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Why are international travelers turning away from China?

Rogue Historian is a weekly column by Jeremiah Jenne, a writer, educator, and historian based in Beijing. Find more of his writing at Jottings from the Granite Studio.

If it’s summer, it must be time to wonder why international travelers are staying away from China. Like Wimbledon, the Red Sox, and men exposing their oversized beer bellies on the streets of Beijing, these laments have become a routine part of the warmer months.

From this week’s South China Morning Post:

The number of inbound tourists grew at an average annual rate of just 1 per cent between 2005 and 2015 – and eight out of 10 of those were from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, according to a report by a Beijing think tank.

The rate trails that of both developed countries and other emerging economies, the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) report said. It’s also far behind the average for the Asia-Pacific region, which saw inbound tourist traffic grow by more than 80 per cent in that period.

The question is: Why?

I’ve worked in the travel and education industry in Beijing for over a decade and there is no one easy answer or fix. There are of course many reasons why people should come to China, but there are also some pretty clear factors which keep China from fulfilling its potential as a destination for international travelers.

1. Environmental Concerns

Over the past decade, China has been dealing with some pretty serious environmental issues. Cities like Beijing have earned a nasty reputation for toxic air. Whether that’s fair or not – and Beijing does have its share of blue sky days – when planning a holiday many people tend to think twice about destinations which might require them to tour with a specially-designed face mask for “easier respiration.”

2. China’s domestic and outbound travel industry is booming

While inbound tourism has grown at an anemic 1% per year since 2005, in the same period the number of Chinese traveling abroad has tripled, from 41 million in 2006 to 122 million last year. Domestic tourism is big business as well. This year, the China National Tourism Agency expects domestic tourists to take 4.88 billion trips.

It’s more lucrative for local travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, and tourist sites to cater to Chinese travelers who often have very different needs and expectations than international visitors

Taking Chinese government statistics at face value is always a dicey proposition, but the overall trend is clear: It’s more lucrative for local travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, and tourist sites to cater to Chinese travelers who often have very different needs and expectations than international visitors. Services and facilities in China are designed for the domestic tourist, not the world traveler.

3. Service standards need a general upgrade

China’s development over the past 40 years has been nothing short of miraculous, particularly in infrastructure. While it’s easy to focus on the infrastructure which continues to lag (this is that part where you share your favorite public restroom story) China’s major cities feature some of the world’s best — or at least, newest — tourist and travel facilities. High speed rail. Futuristic airports. Five-star hotels. China’s got them.

The problem is that while the hardware is shiny and new, the software hasn’t kept pace. It’s only natural that in a society which has undergone a dizzying pace of growth over only a few decades there are going to be some bumps as people adjust to new processes, technology, and rising expectations. Ask anyone in the hospitality industry in China and they will tell you that training/retaining good staff members is their biggest headache. Many employees, when they sign on to work in a hotel or restaurant, do so without ever having been to a hotel or — in some cases — a restaurant before. Service training needs to start from the ground up, and not everyone gets it. Those who do become extremely valuable employees, who then are the target of poaching from competitors.

While the hardware is shiny and new, the software hasn’t kept pace

One unfortunate result is that while some companies have excellent orientation programs, many other businesses fail to put much effort into staff training, creating a negative feedback loop: “Why train employee X because s/he will just leave for more money, but at the same time I’m not going to pay employee X very much because — for some reason — they’re bad at their job and I can always replace them with somebody who isn’t that much worse.” Is it any wonder why Employee X can’t be bothered to give two squirts of squirrel shit about your happiness and comfort when you enter their place of employ? (Side note: I’m not talking about language ability. Frankly, too many people in the service industry are hired for their “English skills” rather than their “people skills.”)

4. Differing attitudes of historic preservation and restoration

Many travelers come to China to see the country’s rich history and culture. Many of these same travelers come away disappointed. Vibrant neighborhoods in China’s cities are being turned into bland, faux-modern blocks of brutalist conformity. Actual historic structures are ripped down to build “historical reproductions.” Formerly quaint old cities are being transformed into commercialized tourist traps. In many cases, these changes are in keeping with what many local tourists want to see and do when on holiday, but they also leave those local and international visitors who are looking for historical or cultural authenticity a bit cold.

