Me Time!
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I didn’t do an extensive tour like Zeit but spent 10 days or so exploring around Chengdu, a 2nd-tier city. What I found was that yes, China is very advanced technologically with their epayments and transport, but it is convenient only for locals. Good thing we spent a little extra time at the airport Q-ing and buying a local prepaid SIM card for the local HP number (brought a spare HP along for this purpose). The didi drivers will ask for your local number when u board the car, rather than your destination, to confirm you’re the correct passenger. The tour drivers that we booked preferred to call our HP (when urgent like where are u now?) rather than wechat call, even though wechat was used to chat on non-urgent details.
Similar experience with @Zeit with the passports (i was the one carrying them in a waist pouch). Locals with China ID (including the HKers) can use the many gantries for trains & tourist attractions, but foreigners are restricted to only 1 specific gantry that can scan passports, and usually a staff is stationed there to scan it for you. Even if u have bought tickets beforehand. Still must scan passport/ticket manually by that staff.
Payment for shopping & dining is supposedly more with Alipay and WechatPay, but due to our stringent sg banks there is usually some security/anti-scam 2FA that makes it twice as long for us tourists to pay the merchant. Hence they get irritated that we take so long. Credit cards only accepted at fine dining restaurants in the city.
And the toilets in the UNESCO world heritage sites…have no flushing sewage system omg. At least they have doors (unlike Beijing’s forbidden city that I visited 12 years ago!)
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Many of the toilets in the hutongs in Beijing still have have no doors no soap!
I faced the same irritations travelling to visit my sister’s family in China last year. China’s systems are perfect for convenience (and surveillance) for the local population - but it is not convenient for overseas travellers.
Everyone raves about the high speed rail. Yes, it’s new and nice and all. But I find the system highly troublesome. For a 10 minute ride between HK and Shenzhen, I have to do baggage checks and ID checks. And worse still, the gates only open like 20 min before the scheduled time, so you cannot get into the waiting area near the platform in advance to sit down and eat or chill - it only opens at a stipulated time. The entry to the platform itself is also at a restricted time. You don’t have the flexibility to board the next train if you miss your designated train. OK I guess this makes sense for a long distance ride, but for a short ride, it seems very restrictive. They also don’t allow for standing passengers. The controls are very tight.
Booking taxis and attractions is another pain - you definitely need to download and operate their local apps.
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For metro tokens, you definitely need to buy them from the machines using wechat or alipay. Thankfully, singaporeans can set up wechat pay accounts quite easily now that are linked to local banks/credit cards. The locals hardly use the machines to buy tokens - so they aren’t really well maintained in some metro stations. I’ve been to metro stations where half the machines were either not in service, or not working!
The facial recognition in China is out of the world. I had a lot of problems once at the airport due to my eyelid! The immigration officer says my eyelid is different from the images in the system. I explained that my passport photo was taken some years back, and I did have a minor surgery to correct minor ptosis. Then they showed me a BLOWN UP picture of my passport picture on a big screen - I got to say the immigration officers are really trained to watch out for aberrations. Or maybe they just use AI software to compare your face presented that day, with that of the system’s. I wonder those who had undergone plastic surgery or face lifts or botox jabs - do they get stopped? lol
Another thing I couldn’t get used to - the CCTV flashes nonstop when one is riding a taxi or driving on the roads in China at night. Didn’t feel like a peaceful, relaxing car ride.
That said, I did feel that the police / security presence is high generally everywhere, and even when my kids were young, I had no qualms about bringing them to China alone without the hub. I also enjoy the relatively inexpensive 5 star hotel accommodations in China. As for sights, I got to admit I am not always a fan - they can be super crowded. All sights are terribly commercialised.
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Japan and Singapore don’t have/need so many high tech security systems but I feel safer in these 2 places than to be in China.
Friend said one must be mindful not to wander out of sight of CCTV coverage? lol.
One can have high tech security systems in place but how the local officials respond to your issue is another matter.
Recently in Zhuhai, one car driver ramped and killed 35 ppl, just because he was not happy with the court’s ruling… 人民素质问题 and the new phenomenon of 献忠遍地（报复心态很强）
Just came back from Europe, got pickpocketed thrice when taking the metro but luckily nothing valuable was lost. For peace of mind when travelling, I would think of Japan.
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I think every countries will have their share of crimes, even for Japan. stabbing incidents and gas attack do occur on subway. That gas attack incident injured thousands of commuters. Few years ago there was this man setting fires to an animation studio, 35 casualties. He accused the studio of plagiarism.
During my visit to China recently, i chatted with a 北京奶奶 (Beijing local granny) at 北京天坛公园 ( Temple of Heaven garden). She spoke humbley and gracefully, sharing with me the function of temple of heaven during China imperial time, the annual rituals the emperors performed such as putting on humble color robe as the “dragon on earth” paying respect to the dragon in heaven. In another city i chatted with a local elderly man sitting idly at 西湖 杭州 . After knowing I come from Singapore he wanted to know more about our standard of living. He first ask 一斤米 (a pound of rice) cost how much in Singapore and how much Singaporean earn per month. He was trying to establish our disposal income. A less informed person would only ask about our income level. In 苏州we hired a driver for our day trip. I chatted with him during our hour drive to our attraction. I ask him about 苏州工业园 ( Suzhou industry park). he turned to me and ask if I am from Singapore. I told him my opinion about 杭州seem to have better managed tourist attractions than 苏州. He told me in a matter of fact, analytically manner, because 杭州 local government focus more on tourism and their strategy is to organise many international events and choosing the tourist attractions as the hosting venue. In the process promoting 杭州as an attraction holiday destination. whereas in 苏州 the core economy driver is industrialisation, so tourism does not receive as much attention.
I find no lack of down to earth, thoughtful people in China too.
But I find 上海 has higher proportion of snobbish people.
My colleague from China is now a Singapore citizen. She told me 北京人看谁都像外地人。上海人看谁都像乡下人。 People in Beijing tend to see strangers as outsiders. People in Shanghai tend to see strangers as Country Bumpkin.
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@lee_yl There was a Christmas market attack in Germany last week. Is it mean Germany is not safe? Influenza is on the rise across Japan now.
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World’s top 10 safest countries have Japan and Singapore in the list together with Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand etc. China and Germany have yet to reach the top 10
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Hi
I haven’t really been active in this forum since the transition and only resume until recently. it would appear the posts here are not really active anymore. Is Chief aware and is he letting go of this forum in time to come? It feels sad to have to say goodbye to this great forum where I had received great advice from many senpais on my kids academic journey. -
@Imp75 Yes, I agree it’s unfortunate what has happened to KSP. I still find the interface not ideal and difficult to navigate, and some features are just not friendly. I think Chief KS must be busy/ill or giving up on this website. Quite sad since it was going on so well for so long.
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@slmkhoo 天下没有不散的筵席
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