Portrait of the Chinese Tourist

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When you travel around China, you come into contact with the local population. You come into no less contact with other tourists. What people who have not been to China do not realize is that when talking of other tourists in China, the vast majority of them are Chinese! Subjectively, it feels as if internal tourism eclipses that of foreigners by several magnitudes.

Over time, you get to know different types of Chinese tourists. As a generalization, one can group them into several caregories, depending on personality, economic status and reaction to other foreign tourists. Here are a few of the types, which I've had the pleasure of encountering:

The Indifferent and sometimes Passively Hostile tourist - Middle aged, middle class and feels that you're trespassing on his Middle Kingdom.

Has a tendency to take his shirt off whenever it's warm enough and he's not in transit, proudly displaying his Buddha shaped beer belly.

Doesn't know a word of English. Will talk about and laugh at you with his wife in your presence, even though you introduced yourself earlier in Mandarin, ie: He just doesn't give a hoot whether you can or can't understand what he's saying about you. Amused by the fact that you are not fully capable of communicating in that most simple of languages, Chinese. That in itself, is a source of many jokes.

Whenever forming a queue for an attraction, he will gently but firmly make sure that he is ahead of you. He will then spit next to you and possibly blow the contents of his nose unto the floor, cleaning up the mess left on his face with the back of his hand.

You try to be friendly and smile at him. He stares back with a blank expression and turns his back to you.

The Pup in Heat - Extremely excited to have met a foreigner for one of the first times in his life. Clings to you like a pup in heat mistaking a leg for his long lost love. Constantly uses you to practice the five words of English he knows.

When explaining something or with any other excuse, will use the opportunity to pat you on the back or invade your personal space in some other manner.

Takes pictures with you and of you while the boat sails past the lesser attraction, the Three Gorges, which he will never get to see again.

The Flat Broke Backpacker - In his mid to late 20's. Hiked 2000km from Guangzhou, his home town, to see Dali. The ride somehow cost him 100 Yuan.

If you're staying at the same place he is, you know you couldn't have landed a better deal had your name been Hu Jintao.

Stick with him and he will show you where the locals go to eat for a quarter of what you are used to paying. Of course, the subsequent hospitalization bills may offset the savings.

Will try to find out, quite early in the conversation, how much you make, only to discover in dismay that for essentially the same job, you and him make the same figure. The difference is that your figure is in Dollars and his is in Yuan.

The Well Educated Traveller - Extremely friendly, eager to explain about China. Has good English. An inexhaustible source of interesting information about the country and its people.

Eager to learn about your home country, Israel, but for some reason is quite innocently sure that Jews are all geniuses and that they're the ones telling America what to do.

He is usually a marketing manager from Shanghai although, sometimes, an engineer from Lanzhou. If the latter, he will extend an invitation for you to come visit and even stay with his family in his gem of a city. When you look his city up in the Lonely Planet, you encounter phrases such as "Little reason to linger here" and "It's famous for being the most poluted city in the world" (I'm serious, look it up). Just think with which cities it had to contend with for that title. You accept the kind offer and hope you never have the opportunity to take him up on it.

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