uziq wrote:
this guy has vlogged from china for about a decade. i'm pretty sure he was the first youtube vlogger about life in china. he's married to a chinese woman, has a mixed-race kid, speaks fluent chinese, loves the place, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq1Vgh_Ux34in this guy's own narrative of accounts - and you can see it develop over several years of content on his channel - the tone has markedly changed in china since you were there 6-7 years ago.
Good video. I believe all of it of course, but 2 important notes:
1. There's a number of provinces that are off limits. If you go to inner mongolia, xinjiang or tibet you could or even will be followed, harassed or get assigned a 'state guide'. I think HK is getting dodgy too, there's also other areas. My original plan was to go to xinjiang but I couldn't get there for several reasons this being one.
2. It's a group of foreigners filming and producing in China who also happened to have had their videos manipulated and put up on chinese youtube. Doubly bad. Getting out your camera, let alone near state buildings nevermind in an off limits province, even worse if you're there with an entire crew... that will attract the wrong attention.
China does have rabid nationalists and some real narcissistic fascism is gaining more ground. I was also always very wary of anyone who approached me being able to speak fluent english. In all cases these were either people trying to scam me or, worse, curious state officials. I had a few suspicious encounters and some very disappointing/nasty experiences there too.
I was still in uni at the time on a tourist visa just backpacking. I know that it would be impossible for me to go there now in anything but a purely work related capacity. Too many risks. Having said so though I've travelled to a lot of hairy places and China isn't that bad if you put it in perspective. Big cities and the coastal region from Beijing - Shanghai are entirely fine and see a lot of foreign visitors. I would argue it's even safer there than many places in Europe.
Most dangerous places I've been as a tourist would be parts of south africa, brazil, el salvador and some of the former soviet -stan countries. Interesting contrast is though that in those places in certain areas you know the ground rules going in and what to expect. Don't wander around salvador at night, stay out of bad parts of joburg - you know what could happen and it's physical. My unpleasant moments in China however were completely unexpected/caught me off guard and were more about a feel of unease. Getting taken advantage of, blatant racism, or impromptu interrogation of sorts when I was at an airport in a lesser visited part of the country.
Last edited by Larssen (2020-12-02 16:45:24)
