Papa.. Paparazzi!

Yangshuo is a big town by Australian standards and then in the middle of it, there is a tourist precinct which is pedestrianised (thank goodness) based around West Street.  This whole area consists of lots of cobbled streets and alleys with old style buildings, lots of shops and craft stalls and restaurants. 

 It is apparently one of the favourite Chinese tourist destinations and caters mainly for this market.  We got a hotel right in the middle of West St and stayed there for almost a week.  We could find our way around really easily and after a while started to feel right at home. 

We met an American family from Salt Lake City who had 4 children as well, so we caught up with them a few times and they took us to a restaurant they had found.  The 8 kids sat at one table and the four adults at another and naturally it wasn’t long before we started to attract attention.  We were sitting outside and lots of people were walking past and starting taking photos of the kids.  Three of the Isom kids are adopted from China so they have been learning Chinese as a family.  As a result, when the paparazzi gets a bit over the top, their family joke has been to ask for money from the snappers – this usually puts them off and gets rid of them. 

On this occasion, it started to get a bit out of hand, as the restaurant was becoming surrounded by people with cameras – there was even a lady who set up a tripod!  The kids were starting to get a bit over it and so Bella, the eldest of the Isom kids, started calling out “yi kwai”! “yi kwai”!  which means one yuan (our equivalent of about 20 cents) for a photo.  A lot of the Chinese snappers laughed and immediately started to move on – the tripod lady carried on setting up her perfect snaps but didn’t want to hand over the dough – for some reason she didn’t think it was funny, although all the kids thought it was hilarious – as did most of the Chinese tourists.  One man who had come and asked us if it was ok to take photos (most never do this, they just go right ahead) suddenly whipped out his wallet and handed each of the kids a one yuan note.  They were in raptures by this stage and all thanked him profusely. 

After dinner we all went to a craft shop in the main street where the Isom kids had spotted some glassware earlier.  While the girls were all shopping, it didn’t take long for Michael to be surrounded by tourists.  He immediately whipped out his yuan note and started waving it and yelling “Yi kwai”!  They obviously thought he was very cute as they were all laughing and stuffing money into his hands while posing for photos with him.  One man gave him a 10 yuan note.  I tried to give it back to him and make him understand that I thought it was too much but he shook his head and walked off into the crowd, refusing to take it back.  Michael was loving it and suddenly the boy who hated to have his photo taken was posing sweetly!

We went to a little toyshop so he could see what he could spend his money on and suddenly a group of girls came over and indicated to us that they wanted to get their photos taken with the kids and held out their yuan notes.  We realised they must have been amongst the crowd in the main street, and thought they had to pay!  By the end of the night, Michael had accrued 21 yuan and thought he had found his entrepreneurial niche!