Please exile me to the most beautiful time

Chapter 4 South Africa: Diamonds and Devils (1)
adventurer's decision
I'm not an adventurous person, although this trip sounds like it needs to be.Since entering Africa, my ears have continuously received various negative information about South Africa.Everyone who mentions South Africa will add in passing: crime is high, looting is everywhere, gunfights are everywhere... sounds like hell.If these are just hearsay, it’s fine, but people who have traveled to Africa say the same when they come back, and this is a big deal.

"I was surrounded by four big black men at the gate of the train station in Johannesburg. One of them strangled my neck, making me unable to scream or call for help. I had to watch them rummage through my bag, pocket, and even Is it the waist, or is it in broad daylight." A girl who has been traveling for many years said to me with her teeth and claws.

The waist she mentioned is the place where backpackers often place invisible wallets. In order to prevent theft and robbery, they usually put important documents, cash, and bank cards in the invisible wallet and buckle it close to the waist and hide it under the coat.The thief's hand stretched to the waist is obviously an "expert hand".Fortunately, this girl is not a "bad bird".She sewed the money in the inner pocket of the shirt in advance to ensure that important items could escape. "As soon as they walked away, I almost yelled hysterically. It felt terrible and depressing. I bought the latest flight back to China on the spot. At that moment, I just wanted to leave immediately." The girl described the situation with lingering fear. nightmare.

Sitting in the bus from Botswana to the South African border, thinking of the scene where the girl was kidnapped, I was a little nervous, trying to find all kinds of favorable evidence, trying to convince myself that it was right to go to South Africa.I flipped through the crumpled passport, and finally settled on a piece of green visa paper.How hard it was to get this South African visa after waiting for half a month, and the ingenious proof of funds, which was even more painstaking. When handing over the visa to South Africa, the embassy asked for a bank card Flow sheet, proving that there are funds to pay for the trip to South Africa, such as a balance greater than 1000 US dollars.And I only have a UnionPay debit card. I tried to obtain an electronic version of the statement from a domestic bank through online customer service and telephone, but failed in the end. When I had nothing to do, I listened to the advice of the senior backpackers: log in to the debit card online banking to check the past few months. Running water, press the screenshot button, print out the picture and pay for an English translation.This series of behaviors has almost moved all my relationships, and I owe a lot of favors.

In fact, I succeeded in the end. Relying on this bank card slip obtained by using "crazy methods", I got a South African visa, which was well pasted in this passport with few remaining pages.Facing this hardship and ignoring one bad review after another, I headed to South Africa without hesitation.

march forward with courage

Although there are ten thousand kinds of preparations, the scene of being stolen, robbed, and cheated sometimes hits you like a rotten apple with precision.But you don’t have to scare yourself. In most cases, everything is normal. Except for unscrupulous peddlers who want to get more money from you, most passers-by have no grievances against you. Why bother to deceive a foreigner? What about tourists?Just when I was about to convince myself, the bus stopped at the Johannesburg long-distance station. I looked at the bleak old western-style houses around me in a daze, looked around on tiptoe, and asked the black aunt beside me for the direction of a backpacker hotel . "Can I walk from here to the hotel, it doesn't seem to take more than half an hour..." The black aunt looked at the bold girl in front of her in surprise, and pointed to my backpack: "Be careful, you will be robbed like this .”

I was brave all the way, but collapsed like a punctured ball in an instant. I drooped my head weakly, timidly trying to say something, but I didn't know how to speak.

South Africa's economic center, Johannesburg, referred to as Johannesburg, is a veritable "City of Sin".House burglary, road robbery, murder and rape occur from time to time, and both civilians and government officials are doomed.

"White people are easy to be robbed, and you are a little girl, be careful." The black uncle who was waiting for the bus with his child came over to remind me.The white man he was talking about was none other than me.In Africa, there is often a "black or white" concept, which believes that all people except black people are white.I swallowed, the hairs all over my body stood up one by one, and my back felt cold.The idea of ​​walking to the hotel had been rejected outright, and I cautiously began to inquire about other methods of arrival.bus?subway?CMB?The final conclusion is that you can only take a taxi.

