter that I could have quit my job and been traveling the world by now?
In Praise Of Boredom
“For thinkers and all sensitive spirits, boredom is that disagreeable “windless calm” of the soul that precedes a happy voyage an cheerful winds.” -Nietzsche
In other words, don’t attempt to so fill your hours that you lose the tine you have in boredom. Creativity springs from daydreams and daydreams are born of boredom. Inspiration and not sloth comes of boredom.
I Miss Traveling
It snowed about 4″ over the weekend here. It was really cool! It made me realize that people were right when they said that snow is cool unless you have to live in it. It’s been too long since I’ve really traveled anywhere. I went to DC for a few days last week but that wasn’t really much of a trip.
I was a booth babe for Blackhat DC and spent most of my time in the hotel. I did get to hang out with some cool people from work though.
All week long I was tryin to find a cheap flight somewhere warm. FLL MIA LAS PHX ABQ SAn Diego, wherever. No luck. So now I’m here in the snow wishing I were somewhere else. I’d even take going farther north where it’s colder and snowier. Just some place different would be good.
Defining Meandering
Those who search may miss all but their goal. Those who wander miss little and find much. Set your goal and wander toward it. Stop on occasion to see what you’ve found and to see if you still have the same goal. That is called “meandering”.
The Value of Haggling
I read a post about whether or not to haggle over on Brave New Traveler. The article implores you to look at the bigger picture view. They come to the conclusion that you shouldn’t bargain too hard with the locals because you’re really rich and they’re not. I’ll give you a couple more reasons not to haggle too hard and then tell you why I usually haggle my ass off.
The article talks mainly about costs relative to the locals’ income, but how about relative to your income? If you go home empty handed, you’ll feel like you lost out. Think of how much your trip cost you, versus how much you’re arguing over. It’s not worth it. And think of how much you make per hour back home. Odds are it’s several times the amount you’re haggling over. Besides, what would you pay to not regret walking away from a cool item once you get back? I’d wager you’d pay more than you’re arguing about, but less than the price to go back there and buy it this time.
But then consider the local economy as the real big picture view. If you don’t haggle down to a reasonable local price, you drive up the price due to resource scarcity. Yes, that may be a small effect akin to the impact of one person’s vote in an election, but the aggregate effect can hurt. You can also contribute to inflation, thus reducing the buying power of non-merchants who don’t have a ready stream of inflated income. Then there is the effect of high prices on the local job market. If the tourist merchants make a lot of money, the others will not be far behind them in setting up shop, creating a flood of merchants and reducing the size of the work force to do other essential tasks.
I met Jeppe Jungersen on a plane after he was involved in shooting Makibefo – an adaptation of the Shakespeare play – in Madagascar. He said the crew had to very carefully manage the economic risks before, during and after shooting. The balance they had to strike was to get enough people to act in their movie without stopping people from fishing or creating income inequalities among the villagers. The crew hired a local from another area to act as a language, cultural and economic translator. They about paid the same for all actors and extras as the locals would make from a day’s work fishing. Incidentally, that also meant that the actors weren’t just in it for the money, but were there because they really wanted to be.
meanderingwoods 