Disclaimer 1 : I am not a political expert or social scientist. This is a travelogue and my experiences visiting China in 2024, sharing my insights.
Disclaimer 2: I have traveled to over 30 countries, and my experience is not a judgment of Chinese culture or a generalization. This is not an advertisement or a review, it is a report.
Disclaimer 3: If you came here looking for a critique of the Chinese political model, you won't find it here. This is not a geopolitical analysis of China, and I'm not qualified to do that. Look for Luana Margarete Geiger or Elias Jabbour , real experts on the subject. Or Felipe Durante , who talks a lot on social media about his experience living in the country.
Let's go.
I can honestly say that the 5 weeks I spent on this trip to China were incredible, completely transformative and a great learning experience. I have been enjoying Chinese culture for a few years now, and this trip was part of my 3-year plan to take a sabbatical traveling after leaving Lambda3. Even though I have reservations about the Chinese government model, as I have already mentioned in my articles on The Nine Titans of AI - Amy Webb and on the Promises and Lies of AI , none of this is stopping me from venturing into another country, especially now that I have time to delve deeper into the place.
This report is an extended version of what I wrote on Twitter over the past few weeks, and I suggest checking out the threads listed here, as they directly complement the information, as well as presenting more photos and videos. All the photos in this text are mine, in this process of learning more about photography that the sabbatical has provided me :D
My initial idea was to cover a large area of the country, going through the North, South, East and West, to take advantage of the opportunity to learn everything I had studied about each region. In the end, I decided to follow a longer but less extensive route, on a trip with more time in each city, to better enjoy what each region has to offer in 35 days of travel.
As major Regional objectives:
- South
- Guandong, covering Hong Kong and Macau
- Guanxi, visiting Yangshuo and Guilin
- Center
- Hunan, meeting Zhangjiajie
- Shaanxi, visiting Xi'An
- East
- Beijing, visiting the capital
- Shandong, going to Jinan
- Shanghai, ending the trip
Why visit China? I believe that China is the country that will define the next 20+ years in the world, and there is nothing better than preparing a little for this general change, improving my knowledge of the language and getting to know some of the most incredible places in the region.
Since I grew up fascinated by the films of Bruce Lee and more recently Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi, I always wanted to learn more about the culture. I already have some experience with the official language (Mandarin) from some attempts at studying, and I am interested in learning about the history and culture. In the end, it took a long time for us to go the first time: I always didn't have enough time to stay as long as I would have liked, and since it is a long trip, I left it for the best time to do it.
As I was preparing for the trip, I heard several comments about how dangerous or exotic it would be to visit the country, and how careful I should be. And leaving that issue aside right away: This was one of the most peaceful trips I've ever taken, with the least risk and the greatest sense of security when walking around the cities during the day or at night .
The warnings, although well-intentioned, were more due to ignorance and prejudice than reality. We were extremely well received and any minor travel problems were resolved without any stress. China is incredible! Despite the frightening amount of people in the places, the trip went very well.
From what I've noticed about people in China, it's a paradox: a lot of what I've read about the country has a bad connotation of lack of freedom, repression and control. But what I've seen couldn't be more opposite: Safety, care and people enjoying the day and their own money. Obviously there are a lot of people working, doing the daily grind and staying late in stores and offices.
But generally speaking:
tourist spots full of Chinese people walking around in droves (you hardly see any foreigners in many places)
elderly people exercising on the street at different times of the day
lots of children having fun, most of the time without parental supervision (even at night)
women alone, at night, walking around - it may not seem like much, but it was the main thing my wife noticed on our trip - “wow, she’s running along the lake alone at 10pm! How wonderful”. We got used to being afraid in Brazil, which is completely different from China.
lively streets with food stalls, people drinking, eating and partying
stores, of the most varied brands, full of people shopping and having fun. The main expensive world brands are here, and the biggest shopping malls too.
crowded restaurants, dozens of shopping malls and stores. This is a consumer society from one end to the other.
You might be wondering, “Okay, but what about the government?” As a tourist, this never became an issue, and my perception was quite clear: by ensuring infrastructure, security, access and quality of life, the population continues to do the best it can. In fact, during a guided tour led by a Chinese woman, she explained clearly about the cultural revolution, its excesses and problems, and also obviously pointed out China’s recent modernization as being a merit of the government’s work.