For this, I paid a considerable amount of taxi fare, which made me feel cheated by unscrupulous drivers.I later learned that this is the normal price of a taxi in Joburg.As for public transport, forget it, it's neither convenient nor safe.Taxis are ridiculously expensive and easy to get mugged on foot, I wonder how people can live in Johannesburg without their own car?
Looking at the depressed neighborhood through the taxi window, the streets are dilapidated and full of garbage, just like the slums of New York in Hollywood movies.My heart was pounding and I kept muttering that if I had chosen to walk across here to the hotel 10 minutes ago, I would be the only white person on the entire street. It was horrible.Thinking of this, I feel that the probability of being robbed is skyrocketing.Fortunately, the taxi gradually drove out of the haze and came to another bright residential area. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing and the flowers were fragrant, and the previous depression had disappeared.I slowed down the speed of getting out of the car by half, looked left and right, for fear of being left in some weird corner by the driver.To be honest, this place doesn't look like a backpacker hostel, there is no signboard or gate, only a nondescript door that is closed tightly.

South Africans who are not in the diamond business
I bit the bullet and knocked on the door, and was greeted by a Caucasian boy into the hotel, only then did I realize that there was a hole in the door.This is a large yard with an elegant environment, complete facilities, and a beautiful swimming pool, and the most exciting thing is that the price is very reasonable.It's just that you have to find out the address before you come, otherwise you won't be able to find the way even if you hang around outside the door until you die.How do you do business in such a hidden hotel? The white boss answered my doubts with a strong British accent: "Secretism is to prevent locals from staying. Locals, you don't know who they are...you You know, this place in South Africa is really not safe."

I looked around the hotel, and there were obviously white tenants who were born and raised in Johannesburg. I thought that the "locals" that the white boss referred to probably meant black people.

In the hotel kitchen, the chubby white man chatted with me while he was busy cooking.Unexpectedly, this Siemens engineer who has worked in Kunming for more than ten years is a true China hand. "I just retired and returned to South Africa from China to do diamond business. This is my hometown, and China is my other hometown. I am half Chinese." "I like Chinese food the most. It's delicious and cheap. You can get enough snacks in Kunming for only 10 yuan! You see, I even brought back a few jars of Chinese seasonings." The uncle opened the cupboard excitedly and showed me the Chinese food. The familiar bottles and cans.However, when talking about the social relations with Chinese characteristics, the fat uncle looked helpless. He hated China's "relationship studies". The layers of relationships among officials made him feel tired. "In China, no guansi, no business."

"I am half Chinese. To be honest, although Chinese people work very hard, they always do things not according to the rules. They always want to take shortcuts and opportunistically. It's like building a skyscraper, only one layer is strict. The building will be stable only if it is built according to the standard. If every floor is thinking about opportunistic and shortcuts, how can it afford to build a skyscraper?" Maybe it was out of the professional instinct of an engineer, the fat uncle who worried about the country and the people caught me Complained about a few "problems with Chinese characteristics".What bothered him even more, however, was his native South Africa. "It used to be racial segregation, but now it's a mess. Every day is getting sadder. People with a little background have already immigrated, leaving many poor people to suffer here." Speaking of the outrageous taxi fare, the fat man was indignant uneven. "Those damn taxis, they just take advantage of the inconvenience of Joburg's public transport, and charge a lot of money, ridiculous, ridiculous!" Joburg's public transport is terrible, in the words of the fat man: "Joburg has no such thing Son!" I wanted to go out for a walk, but in the end I could only take a ride with the hotel owner to the shopping mall, and I couldn't even step outside to get a breath of fresh air.

