Our Trip to China 我在中國的所見所聞
In September 2024, Florence and I did this route through central China:
Shanghai --> Hangzhou --> Wuyuan --> Shangrao --> Jiujiang --> Wuhan --> Zhangjiajie --> Changsha
It was a great trip!
In case you're interested, here are some of my key takeaways/impressions:
1. Language
People are still pretty surprised and happy if you speak fluent Chinese, especially more inland and away from the biggest cities. In fact, most people we met couldn't speak any English at all.
Most tourists are now relying on translation apps to get around, and having witnessed this, it's nothing like the person-to-person connection you get from speaking the language. People's eyes would always light up and smile when they realised I could speak Mandarin.
By the end of the trip I felt a real sweetness in the way people treated us, and I felt like I connected with a lot of people because I could speak Chinese.
2. Safety
China doesn't feel like a scary place at all. What I mean by that is in the day to day, it doesn't feel like there's any risk of getting arrested for saying what you think to other people (although of course I wasn't going around deliberately offending people).
In fact, at times I got the sense that China is quite a happy place. More towards the end of the trip, I started to get the feeling that people were quite enjoying themselves. There was lots of laughter and chatting, and especially outside of the major cities, people seemed more relaxed.
Some of my friends and family back home were worried about me doing this trip, awaiting my return from behind the great firewall, but as a regular foreigner, I didn't get the feeling that there was any risk to my personal safety. In fact, I just felt pretty confident that if I left my stuff around, it wouldn't get stolen.
3. Public messages
There's more propaganda around now than there used to be in 2012 (when I lived in Shanghai for a year). For example, posters and announcements can be found in most public places, like parks, public toilets and so on. They mostly talk about the 56 ethnicities in China being part of one big happy family, and remind people of the rules and values of the CCP, such as prosperity, harmony, freedom, democracy, equality, justice, the rule of law and so on. To foreigners who aren't used to having such an obvious government presence in everyday life, that could sound scary, but to me it actually just felt more similar to being at school. There were also lots of billboards around encouraging people to protect the environment and love our planet.
4. ID checks
I also noticed that at seemingly every turn, like to get on every train, to go into any scenic area and so on, data is being collected about people's movements in China. This could be for convenience to link all these tickets to someone's ID card. But I find it mind boggling to think about what information is being held about every person.
The issue of data collection of course isn't just within China, it's the same around the world, and we're agreeing to it all the time in exchange for ease and convenience. In the rest of the world, the most obvious data collection is by companies that want to understand better how to target and provide services to their customers, but in China it's particularly evident that your whereabouts, your ID and your image are being collected wherever you go, without an obvious purpose.
5. A tourist's perspective
As an outsider, I think that there are some things foreigners might like about travelling here. The food goes with saying. It's also pretty convenient to get around and do what you want to do, as long as you have WeChat pay and Alipay (although we also just tap our phone or bank card in the UK, so I don't think it's worthy of everyone telling me "中國是不是比國外更方便呢？”). The taxis are definitely a real plus and an amazing feat that you can get to where you want to go so quickly and cheaply.
But there are also things that I think still put tourists off - the main thing that comes to mind is hygiene in some places. By that I mean like smelly, dirty toilets and parts of restaurants that clearly haven't been cleaned in a while, as well as people spitting on the street. These kinds of things make parts of China feel more like a 'developing' rather than 'developed' country. However, something that has definitely improved since I was last here is the smell of drains and pollution - I barely noticed these at all this time, and there are loads of electric cars around now.
Lastly, it's worth noting that the communication style tends to be more direct and loud, which can make foreigners think people are being rude. This may just be a cultural difference.
Overall, it's been great to update my perception of this part of the world. Being such a culturally homogenous place, with citizens consuming wildly different content to outside the firewall, I just hope that we don't drift further and further away in our thinking. It's evident from simple conversations with regular citizens that worldviews are often not only different but sometimes even the exact opposite - almost like a mirror image. If you've seen the show 'Black Mirror', I think we're already there, living in a dystopian world.
I want to stress that I don't think that everything we see in the media is lies. There's a lot of really good, professional journalism out there. Whenever something is simplified to "It's all like this", or "Everyone is like this", something has clearly been missed. But I do think it usually helps to go and experience something yourself rather than believing everything we see online.
Of course there's much more to say, but let's leave it at my first-hand experience for now - just these surface-level insights from this relatively short trip.
I hope you found it interesting!
