White Pandas of Shaoxing

This week we were sent an email about a “Free Trip to Shaoxing”, which would include a one-night stay at a 4-star hotel, free lunch and dinner, free transportation to and from Shaoxing, a tour of a famous Huangjiu (a type of rice wine) Museum, and a visit to Lu Xun’s house (a famous 20th century writer and critic). Oh, and did I forget to mention the Textile Expo? For some reason, I thought it might be a history of textiles or something that was lost in translation, but I was wrong. (I should mention, though, this trip was definitely worth it. The following is just a reflection on something that is probably very common in China’s drive for international recognition.)

Meeting at a Nanjing Hotel early Saturday morning, I was surprised to find that there were probably over a hundred people that I had never met all waiting around the front door and lobby. I assumed they were going to another venue or that even this hotel was a junction for long-distance busses. Then I ran into some other students from UM that weren’t in the flagship program but were also going to Shaoxing. It seems this information was sent through various channels to almost all the foreigners at Nanjing University and even attracted some random foreigners just simply living in Nanjing. Although I was definitely confused, I thought “the more, the merrier” and boarded the bus. Five hours later, we were touring a wine museum in Shaoxing, visiting the famous street by Lu Xun’s house and then finally making our way to the hotel. Each bus had stopped at different places and arrived at different hotels. Our driver was lost (a phenomenon that occurs all too often in China), and we were searching for our four star diamond in the rough for more than an hour. Once we arrived though, I realized why we had been shipped so far away from home: the textile expo. Before dinner we were all given a big orange bag stuffed with books, pamphlets and contact information for purchasing vast amounts of high quality, low priced textile products! At dinner I met some foreign teachers working at one of the most prestigious (and most pricey) school in Nanjing. They had come on the very same trip the previous year (also for free) and apparently the entire point was to show off a bunch of jinfa biyan laowai (a set term used to refer to foreigners that literally means “blond hair blue eyed foreigner”) at the textile expo so that the local government could appear to regional business leaders as being successful in attracting an international business crowd. At least there was free beer with dinner!