The immensity of the cities is impressive: nothing is small, and almost every city could be considered a capital in Brazil, due to the number of people. No infrastructure is made for just a few people - everything is gigantic, and prepared to receive hundreds of thousands of people. We visited Yangshuo, in the south of China, one of the smallest cities with 300,000 inhabitants, and there is a shopping mall in the city center that is larger than many cities in Brazil.
Something that travelers often report is that people usually ask to take photos, stare at you on the street and generally start conversations when you are in a restaurant or walking. We took this in stride, and it was a great opportunity to improve my skills in asking questions in Mandarin. People who are more introverted might be a little scared, but the truth is that in such a large country, it is understandable that many people have never met a foreigner. Children in particular are encouraged by their parents to exchange a few words in English.
This experience was perhaps the most picturesque I have ever had, and at the same time the one that brought me the most joy in visiting the country: Since China was closed for a long time in the past, including restrictions on domestic travel during the pandemic, some people had never met someone from another country - it was only natural to take a photo to record the moment: knowing a little Chinese, I was even able to exchange a few words that made the moment even happier. People are polite and notice when you are not feeling very comfortable.
When commenting on this fact on Instagram, a Brazilian friend said that the same thing happens to her when she travels to the Brazilian northeast. Because she doesn't have the typical appearance of the region, people start talking to her in English, assuming that she is an Asian tourist and not a São Paulo native. It's the same thing.
With the most basic Mandarin I have (HSK1 and HSK2 for those who understand), I was able to get by very well, and I had many fun interactions with people who didn't imagine a foreigner could order food in Mandarin. It was the best way to win their sympathy and help when we needed information or just to chat. I HIGHLY recommend that you learn a few phrases, as this shows respect for the culture of the country you are traveling to.
What cannot be resolved with English can easily be resolved with general translators. It is worth using! In a situation at a hotel, it was what managed to resolve a misunderstanding with my reservation, and all Chinese people are used to using a general translation app in difficult situations that a tourist would encounter.
The phrase I heard most from people was “Welcome to China!”, and a genuine interest in sharing moments through food, nature and the short time I spent with some people.
But perhaps the phrase that struck me the most on this trip was “China will use time to show the world” . When its history began more than 3 thousand years ago, it does not think in the short term to carry out a plan.
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# The Country of Infrastructure
The thing that impressed me most about the country was the general infrastructure: roads, rail network, subway, bus network, etc. - the size and availability throughout the country is impressive. I always thought of Gare du Lion station in Paris as being a mega train infrastructure - until I got to a station like Guangzhou or Guilin and understood it better :D
As Brazilians, we are accustomed to pharaonic construction projects that last decades, and as a São Paulo resident, I have been hearing about the expansion of the São Paulo subway for 40 years, as if waiting 20 years to build 3 stations was a merit of the state or city administration. We still don't have a subway to Congonhas, or lines that reach Guarulhos or other regions of the city. China changes its perception of these things.
Xi'An didn't have a subway 15 years ago, and today it has 2 bullet train stations, over 100 subway stations, and an enviable bus network. Our minds have trouble comprehending this: in the space of 15 years, they built the equivalent of 5 entire subway systems in São Paulo. This can't be done without political will. It's incredible! Knowing more about the CCP's plan to expand the railway network, I can only feel envy.
This makes life easier for tourists more than anything. No other country is prepared for the amount of people that this country has. I can safely say that China has the best infrastructure for tourists in the world. Subway, train, airport, bus, taxi/uber network.
I was a little scared when planning this first trip, especially because the cities have 3, sometimes more, different train stations - and there are so many high-speed train options that it's very easy to buy the wrong tickets, or tickets to different places. Fortunately, the Trip.com app is phenomenal in this regard, and is a great help for everything you need on your trip (flights, trains, hotels, attraction tickets). The availability of options, in addition to the possibility of doing everything through the app, makes life much easier. Once you buy a train ticket, you just need to show an ID at the station to access it, with one of the most transparent experiences I've ever seen. For planning routes and possibilities, the RomeToRio app was incredible, because it can integrate all modes and tell you exactly which station and which tickets to buy, where to take a taxi or bus. Even for smaller cities in China.
I know of China's commitment to becoming a net-zero carbon country in the coming years, and this is clearly reflected in the effort to build the most impressive rail infrastructure I've ever seen. Virtually all Didi (China's Uber) cars are electric, as is much of the infrastructure within national parks.