2024年9月，我到訪了中國中部，踏足了以下城市：
上海 → 杭州 → 婺源 → 上饒 → 九江 → 武漢 → 張家界 → 長沙
這是一趟非常美好的旅程！
以下是我的一些觀察與感受。如果你有興趣的話就看下去吧。
1. 語言
人們看到我會講中文仍然是覺得非常驚喜，由其是在遠離大城市的內陸城市，他們都很樂意用中文與我溝通。
而在旅程中，我遇到大部份在地居民都不會講流利英語。來自外地的遊客大多都依賴翻譯工具來溝通。相比起來，能用當地語言與本地人交流的話，之間所建立的連結是無可比擬的。當我走上前並用中文詢問事情時，他們的表情都亮了，並非常熱情。
在這趟旅程中，我遇到了很多溫暖友好的人和事。而且，因為我會講中文，我覺得我更容易認識當地人並進行交流。
2. 人身安全
在中國旅遊時，我並沒有時常擔心自身安全，亦不會擔心因為自己所講的話而面臨被拘留的風險（當然，我也不會主動跑去冒犯別人）。
整個旅程中，我覺得中國是個挺和樂的地方。趨近旅程的後段，我回想起一路遇到的人看似都非常享受生活。他們會與朋友嬉樂玩樂、悠哉悠哉，尤其是住在大城市外的居民更甚。
我身邊一些朋友和家人都有表達他們對我這次旅行的擔心。但作為一個平常不過的外國人，身在中國並沒有令我覺得很危險。相反，我非常有信心我隨手放下的物品不會被偷。
3. 公共告示
我在2012年前在上海居住了一段時間，與那段時間想比，現在明顯在公眾地方的宣傳標語變多了。在公園、公共廁所等，隨處可以見到「56個民族一家親」、「和諧富強」等標語；更會看到不同展示版列出了中國共產黨的核心價值觀，包括和諧、自由、平等、法治等。
對於來自外國的我來說很特別，因為我們從來沒有在日常生活中看見如此多政府宣傳物。此外，我也察覺到有很多鼓勵環保行為的告示，提醒大家要愛護地球——這很像我們在學校看到的告示。
4. 身分識別檢查
在旅途中每到達一個地方，無論是坐公交或進入景點，都會有系統記錄人們進出。這可能是為了方便民眾將各類型的票跟身份證綁起來，但亦不禁令人擔心有多少個人資料已被收集。
個人資料收集當然不只在中國內發生，我們透過提供個人資料以換來便利，在全球各國都正在發生。最常見的情況是由企業收集用戶個資，令他們掌握每個用戶偏好。但在中國，我們經常見到個人行蹤、身份和照片等被記錄，但卻沒有辦法了解其用處。
5. 遊客視角
我認為中國對外國人有以下吸引之處。其中美食當然是排名第一。另外，電子支付（如微信支付或支付寶）亦令出行變得非常便利。常有人問我說「是不是中國比國外更方便呢？」，但其實在英國，我們都是直接用銀行卡或手機支付，所以感覺都一樣。此外，我覺得出租車服務也是非常出眾，可以讓我們以合理的價格快速到達目的地。
然而，中國仍些因素可能會讓遊客卻步。其中一個最明顯的就是衛生問題，例如異味、骯髒的公廁、衛生環境不佳的餐廳、隨地吐痰的路人等。這些情景令中國看起來更像一個發展中地區。但比起我上一次踏足中國，這裡的排污氣味及污染問題明顯得到改善，電動車亦越來越普及。
此外，當地人在交談時比較大聲及直接，可能會讓外國人覺得不禮貌。可能這只是各地的文化差異習慣。
總括而言，這次旅行讓我對中國有了新的感受。中國雖然是一個文化相對單一的國家，日常生活中的資訊也和外界有些不同，但我真心希望這不會造成各地人們在思維方式上的差距加大。與不同地方的居民進行簡單交流時，我發現雙方的世界觀可能就像鏡子般反映出截然不同的面貌。如果你看過《黑鏡》的話，我覺得我們現已身處在一個反烏托邦的世界。
我想強調的是，我並不認為媒體上的一切都是錯的。其實有許多敬業的新聞工作者一直在努力客觀報導。但當事情被過度簡化，或呈現出「事情一定就是這樣」或「每個人都是這樣」的觀點時，難免會出現偏差。與其只依賴網上的資訊，不如找個機會親身體驗一下，或許會有不一樣的發現。
當然我還有很多事情想分享，但今天就先到這裡吧！
希望你們喜歡我的分享！
