Business Traveler on Chinese Brothel: I Had to “Damn Near Fight My Way Out”
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 04.25.06 | 1:41 PM ET
No, this is not from the pages of the Onion. It’s from an AP story about an American business traveler in China who wound up flying into the wrong city—Taiyuan, a place with 1.5 million residents—and seemed to nearly fear for his life. We’re not sure what’s more shocking: the business traveler’s level of anxiety over a situation backpackers experience more or less daily, or the AP’s breathless account, which doesn’t begin to question the traveler’s response. (How does any city with 1.5 million people qualify as “remote”?)
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Paul 04.26.06 | 12:21 AM ET
Taiyuan is the capital city of Shanxi Province, not far away from Beijing. Can it be seen as “remote”?
Michael 04.26.06 | 6:10 AM ET
This has to be one of the most ludicrous stories, I ever seen on the wires .. should have been in the “oddly enough” section and then to get picked up by USATODAY. That guy should not be let out of his own back garden such are his delusions, paranoia and any semblence of street, travel smarts!
Ben 04.27.06 | 3:16 PM ET
Yeah, you would have thought he’d been lost in the Amazon for several years based on this story. Language barriers are undoubtedly tough, but somehow I don’t feel he cheated death here.
Nathan Stilwell 05.21.06 | 10:17 PM ET
I live in Hangzhou China (a city of 7 million or so) and most Chinese here would call is “not a very big city”. So in a country so populace, it takes at least 10-15 million to make a “big” city.
This is the worst case of culture shock I’ve ever heard of, I laughed so hard…poor guy.
mike 01.31.08 | 11:50 AM ET
Taiyuan is not a remote city it’s quite close to Beijing, go ask google and see for your self. Whoever ended up here was probably anxious over the fact that almost no one probably spoke english which isn’t the worst case and regardless any time your taking a business trip to a foreign country you would think that they should at the very least know some basics of the language, and not chinese it’s not a language but cantonese or mandarin, maybe his company should have sprung for a small business loan to get him some lessons, buy a pocket translator or even spend some big bucks for an unlocked GSM phone with plenty of air time in the local country so he could make calls back home and get help if needed just incase he got lost in a city with 1.5 million people and couldn’t get help locally.