GETTING THERE
There are no non-stops from the United States to Beijing. From Chicago, the most convenient routes are on United and Northwest, which offer non-stop flights to Tokyo from which there are connecting, non-stop services to the Chinese capital.
The lowest round-trip fares directly offered by the airlines generally range from about $1,850 to $2,000. But it makes sense to shop around. Ticket wholesalers, called consolidators, often can beat the lowest published fares on carriers that regularly serve China.
GETTING AROUND
China’s domestic carriers charge fairly reasonable fares. For example, the one-way fare from Beijing to Xian, about 450 miles, costs $90; from Xian to Guilin, about 650 miles, $99. If at all possible, tickets for internal travel-both air and rail-should be purchased before leaving the U.S. Dealing with the transportation bureaucracy in China is a daunting task best left to travel agents and tour operators.
TOURS
Several airlines and travel agencies offer comprehensive tour packages at prices ranging from modest to extravagant-but usually cheaper than an individual might obtain. Almost without exception, these tours make use of guides provided by Chinese Travel Service and Chinese International Travel Service. The guided tours tend to be tightly scheduled and restrictive, but the guides do attempt to overcome language barriers and cut a lot of red tape.
WHEN TO GO
Harsh weather limits the time when China can be toured comfortably. North winds slash through most of the country in winter, a bone-chilling condition alieviated only by the absence of other travelers. Springs are dry and plagued by dust from the Gobi Desert, while summers typically are hot, muggy, rain-soaked and mosquito-ridden. That leaves fall, which may not always be sunny (heavy industry darkens the skies even when clouds are scarce) but does offer a pleasant climatic balance.
VISAS
Visitors to China must have a visa. In Chicago, these can be obtained from: Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China, 100 W. Erie St., Chicago, Ill. 60610 (312-803-0098; call 312-573-3070 for a recording that describes visa procedures). Applicants need one completed application form and one passport-size photo. U.S. passport holders pay $30 for a single entry into the country, $40 for a double entry and $50 for multiple entries over a six-month period. Personal checks are not accepted. The process takes a week. Processing in three days costs an extra $10; $30 extra for 24-hour service. To apply by mail, send a money order and a self-addressed stamped envelope.
HOTELS
China’s most luxurious hotels probably won’t surprise travelers from the West. The famous chains are well represented, the rates (high) are comparable to those in the rest of the world and the accommodations are highly comfortable.
Tourists staying at midrange, three-star hotels-priced from about $60 to $100 a night-encounter a remarkable uniformity almost everywhere they go. Standard rooms evidently have been fashioned with thrifty business travelers in mind: narrow twin beds separated by a radio console, a small TV set, a minimal bathroom, a tiny supply of toiletries and toothbrushes, chrome jugs of boiled water (one still hot, one lukewarm) and a minibar in the foyer (pricey $6 liquor samplers displayed on a shelf above a small refrigerator stocked with equally pricey juice, water and beer).
Round-the-clock attendants usually remain stationed at the end of every corridor. They do replenish water jugs and collect laundry (that “feather blouse” on the laundry list means down-filled jacket), but their primary duties seem to involve keeping an eye on everyone’s comings and goings and to count towels just before checkout.
Although most three-star standard rooms apparently come off the same assembly line, there are occasional individual touches. At the China East Hotel in Shanghai, the architect thoughtfully tucked a karaoke nightclub between two floors of bedrooms. In one provincial hotel, the main decoration was a color photograph of toy ducks.
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A sort of class system prevails in the lodgings industry. Some cheap hotels are off-limits to foreigners. Chinese nationals are typically forbidden to patronize “foreigners-only” hotels. Residents may find themselves barred from booking a room in their own city. “Why would they need to do that?” one guide wondered. “They can sleep in their own beds at home.”
THE FOOD SITUATION
China lost a lot of great chefs during the Cultural Revolution, when leaders frowned on such bourgeois pleasures as fine dining and reassigned the elite to work the farms.
Because the country still lacks a sophisticated distribution system, culinary differences between regions tend to be sharper than in most parts of the world. Generally speaking, northern Chines grow taller and huskier than people in the south. Prevailing wisdom says that’s because northerners cultivate and consume wheat (i.e. noodles), while the southern staple is the presumably less substantial rice.
The legendary banquet food has returned, mostly to be found in the fanciest hotels at the fanciest prices. Travelers stretching their budgets often end up eating disappointing “western” cuisine, which quickly grows cold on neglected steam tables. Tour guides tend to steer their groups toward “safe” restaurants, where the rice and grease pose no immediate health risks but hold no magic.
In Xian, however, our guide got us into the crowded foreigner’s section of a dumpling restaurant in the De Fa Chang Hotel, and for $12 (U.S.) apiece, a morose waitress brought us tray after exquisite tray of tiny dough balls shaped to represent the delicious stuffing inside, i.e., a cute little pig for the pork, a darling lamb, a fish, a shrimp. Delicious.
In Guilin, we felt we had gotten off the beaten track when we dined at a totally unsegregated downtown restaurant called Nine Dragons. Tourists and locals shared the same large room, looking out upon aquariums filled with unfamiliar marine life fated to become seafood.