5. The behavior of fellow travelers

There are a lot of people in China and everybody knows it. For visitors lucky enough to grow up in a society which fetishized personal space, China can be something of a shock. One of the first concerns travelers relate to me is always about the crowding and crowd behavior. It only takes a quick Internet search to find any number of “Chinese tourists behaving badly” stories. But the behavior of tourists in China has less to do with “Chinese culture” than it does the mechanics of stuffing large groups into small spaces and not paying enough attention to the dynamics of crowd control beyond hiring a few security guards to periodically squawk incomprehensibly at the tourists through broken megaphones.

6. Visa and Permit issues

Despite policies designed to allow visa-free stays in some of China’s major cities of up to six days, getting a Chinese visa remains a pain in the ass compared to many other potential destinations. Once here, some areas which might otherwise be a draw for visitors, including Tibet, require additional permits.

7. China’s soft power problem

This is a larger issue than just tourism, but China has long had difficulties projecting soft power. Part of the problem is the Chinese government’s neediness and general insecurity when it comes to culture. You can’t dictate soft power, it just happens. Even at tourist sites, the message is “ADMIRE US!” rather than “learn about our story.” Everything is couched in terms of biggest, oldest, most continuous. It’s exhausting and counter-productive. Actual historical context tends to be lacking because, let’s face it, state organs are uncomfortable with history. It’s easier to proclaim the size of a structure than to discuss the reasons that structure needed to be rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution.

Related:

A Strange Day in Beijing’s Southern Water Town
Article Aug 08, 2017

China should be attracting more tourists than it does. It is a large country with enormous diversity in ecosystems, culture, cuisine, and activities. Transportation and tourist infrastructure are improving at an impressive rate. China is also home to some of the world’s oldest and most fascinating civilizations. But for now, there remain challenges — some fixable, others which may require more time to solve — that depress the rate of inbound travel.

As one traveler recently told me, “I came looking for the real China. The real China I thought existed doesn’t and I’m not sure I completely enjoyed the real China that I found.”

***

| Column Archive |

Previously:

Kowtow and Get Out: How I Was Almost Ejected from the Forbidden City
Article Jul 26, 2017

Meet Putin Bro, the Chinese Farmer That Looks Like Putin

In a remote village in Anhui Province lives a 54-year-old farmer named Luo Yuanping. There is pretty much nothing remarkable about Luo Yuanping, except for the fact that he bears a remarkable resemblance to Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. He is therefore known on the Chinese internet as “Putin Bro” (普京哥).

Putin Bro’s nickname isn’t unique. “Bro” — or “brother,” depending on how you translate “哥” into English — is commonly used in Chinese memes. See, for reference, Brother Orange, the Chinese guy who ended up with a stolen phone and used it to take selfies of himself in front of orange trees, which eventually led to heartwarming international bromance. (According to reports from last year, Ellen DeGeneres and BuzzFeed are working on a film inspired by the crazy story of Brother Orange and his unlikely friend Matt Stopera.)

But back to Putin Bro. Not only does he have strikingly similar facial features — high hairline, broad forehead, thin lips, etc. — he also has blue eyes (though it’s hard to tell in pictures) and boasts a height of 5’7″. For your information, Putin is only a tad shorter, at 5’5.7″.

Putin Bro appeared on a Russian TV show once, and thoroughly freaked out the host:

Though Putin Bro received quite a bit of attention from both local and international media back in 2011, it apparently hasn’t changed him at all. He stays true to himself and lives a humble life as a farmer. Being the humble guy he is, his hope is to marry a woman he loves, although he doesn’t have the ability to do so.

Read more about Luo Yuanpin’s unlikely brush with fame (his internet celebrity spiked again last month, when the Chinese and Russian presidents held a one-on-one meeting ahead of this year’s G20), right here.

