Traveling Faith

Flying a kite in Shanghai. 

Traveling forces trust. Even with diligence -- keeping bags out of the cab trunk and asking for bottled water -- to travel requires believing in people. It's a risk. And a backpack and an unfamiliar look are targets for hawkers and scams:

"Hullo! Hey!"
"Where are you from?"
"Where you want to go?"
"What do you need? C'mon, I got it!"
"You want weed man?"
"Taxi?"

It takes a thick Caucasian skin to walk through some markets. I say Caucasian skin because it makes blending in a lot harder in some parts of the world, and the height doesn't help either. The most aggressive hawkers I've seen while traveling, were in Egypt; everyone was your friend. Not just street vendors, anybody with a pocket book of English was more than ready to help with directions or give advice, followed by, "Hey man, small tip, c'mon I got eighteen kids and a camel at home."

When Tye and I arrived in Shanghai, there were two groups of college aged youths who invited us to an authentic tea tasting ceremony. They were super friendly. As we were bantering with one of these groups, a guy started sizing us up with a canvas and paintbrush. "We better go," Tye said. "I think this guy is going to paint us a picture whether we want it or not." We left. That night at our hostel, we found a warning on our lamp-stand, "TEA CEREMONY SCAM!!" It went on to explain how groups of young locals invite travelers to an "authentic" tea ceremony, give them all kinds of tea, and rack up a huge bill.

My first thought was: jerks. And then: what a lame scam, tea?! It could at least be something cool like ... I don't know, something besides "authentic" tea. And then I thought: okay, traveling again, gotta be skeptical, the people volunteering help probably want your kidneys (I guess black-market organ harvesting is popular in some parts of China).

When Austin and I were traveling in Cairo, we found ourselves following Mohammed to his buddies hostel. He told us his friend was a travel agent and could help us. He led us into this building that looked like it was straight out of Modern Warfare Desert Storm, sat us in a room with his friend who looked like a mafia boss donning a silk short sleeve and fat gold necklace -- also named Mohammed. He didn't speak so I started, "Hi, we're hoping to get some information about traveling in Egypt." No response. "Mohammed told us you could help us find out about some trains and stuff?" He leaned in, "No ... English." I was a little confused, how could Mohammed not know Mohammed didn't speak English? We made ready to leave when he said, "Just kidding,"followed by a Robert Shaw chuckle and grin -- definite mafia boss persona. We told him everything we wanted to do in Egypt, and without checking a computer or making any calls, he just pulled out a calculator and gave us a price.

Later that trip, as we were preparing to get off the overnight rail from Cairo to Luxor, I realized Mohammed could easily scam us.  He was 14 hours away with our cash, and we had no way of contacting him. We had no clue about where our next hostel might be, or what our next move was. We had no tickets, names, or receipts, we were trusting Mohammed to come through. And, in spite of my suspicions, he did.

At the end of my trip in China, down in Guangxi, my hostel host, Simon, took me to the night market on the back of his scooter. On the way he stopped at his friend's tea shop; I had my guard up, but Simon seamed trustworthy. Hanz was the owner, he was excited to practice English. He gave me the scoop on Chinese tea: no sugar, no milk, just water. Our conversation ranged from tea to travel to Christianity and balance to culture. Tea, I found out, was Hanz's passion. He opened this shop not knowing where the money would come, but he just wanted to share his joy with others. When I got up to leave, I expected a price. "Free," Hanz said. I looked at Simon and said, "no way. Well, can I buy something or something?" He translated to Hanz, and Hanz tried to resist, "Please, if you don't want to, you don't have to." I insisted, and I still have some loose leaf Dragon Well tea in my freezer.

Travel makes you vulnerable. Travel forces faith. Abraham was a traveller. It seems like everyone is out for travelers, but when a Mohammed or a Simon and Hanz show genuine kindness, traveling faith grows.

Genuine tea ceremony in Yangshuo. Simon on the left, Hanz pouring tea, Hanz's family on the right.