Travels with TechniColor

I wondered about the wisdom of traveling to China with a person whose hair was pink and purple. In the first place, the picture in her passport showed her with blue hair; surely there would be a problem at immigration regarding the color discrepancy.

But Millet, her editor, cajoled me by saying that Kathy, being a champion power lifter, would come in handy with the life-size replica of the terra cotta warrior I planned to bring back to stand guard at the front door of my house: Kathy could hand-carry it for me. That convinced me: I was off to Shanghai with The STAR Life Section writer Kathy Moran and 14 travel agents, led by Alice San Juan of Rajah Travel which, in conjunction with Philippine Airlines (which now has five direct flights a week between Manila and Shanghai), is promoting tours to that lovely city.

Fortunately, Shanghai is a very cosmopolitan and modern city, with over 100,000 expats in residence (the number is expected to grow as more international companies set up shop in the city following China’s recent entry into the World Trade Organization [wto]). But even then, we didn’t see anyone with hair more adventurous than corn blonde. So everywhere we went, people stared; many giggled, some pointed. One Australian, grossly overweight and even more grossly drunk, literally walked into a pillar because he couldn’t take his eyes off Kathy.

Aside from having pink hair, Kathy is a vegetarian–a strict vegetarian. So while we feasted on meats and seafood cooked in tantalizing flavors, she ate vegetables with mushrooms, mushrooms with vegetables...and boiled vegetables. Once she got some cold gluten, very appetizingly prepared we found out from having each taken small and not-so-small bites of it. Kathy also ate bread and fruits, and chocolate candy.

Despite eating so little–at least compared to the rest of us–she is an exercise freak; a good gym within the hotel was even more important to her than a clean bathroom or clean sheets. Wake-up call was at six in the morning–one day she very kindly moved that back to 6:15–so she could spend at least an hour at the gym, shower and change and be on time for the 8:30 lobby call. As a consequence, even I got some time on the treadmill at the gym at both hotels we stayed in (both luxurious Marriott properties: the Yangtze Renaissance and the Marriott Hongquiao)–although considerably less than an hour, since I insisted on having breakfast, a meal that is not on Kathy’s schedule.

All that power lifting (or is it the hair?) must have built up a resistance to cold, because even in 4-degree weather she walked around in a cotton t-shirt and a cotton jacket which, when dared or challenged, she would discard. She even wanted to go running in the park–at dawn.

While everyone else had shopping at the bargain Xiang Yang Clothing Market on their minds, all Kathy wanted to know was whether there was a Nike shop in Shanghai. Perhaps, I ventured encou-ragingly, at Huai Hai Road, that glitsy stretch of boutique and designer shops which can rival Queens Road Central in Hong Kong or Orchard Road in Singapore (I hesitate to go as far as comparing it to Fifth Avenue in New York). Or at the now less tony Nanjing Road, with less hoity-toity shops but a very pleasant pedestrian walkway when it is closed to vehicular traffic. We never got to find out because we never made it to either street; rather, the group had three outings at the massive, labyrinthine Xiang Yang market.

We both skipped the first of these shopping excursions (Kathy went instead to–where else?–the gym and I hied off to explore Shanghai with a couple of friends who live there) but on the second trip there, lo and behold! Kathy gobbled up over a dozen pashmina shawls (made in Inner Mongolia, or so the tag said)–ordered by her sister-in-law through text, no less–the colors of which I had to choose because she couldn’t be bothered about subtle color differences like lime green and moss green. When she counted her purchases back on the bus, she found out she had two too many pashminas; so she sold them off to eager buyers–for one yuan. A postscript to this non-shopping adventure is that, back in Manila, she realized she was one short of the order–and guess who had to fill the lack of a lavender pashmina with a purple one.

Aside from being a vegan and having pink hair, Kathy has a sense of humor on the deep side of wry. Unfortunately, humor–at least her type of humor–is not an integral part of the training of tour guides in China. On the hour-long trip from the sprawling new Pudong Airport to the Yangtze Renaissance Hotel within Puxi (the "old" part of the city), Roger, the cits representative assigned to our group, couldn’t shake her off as she insisted on exchanging her U.S. dollars with him–at the rate, she insisted, of eleven yuan (or renminbi) to the dollar; the official rate was 8.19 yuan. No amount of protestation, not even citing China’s new status as wto member, would deter Kathy. In the end, all Roger could do was avoid her, and it was with the greatest reluctance that he sat at our table at the welcome dinner–and only because the other table was full.

The next day he tried to seek safety at the back of the bus, but Kathy sought him out with another request: could he help her with an interview that her editor had assigned her to do. With the straightest journalistic face you had ever seen she told him who the subject would be: former Shanghai mayor now Chinese President Jiang Zemin. If only the bus windows could open poor Roger would have jumped out! Only when we all burst out laughing did Roger realize Kathy was kidding–at least I’m sure he hoped she was!

After that Kathy kept her Manila humor in her back pocket, or at least let it loose only on fellow Pinoys. She spent her time looking for guide books and postcards, trying out a camera that wasn’t hers and getting her picture taken–by me–in the most un-touristy places; I have the pictures on this page to prove my point. She searched high and low for champoy and peanut cake, finally finding some at the Yu Yuan bazaar, at a stall that allowed her to sample the myriad offerings. Tasting was the only way she could find what she wanted; she couldn’t figure out how to sign "peanut" and the salesclerks didn’t understand "mani".

We flew back to Manila on a Friday, the day Pet Life–which she co-edits–appears as part of the Life Section. It was, of course, required reading on the plane among the members of the group; some, though, took a moment longer to figure out who in the picture was Kathy and who was Yuri the miniature schnauzer. The crew of Philippine Airlines flight PR 337 realized quickly enough that they had a celebrity on board, and gamely posed for a picture with the pink-haired celeb. Later, they even asked her to autograph the Pet Life page.

But only when we were safely at cruising altitude did someone come to the realization and ask me, "Ibig sabihin, sa Pet Life lalabas ang picture namin?" Next time I travel with Kathy, I’m making her wear a hat.