Radii Photo Contest Honorable Mention: Angela Kong

Angela Kong is one of the Honorable Mention winners of the Radii Photo Contest. The judges liked the perspective of her photo, how it captured a slice of the paradoxical nature of hutong living: it can seem closed off from the outside, yet expansive and bright within. This photo literally throwing light on a part of old Beijing life.

Says Kong:

I took this photo the first week I was in Beijing. I ran back to my dorm immediately to grab my camera, and tried taking this photo twice. The first time, I used the wrong lens, and everyone on this street was staring at me while I was taking the photo. As this was my first week, I felt incredibly self-conscious about it, and debated internally for a long while – should I really go back inside to switch the lens, and come back to have everyone watch me again? Needless to say, I’m glad I stopped second guessing myself and went for it. The best moments that I’ve had for photography are in those impulsive moments, to go for shots that my gut tells me to trust, and to believe in.

Bio:

Angela Kong is a recent graduate of Colorado College, where she majored in Feminist and Gender Studies. Her passions include: creating social change and awareness through the usage of photography and videography, as well as performing spoken word on issues such as experiences of racism, injustice, and privilege.

You can check out the other winners — and their photos — here.

Sex, Power, and Art in Contemporary China: An Interview with Novelist Lijia Zhang

“Prostitution touches on all those hot-button issues — migration, the income gap, corruption, sex, morals, you name it” — Lijia Zhang, Lotus

 

Sex work. The very phrase conjures up controversy: mixed emotions, morals, and social mores.

It is this illicit world of sex work in contemporary China that former rocket factory worker turned writer Lijia Zhang’s debut novel Lotus seeks to bring to light. In China, sex work is technically illegal — the Party decrees it a sign of so-called capitalist influence — but there are still around 20 million ji, as female sex workers are known in Chinese, working across the country.

Lotus is one part sociological study of sex workers and one part rom-com about a woman confronting her destiny. In the vein of the classic Julia Roberts film Pretty Woman, many men fall in love (or intense lust) with a “working girl” named Lotus. These men come from all swaths of society and seek to bring her out of present circumstances, servicing men in the back of a massage parlor.

The beautiful and brave Lotus left her home in a small village in Sichuan as a teenager to pursue work in the glittering city of Shenzhen. Designated as a Special Economic Zone, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the 1980s and 1990s created a city bursting with wealth, where sex workers are used to seal corporate deals or butter up prospective clients.

The novel moves through the point of view of Lotus and the photo-journalist Hu Binbing, who has chosen to live in the slums and document the lives of these women. Although written in English, the dialogue and metaphors used throughout have distinctly Chinese characteristics, often translated directly from Chinese to make for unusual metaphors in English.

All in all, the novel is much more heart-warming than expected. Ultimately, it’s a tale of survival, not victimization. If you’re looking for a nitty-gritty portrayal of the “horrors of sex work,” you’d best move along. But if you’re looking for a modern-day fairy tale filled with love triangles and a woman coming of age, this might just be the book for you.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Lijia Zhang a few questions about Lotus. Here’s what she had to say about taking on this serious subject in a controlled society such as modern China:

RADII: I have to admit, when I read that this book was about sex workers in Shenzhen, I expected it to be a lot more bleak and heavy. Instead, it was an often humorous and redemptive story of love and personal growth. Could you talk about what made you want to tell this story in this way?

Lijia Zhang: The novel was inspired by the story of my grandma, who was a prostitute. I discovered this long kept family history in front of her deathbed. So I wanted to tell a story of a survivor, not a victim.

One of the main characters, Hu Binbing, lives in the red light district and uses his art (in his case, photography) to document and shed light on sex work in contemporary China. What are the ways in which your own work is similar to and differs from Bing’s work telling the stories of these working girls?

Sure, there are some similarities. We both want to give voice to this group of marginalized women who don’t have a voice. But I think my motivation is simpler, while he also wants to use his work to achieve success, to regain lost ground with his ex-wife and to fulfill his own sexual fantasy. Now perhaps I said too much!

What role did religion play in your understanding of the characters and the narrative of the book?