The racial ratio in the mall makes me feel that this place and the street outside are two different countries, as if all the whites and Asians in Joburg are gathered here, and I have never seen them on the street before. "Because it's unsafe, whites and Asians mostly drive," the hotel owner reminded me. "People who can afford a car have already traveled by car, and residents who cannot afford a car are walking on the road." Whites account for more than 10% of the South African population.In contrast, Namibia, which also has a large number of white residents, makes me feel safe and relaxed, but there is always a tense nerve in Joburg.Later, a white South African boy I met in Turkey also told me: "Don't talk about foreigners, even people like me who were born and raised in South Africa are always worried about being robbed. Everyone living in South Africa is very nervous."

I like to let my mind go and wander the streets, but being deprived of that in Joburg left me feeling lost.I even ran away when I saw someone approaching.Relying on the reasons for applying for a visa, I convinced myself to leave Joburg as soon as possible, and then take a car to Pretoria not far away.In fact, going anywhere is more reassuring than staying in Joburg.The enthusiastic hotel owner drove me to the train station. Until the last moment when I got off the train, I still did not forget to ask the owner about the security situation of the Gauteng train, and did not rest assured to board until I got a positive answer.

Maybe I was overreacting, maybe Joburg wasn't as scary as I thought it was.I admit to the whole world that I have been discouraged, and I don't want to stay in the place where the drums keep beating in my heart for a moment. 36 counting is the best, Johannesburg, I will come back when you make me feel at ease.

Wanting to let our guard down in South Africa is just a luxury

South Africa is the only country in the world that has three capitals: the administrative capital is Pretoria, the seat of the central government, the judicial capital is Bloemfontein, the seat of the Supreme Court, and the legislative capital is Cape Town, the seat of Congress.Pretoria looks like a little Europe and is a well-deserved garden city.A kind person drove me to the hotel, and it seemed that the security here was much better than Johannesburg.Just when I started to relax, a young black man in the lobby of the hotel spoke eloquently about his experience of being almost robbed in the street during the day.It was only then that I realized that trying to let my guard down in South Africa was just a luxury.

After looking around in the multi-person room, I selected a bed in the corner.On the bed next door, a Moroccan elder brother in a white Arabian robe stared at me intently. "You sleep easily and wake up easily?" "The quality of sleep is first-class, and you can't wake up!" The white-robed brother heaved a sigh of relief: "I can snore." The backpacker hotel has many rooms that are economical and easy to accompany, and it is a low-budget traveler good choice.The disadvantage is that there is a lot of movement, and it is difficult for people who are extremely sensitive to sleep to have a good night's sleep in a multi-person room. "Heartless people" like me who fall asleep with pillows on them are most suitable for this place.The next day, I ran into a Moroccan brother on the street, "Are you going to the city, watch out for your bag!" Seeing my surprised eyes, he added, "Hey, I'm not kidding!"

The urban area still cannot get rid of the cloud of high robbery rate, but the Pretoria University area where I live is the area with the best security and the strongest cultural atmosphere in the area. At least in broad daylight, you can walk with confidence.I stood on the side of the road waiting for the minibus, imitating the locals and stretching out my index finger.Stretching the thumb is an international car gesture, what does it mean to stretch out the index finger?The black elder sister standing next to me demonstrated it for me vividly: "Hey, stop the car for me!" Such a gesture, this gesture is really full of momentum.

Afraid of being robbed after dark, I went back to the hotel early to participate in a "shared dinner": the participants wrote their names on the small blackboard in the kitchen, the staff went to the supermarket to buy ingredients according to the number of people, and everyone cooked together in the kitchen, and then Enjoy dinner together and split the cost of ingredients at the end. A 27-year-old South African white boy who is still studying, a black elder brother who came to South Africa in his 30s to do business, and an American doctor of philosophy who is a visiting scholar here at a young age... Tenants from all corners of the world gathered here for a dinner In the little kitchen.Everyone was posing, but in fact they were just cramming. The doctor of philosophy simply took out a Western food recipe as thick as the British Dictionary and started to learn and cook it. I, who knew nothing about cooking Western food, helped everyone.After a while of fuss, a group of laymen finally made a decent dinner.Thankfully, we managed to fill our bellies without incident.

(End of this chapter)