We chose cobra instead, which would cost us about 30 bucks apiece. A worker yanked a black serpent from its cage on the porch and matter-of-factly severed its head. Then he squeezed its blood into one cup and its bile into another. The cobra arrived at our table half an hour later in the form of a bony and surprisingly bland soup. Our enthusiastic waitress urged us to sip the red and green liquids that accompanied the meal: blood and bile mixed with vile rice wine.
These elixirs supposedly would promote vigorous health (the waitress raised her eyebrows to make sure we understood what she meant), but the wine overpowered whatever flavor the cobra might have been carrying around, and the next day I woke up with a touch of the flu.
RELIGION
Officially, China is an atheistic country-meaning anyone professing a religious faith cannot join the Communist Party. But religion pervades Chinese society nonetheless.
Everywhere, visitors encounter vestiges of ancient animism (nature worship), reverence for ancestors, the magic of Taoism, the ethics of Confucianism, the selflessness of Buddhism.
During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards closed or destroyed numerous temples and mosques, killing priests and monks or banishing them to menial jobs. Those attempts to stifle spiritualism had little lasting effect. Lives intertwine with mysticism and superstition. Temples are piled high with offerings; incense thickens the air. Fortune tellers and practitioners of fengshui (the art of arranging environment to appease gods and ancestors) continue to thrive.
Besides the religions usually associated with China, some 14 million Muslims worship there, many in enclaves of their own. Christianity, introduced by European settlers and missionaries, has a scattering of followers. And in Kaifeng, Henan Province, there exists a small community of Jewish Chinese.
CULTURE SHOCK
A visitor from the United States should enter China with a tolerant, patient attitude and depart before that benign outlook snaps, which inevitably it will.
Not drinking the tap water is a habit easily acquired, but most other taboos call for deep insight and sensitivity. Parking chopsticks upright in the rice bowl, for example, suggests burning incense at a funeral, a reminder of death nobody welcomes. Writing a note in red ink implies hostility.
Those are just two cases. The list of no-no’s probably would match the Great Wall in length, but the general principle behind most items is that everyone must save face.
Guests should maneuver through most sticky situations with gentle grins and polite negotiations. Belligerence only begets stubborness. Don’t expect direct answers, particularly when the answers might be disappointing. If a hotel clerk says the room will be ready “soon,” that could mean a few minutes or several hours.
Crowds at airline and train ticket desks appear to contradict the general principle. People forget “face” as they scuffle and gouge to get the few remaining passes, because transportation systems are desperately overcrowded. This is when official government tourist guides become most useful. They obtain genuine tickets, not the counterfeits sometimes foisted upon the naive, and they scuffle and gouge so you don’t have to.
Even the best-intentioned guides prove annoying at times. They stick to relentlessly busy itineraries and early wakeup calls, then pause for long lunches and prolonged shopping trips at government-approved restaurants and gift shops.
Fast-paced Americans should try to turn off the clocks in their heads. Sights that appear on maps to be a few blocks away may require an hour of travel in thick traffic.
Except in the biggest, most sophisticated cities, visitors who look different than the populace will find themselves subjected to stares, pointing and giggling. Their strange faces also alert fee collectors at museums and other attractions to charge the “foreign” admission price, which may run 50 percent to 200 percent higher than the price natives pay.
And newcomers are advised to stay on the lookout for spit. Spitting seems to be the most popular national pastime. It might come from a passing trolley car, a balcony or a fellow passenger on the train. Smile and ignore it. The face you save may be your own.
FOR INFORMATION
The China National Tourist Office offers free brochures and a phone number with a long menu of recorded messages covering most aspects of travel to China. Write: 350 5th Ave., Suite 6413, New York, N.Y. 10118; or call 212-760-9700.
THE ETHICS OF GOING
The Chinese government continues to appall us with its human-rights violations-posing a moral dilemma in diplomatic and business circles while giving travelers reason for pause.
Few visitors to China need fear for their own human rights, so long as they refrain from criminal activity or outlandish behavior. In fact, they may find their hosts excessively zealous in protecting them from cheats and thieves. More than one crime victim from overseas has seen an alleged perpetrator executed on the spot. Rip-off artists operating without government sanction (some do have an unspoken official blessing)often mysteriously disappear.
No question that China’s recent history has been ugly, just as much of its ancient past was repellent. Our outrage at the summary executions and mass detention of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989 certainly provided a justifiable reason for shunning China. The number of travelers going there dipped after that episode, but it has been rising in the past few years (see chart).
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For those weighing the moral/ethical implications of China travel, it might help to think of the country as two separate entities. A massive, totalitarian bureaucracy forms the basic structure. Many tourist and recreational facilities-from large hotels to small-town “massage” parlors-are thought to be owned by the army, perhaps as a hedge against permanent peace.
But China also teems with individual entrepreneurs who ignore the oppression and carry on with their daily lives. Witholding American dollars from China by staying home probably would damage those small-time operators more than it would hurt the bureaucrats.
Considering the 5,000-year sweep of Chinese history and the large percentage of those centuries spent totally isolated from the outside, it’s hard to resist slipping through this small window of opportunity and experiencing a unique culture.
Right now, China’s socialist marketeers are determined to build a tourism industry equal to those of other economic powers around the world. Taking advantage of that welcome would not constitute an endorsement of government policies, but it might add a smidgeon of human understanding. Politely ask a few uncomfortable questions, drop a few subtle hints. You may discover ideological allies in the strangest places.