We traveled for a week during a national holiday (the Dragon Boat Festival), and it was easy to understand why we were so concerned: there were so many people traveling between regions. No country is prepared to handle the amount of people we saw traveling around China. It would be unthinkable to see this happening by car and bus, like almost everything in Brazil. To give you an idea, during the Chinese New Year, more than 100 million people head to the interior of China to spend the holiday. Impressive.
There are a lot of people…
In fact, this is an important point of contrast in relation to Brazil: there is no way to leave spaces without access and transit infrastructure, because everything would be destroyed! I heard a friend comment on how, in parks and forests in China, everything is paved and all the trails are built with stone stairs and walkways, criticizing this approach as not being “connected with nature enough”. Bathrooms in the middle of trails deep in the forest, places selling food, walkways and masonry bridges, bus lines to travel around the parks, and cable cars cutting through the forest. As a nature lover, and with experience in several parks around the world, it is common to find this approach strange.
All it took was a weekend visit to understand that no nature can survive the hundreds of thousands of people walking along marked trails and dirt roads every day. The idea here is the opposite: if you don't make accessible spaces available for the volume of people who pass through and stroll through, all of nature will suffer. This is a direct contrast to the philosophy of conservation organizations in Brazil, which follow an isolationist approach. Nowadays, some national parks in the US are considering blocking the entry of tourists to reduce the impact caused by the volume of people, because they were not designed for the current reality of outdoor tourism.
Well, in China, they're all designed for that, and that's amazing.
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# Mundanities: internet, technology and food
I've always loved Chinese food, and this was one of the main reasons I decided to travel: although you can find super authentic restaurants in São Paulo and almost anywhere in the world, I wanted to try local, less glamorous, and everyday restaurants in the region. It was better than I imagined!
The food is always plentiful, with large portions and lots of flavor, regardless of the restaurant: from the most expensive to the cheapest, you will always find a great variety of options. Since my wife has some dietary restrictions due to allergies and personal choices (allergy to soy and milk, no red meat, etc.), we usually have some difficulty finding places that accommodate it. I, on the other hand, eat anything anywhere, and I wanted to try every dish available :D
To my surprise, we had fewer problems with this than in other places in the world (it was easier to find food for her in China than it is to find a lactose-free and meat-free dish in France, other than salad). Since the basis of the diet is rice, cooked vegetables and a variety of meats, it was super easy to eat in several restaurants, and on every occasion the people working there did their best to accommodate the restrictions. We had a few surprises, but nothing too big to comment on. The food here is phenomenal.
It's common to see travelers posting about strange and unusual foods, which serve to increase the feeling that we're going to a super exotic place - but in my experience, many of the foods we eat there have equivalents in Brazil and other cuisines, despite the different preparation and seasoning. Most tourist places sell "extreme" foods as a tourist trap more than anything else.
In France, escargot - which many people think is chic, paying 35 euros for a plate. In China, one of the best dishes I ate was 螺炒面 (luó chao mián), which is a sautéed noodle with snails, very similar in texture to the French equivalent. Chicken feet, oxtail, kidneys, brown sauce and fried intestines are also common ingredients found in restaurants in China, and we have them in abundance in any interior of Brazil, the only difference being the preparation.
Obviously, at some formal events, some dishes are served as delicacies (I would like to highlight here: sea cucumber, butterfly larvae, and some organs such as kidneys and intestines), and my reaction to them is the same as when someone puts a plate of fresh oysters on the table at a bar in Floripa: ok, nice, I can try it, but thank you very much, I don't want it. We went to a dinner at the University of Traditional Chinese Medicine where everything was served, and I was able to taste the sea cucumber, larvae and organ meat without any problems, as it was the only opportunity to have something like that available. There is nothing to worry about.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for travelers is the spicy food, which in many places is really shocking to the uninitiated. I didn’t have any problems (I love spicy food), but I always had to ask for dishes without it, so that my wife could eat it. In many regions the standard question in restaurants is “你能吃辣吗?” - can you eat spicy food?
And lastly, you can always find some crappy fast food chain that exists anywhere in the world (KFC, Starbucks and McDonalds are almost everywhere). I don't recommend going with this option and missing out on rich, tasty and healthier food.
What really scares the most unsuspecting, while traveling through the most diverse cities, are the street markets - mainly because the processing of animals is done directly on the street. We forget where the meat we eat comes from, and the evolution of industrialized meat production in Brazil has removed most of the work of killing, cleaning and selling meat from the markets. Well, in China, this happens on the street.