Like the lead character Lotus, my grandma was a Buddhist prostitute. I found it fascinating that [a] high percentage [of] working girls have faiths of some sort. I believe religion plays a role of ritualized cleansing, something to make themselves feel cleaner and better. It is driven by survival. Religion plays a different role in Bing’s life. He starts to take an interest in religion as he is going through his first existential crisis. In other words, he is looking for the meaning of life. [They have] different levels of needs.

How does the concept of freedom influence your writing, especially in contemporary China?

Art/literature and freedom are synonymous. I think one of the many reasons that the Chinese literary scene is not as vibrant as it should be is due to censorship, as well as writers’ self-censorship. I suffered from this censorship. Some twenty years ago, upon the invitation of a Chinese publisher, I wrote a book about the Western image of Chairman Mao while I was living in the UK. But the book failed to pass censorship. So I made the decision to write in English, so that I can freely express myself. By writing in English, I also gained unexpected literary freedom: without the inhibition of writing in my mother tongue, I can take an adventure in my adopted language. Besides, writing is the space where a writer can feel most free.

“Without the inhibition of writing in my mother tongue, I can take an adventure in my adopted language” — novelist Lijia Zhang

 

In your book, you show that a lot of these women actually chose to go into the profession where I think a lot of us think sex workers are “raped, dumped by husbands, or tricked by human traffickers.” The other available professions to these migrant workers, like working in a factory or a restaurant, are grueling and low-paid. Why did you decide to show that a lot of these women actually chose to get into sex work as opposed to the traditional narrative that it’s more forced on vulnerable women?

My extensive research shows that the vast majority of sex workers enter the trade on their free will, but are often obliged by some unfortunate circumstances: having been abandoned by their husbands, having lost their jobs; having some family members seriously ill; or falling for the wrong men. Yes, there’s the temptation of money. Generally, to turn tricks is one of the few or only option they have. I hope the stories I described reflected the reality. By the way, for upper-class prostitutes, it is often a question of lifestyle choice.

Could you talk about your decision to incorporate Chinese idioms and sayings into the text?

I borrowed a lot of Chinese sayings in the hopes of providing an authentic setting and spicing up the language.

Awesome! Last question: What do you hope people will take away from reading your novel? What’s your bigger message?

I come from a journalism background. I was hoping to use prostitution as an interesting window to observe the social tensions brought along by the reforms. It shows the crude reality of the market economy with Chinese characteristics, and the resilience of women struggling in the bottom of the society.

Lotus was published in 2017 by Henry Holt & Company, and can be found on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

GM Launches China-Exclusive Electric Car, It’s Extremely Small

Oh man, Mashable with the mother of all scoops today: GM’s “Chinese Baojun brand just launched its first mass-market electric car, the E100, for only about $5,300 USD after estimated local and national subsidies.” And it looks like this:

Fly and affordable, and good for the earth to boot! Just look at it. Leaving all those other tiny electric vehicles IN THE DUST.

This bad boy, the Baojun E100, was actually released in late July, and is GM China’s first fully electric vehicle. Given its small size, its limited range (gets about 100 miles on a charge), and its maximum speed clocking in at a humble 62mph, this lil devil is tailor-made for the Chinese urban commuter, and won’t be popping up in other countries. Unless, I don’t know, you pick one up on your next China trip and check it on your flight home. Just a thought.

I used to proofread press releases and news clippings from the Chinese auto industry to make some extra cash, and without revealing anything specific, I can tell you that Chinese companies (and global automakers waging turf wars in the China market) are racing to churn out decent-quality electric vehicles (EVs) at scale over here. Many of the same are also trying to beat Google/Tesla to getting mass-produced fleets of self-driving cars on the road (as is Baidu), and China’s regulatory environment tends to be a bit more forgiving of such technological leaps. Stay tuned to Radii, we’ll be watching the space.

Radii Photo Contest Honorable Mention: Yang Nan

Yang Nan is a researcher at Beihang University, and is one of the Honorable Mention winners of the Radii Photo Contest.

You can check out the other winners — and their photos — here.