The Price of Tea and Mortar Ammunition in China

Don’t let the phallic shape fool you – these are not sex toys.

Here’s my thing… I love to travel. I don’t mean “Ooohhh let’s go to Hawaii because that’s where society has conditioned me to want to go for vacation”. I want to do exciting, dangerous things like swim with sharks, camp overnight in malaria ridden jungles surrounded by angry machete bearing natives, or purchase HIV+ Guatemalan boys for unprotected sex. Uhhh… scratch that last one.

I’m going on a trip to Beijing, China in a few weeks... kind of a routine trip to visit family. And during my trip planning, I was trying to figure out something quirky or risky to do while there. I’ve already seen the Great Wall, explored the Forbidden City, walked around Tiananmen Square, and disrespected the dead at the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.

Chairman Mao wanted to be cremated, so the Chinese government thought it would be a great idea to pump his cold, dead body full of formaldehyde and put him on display for tourists to gawk at.

I started an innocent thread at tripadvisor.com to work through my ideas with people who are familiar with China. Then I remembered that someone had told me about a place near Beijing where you can pay to shoot military weapons, so I mentioned it in the thread.

Sparky offers me his clever insight on tripadvisor.com.

When I wasn’t being flamed for not using Google enough or accused of promoting “weapons of war”, I actually learned some invaluable information about “China North International Shooting Range”.

It turns out that the Chinese Army, in partnership with Iran weapon supplier China North Corporation, came up with this innovative idea on how to make a quick renminbi. The army supplies the range and the personnel, and China North supplies the weapons and ammo. The result is a place where someone like me, with no weapon or military experience, can fire anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons, AK-47’s, Uzi sub-machine guns, mortar, or a number of other weapons on the menu.

So for $42.00 USD, I’m going to propel a mortar round into the side of a small hill. Hopefully I don’t end up like this guy…