It is very common to sell live animals, especially poultry and fish, and to process them directly on the counter. I have seen pork and beef processed in some places, but it is unusual due to its practicality. If you don't go to a street market, you probably won't see it. Supermarkets also sell live animals for food, as well as processed and packaged meat, as in Brazil.
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Internet
There is internet everywhere. The impression I had was that even in really remote regions, 4G coverage exists with almost no shadow areas. And this is phenomenal, in a country where practically everything depends on the network connection infrastructure to operate. In 5 weeks I didn't need to use physical money once, not even to buy a beer from the aunt at the top of a mountain in Yangshuo after an exhausting hike.
Street craftsmen, restaurants, taxis, hotels, barbecue stalls, bike rentals, museum tickets, hotel reservations, train tickets and metro cards: everything is made possible through the Alipay or WeChat payment network, with its superApps that truly manage to integrate the entire Chinese society under two technological titans. The dream of Silicon Valley billionaires, which has failed for so many years in the rest of the world, is a reality here. Not every place accepts credit cards, and without these apps you will have a hard time.
The permissiveness and access that these apps have is impressive, as well as the practicality with which they allow me, a foreigner, to interact with the country. There is no way around it. Even though I have reservations about the use of this technology and the implications for an already established surveillance society, it was a pretty crazy experience to see how everything works in practice, and the convenience of using mini apps for everything was a helping hand. Even though I didn't provide any biometric data, to participate in this you need to provide a lot of personal data, in addition to a passport photo and a virtual credit/debit card. For some of the services, however, a physical SIM is required, so that access can be validated directly, which makes life easier (Didi, the Chinese Uber, requires a real number).
In order to interact with the world outside of China, the use of a VPN is mandatory, since my life is in the cloud. I realized that it is easier to use a 4G data service and eSIM to access the VPN, than to trust that Wi-Fi networks will be available to connect to a VPN: this is usually not the case, especially in hotels, where instability is too great to keep the VPN active, unlike 4G. I used Airalo + Betternet as my eSIM and VPN providers, and I had no problems using the services, even though the speed was worse than outside of China - it is worth preparing in advance. Unfortunately, some services do not work if you do not have a Chinese SIM card, but this can also be solved by purchasing a local SIM.
The use of VPN is not a taboo or a restriction for foreigners, and when we visit some universities, everyone uses it to access Google and YouTube tools and content as a search engine.
If you, like me, have your life recorded in the cloud, you will have trouble adapting. Mainly because no Google/Facebook/Apple service is prepared for use in the Chinese situation - even saving files offline in Drive, for example, without a VPN is very difficult to access, the same goes for several other apps. Google Maps often let us down with incorrect information about places, although AppleMaps works very well.
Additionally, local apps don't work properly when the VPN is activated, which turns into an eternal ping pong, which wears down the experience a bit.
An interesting part is the number of electric vehicles on the streets, from scooters to trucks, the use of technology is super prevalent. I believe it will be a great case study on the longevity of the solution and the use of these vehicles over time.
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What I visited
## Hong Kong and Macau
Hong Kong was the city I enjoyed visiting the most. I can safely say that it is one of the most incredible cities I have ever been to, and if I were 20 again, I would not have moved to Ireland, but to Hong Kong.
A vibrant, multicultural and extremely expensive city! We were lucky enough to have friends to welcome us and talk a little about the local culture and history. With a recent colonial history and an ancient culture, this is a must-see destination to fully understand China in general.
Although Cantonese is the official language, many people speak English and Mandarin.
Here, the experience with the Octopus Card was excellent. It works like a debit card for absolutely everything in the city: metro, train, shops, museums, etc.
Macau is a city that clearly shows the Portuguese colonial influence in its architecture and cuisine, and according to someone we spoke to, in its general bureaucracy. It is worth visiting especially if you like casinos, as there are as many as Las Vegas.
## Yangshuo, Guilin
Compared to other cities, Yangshuo is a fishing village, but in the Chinese style: bigger than Florianópolis.
A city with 1,400 years of history in one of the most impressive regions I've ever been to. The limestone mountains stretch endlessly into the horizon, cut by the Lijiang River, in the Guilin region.
