A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holiday.
I'll never forget Bryan. A little bit like Trump, it was hard to say if Bryan believed his own lies. Either way, he was indefatigable in offering up easily disproven nonsense and in the end, I kind of liked him for it. Bryan was a government-employed tour guide and a couple of years ago when I travelled to China, he looked after me and few other journos. We didn't have Bryan for the entire trip, but there's a Bryan hall of fame of such oddity that it's evidently tattooed itself to my brain.
Quick disclaimer, Bryan's not his real name, although I'm certain nor is the equally Anglo-sounding name he gave us to use for him. But given this dear soul had/has a decent-paying government gig, I'd hate to be the one to get him in trouble. So I've chosen "Bryan" to protect this sweet pathological liar.
"That's not actually pollution, that's just how the sky looks when it's going to rain soon." This was a nice little gem from Bryan as we drove into the cloudless city of Taiyuan*, population three million. I had the weather forecast in front of me and it was for total sunshine every day for days on end. We were on the outskirts of a major industrial metropolis and dear Bryan didn't want his overseas guests thinking there might be some smog going on. Smog? In China? So he lied. We were looking out the window and commenting on the smudge of brown that hung low in the sky and with Superman-like hearing from the front of the minibus, Bryan eavesdropped his way in to correct our misconception.
Ultimately, Bryan's biggest worry was less to do with Western writers discovering there may be a slight air-quality issue in his homeland and was more in the field of, "Oh my gosh, I'm freaking out that these white people are going to get drunk and die and I'll get fired. "