This was the first city in Mainland China, and as it was the smallest of the cities I planned to visit, I imagined that I would arrive in a mountainous region like so many others I have visited: few restaurants, limited access to transportation options and shops, and a place geared towards tourism. It was almost that.
The city is big, vibrant and very consumer-oriented. We were in the area during the Boat Festival, a long weekend, and we got to experience a region that was super full of tourists, and almost no foreigners.
## Zhangjiajie, Hunan
One of China’s top tourist attractions, home to the country’s first national park, Zhangjiajie is truly breathtaking. The region became internationally famous after the film Avatar, and it was claimed that the large sandstone pillars were the inspiration for the film’s floating mountains. The sandstone here is magical, and it’s one of the most stunning places I’ve ever been.
A magical place, with an enviable structure of access, accessibility and size. This was one of the best national parks I have ever visited. Here it became clear that it would be impossible to support the number of tourists that normally visit this region with the model that is most common in national parks in the Americas and Europe. It's too many people!
The city was one of the least attractive, and with the least infrastructure, despite having more than 1M people.
## Xi'An, Shaanxi
This was perhaps one of the most incredible cities I have ever visited, and certainly the one with the best access infrastructure.
It's amazing to think that 15 years ago there wasn't even a subway. One of China's first capitals, and with over 3,000 years of history, Xi'An brings together diverse groups and cultures that have touched the country. As the gateway to the Chinese empire during the Silk Road, the city is an example of culture and preservation of the country's history.
Between the terracotta warriors, multiple bullet train stations and temples that are over a thousand years old, the city is the most beautiful we visited in China. In addition to being one of the philosophical cradles of the country.
Although it is a large city by our standards, it does not have the characteristics of cities like Shanghai and Beijing. It is less internationalized, which makes it even more interesting.
I highly recommend it.
## Beijing
Every capital has the same appearance: plasticized, coordinated and necessarily “model”. It would be no different in the capital of Chinese Communism.
It's a beautiful city, with lots of traffic and a pasteurized air. I couldn't imagine anything different - and I really liked what I saw, but I would say it's a city to visit in a few days and then move on to more interesting regions of the country.
## Jinan
Jinan is a “small” city, with 8M people, which was an interesting surprise. Despite being a major economic center, the city sought to create an infrastructure that preserved local history through a large “old” neighborhood, with a lake, traditional houses and underwater walks.
In the city we also visited one of the largest universities in China, Shangdon University, visiting the teaching center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, with more than 5 thousand students.
Near Jinan is Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, perhaps the most important figure in Chinese culture over the last 2,000 years. The mausoleum and residence of the family are worth a visit.
## Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest metropolis I've ever been to, and the second largest in the world. If Xi'An's infrastructure is impressive, Shanghai's is frightening. I was amazed by the availability, ease and reach of this metropolitan region of 30 million people.
Furthermore, the city is following a development plan that began in 1997 to become the exemplary metropolis of Chinese Communism, with its first milestone in 2020 and the next in 2035. It is possible to follow the project and better understand the long-term vision for the city: incredible. Personally, I wish we had this kind of long-term thinking and political strength to carry out the economic and social development of our cities in the same way.
It’s the most internationalized city I’ve visited, with lots to do. It’s hard to give a real opinion about Shanghai in such a short time, but I can only describe it as “Impressive”.
## What about Communism?
We live in a country in crisis, and it is inevitable to draw a parallel with the decades of anti-China propaganda and the feeling of desperation that enters the dispute of ideas when the subject is government models. Do we have security, housing, economic development within Brazil's potential? I believe not. And what options do we have?
Traveling through China is, without a doubt, a transformation. If I had believed what I was told before I went, I might not have found such an incredible country to visit.
But it is undeniable that the Chinese political and economic model is a success, generating a fully functioning consumer society, a population that has completely transformed itself from extreme poverty in 60 years and surpassed any other example of global evolution. Based on the indicators that we ourselves have in Brazil, China is better than us and any of our direct neighbors.
Obviously there is much criticism of the model, of the mistakes and excesses committed in the past, especially at the beginning of the cultural revolution. Elias Jabbour describes it much better than I could in the book China: Socialism in the 21st Century
The benefit of this trip was precisely to question the extent to which we are being inundated with propaganda, fear and uncertainty. And how much we are losing as a country by not seeing world politics as a game of national interests, and not a biblical dispute between good and evil. Who are we serving by not building a government model that guarantees greater economic, social and geopolitical development for Brazil?
Some more photos from this trip
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