10 ms·

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the langu

by legofr 5y ago

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random hotel/apartment you see on the street to try to book a room.. then you'll discover that 9/10 hotels/apartments won't allow foreigners to live there. I lived in China for more than a year before I realized this was the case, and I have on multiple occasions even been kicked out of friends/partners apartment because someone told the landlord there was a foreigner in the building (or maybe they saw through the surveillance camera).

RealityVoid 5y ago
I am surprised at what you say regarding the hosting of foreigners. My girlfriend was there for a couple of months and she didn't notice any such thing, and she actually rented a place with a couple of friends, also foreigners. Is this what you describe because of racism or because of government?
- arvigeus 5y ago
  Depends on where she lived. Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities are ok for foreigners. The further away you get, the more blurry situation gets.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    - mlindner 5y ago
      What? The US doesn't require anyone to register with the local government when traveling, foreigner or US citizen. Where are you getting this kind of misinformation?
      - dijonman2 5y ago
        Chinese misinformation campaign?
        pksebben 5y ago
        going through whimsicalisms posts, and it's actually hard to build a picture of state-run propaganda. They talk about Taiwanese independence like it's a given, for example. This could possibly be a cultural misunderstanding. Never attribute to malice etc.
      - yawaworht1978 5y ago
        I don't know about the us, but in some places in Europe , the police or a security agency passes by daily to pick up a form that's filled out when checking in. Source, friend worked in a hotel and I have seen it with my own eyes.
    - learc83 5y ago
      Where did you get this from? US hotels most definitely do not “register (resident or non-resident) guests with the local government”. A few states require hotel guests to present an ID at checkin.
      - beebeepka 5y ago
        How can you tell if a hotel registers you with the local government? I am not saying they are (never bothered to cross the Atlantic) but you have no way of knowing what they do. My assumption is they all do, directly or not. I mean, 2013 did happen. Guess not everyone was paying attention
        snomad 5y ago
        remind me, what happened in 2013?
        beebeepka 5y ago
        Check out this Snowden guy. He made some uncomfortable revelations
        learc83 5y ago
        The “local government” are my neighbors the Sheriff and the County Commissioner. Then there are freedom of information requests, journalist, whistleblowers working for local government, and whistleblowers working for hotels. If the Sheriff knew who you were and had probable cause he could get a warrant to get your credit card transactions from your bank and from that see you were in a hotel. But that’s pretty far away from “hotels register you with the local government.” There was actually a hotel owner who took it on himself to report suspected undocumented immigrants to ICE a few years ago. We know about it because it quickly made its way to the papers, and caused an enormous uproar.
        throwanem 5y ago
        Spoken like someone who's never spent any time in or around the US service industry. People will gossip, and something like this would be known - hell, I'd likely know it, just on account of knowing some folks who would know and would want to talk about it. I don't live in a tech monoculture, either geographically or socially, and I'm friendly, personable, and good at explaining complex systems simply. Because of that I get a lot of questions from acquaintances about everything from phone and PC repair to what human life might look like after a hard-takeoff singularity. Those conversations go lots of places, but often tend to converge on people's worries about tech in general, as they take the chance of a discussion with someone knowledgeable to check their anxieties against reality. So the surprise, if this were happening, would be more that by now someone hadn't mentioned it, over drinks or otherwise, in my hearing. That said, I don't find that lack at all surprising. What you're thinking of here is more of a Stasi-style "informers everywhere" kind of deal, and US domestic mass surveillance really doesn't work that way. Much more likely would be something like NSA watching payment card transactions en masse for debits from hotels and associating those with cell tower and identity data, and maybe also having quietly penetrated the major booking systems to spot cash purchases. In light of Snowden's 2013 revelations, it wouldn't surprise me to hear about either of those, and indeed I assume they are both being done. (Not least because that's probably how I'd build it. Why deal openly with a bunch of separate businesses and fractious employees when you can much more quietly and easily learn all you want from what's going over the wire?) And aside from all that - not for nothing is it so common a theme in our popular media, especially these last couple of decades, that by and large we'd really just rather not know. You've mentioned that you don't really understand America, and that checks out; if you did, you'd neither be surprised that the response to Snowden was mostly a yawn, nor need telling anything I've said in this comment. Our intelligence agencies certainly don't.
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      The hell you talking about. I've been to roughly 40 states, and am "non-white" and have never had to do this shit at any hotel
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        You don't have to show your ID to check in?
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  Both. I have been refused access to a place because the landlord was openly racist and didn't want to rent to me after she found out I was a foreigner. There is pretty much no recourse for foreigners who are victims of racism in China, it's an extremely racist country. When you're a foreigner you just kinda have to accept that there are people who will cross the street or shield their kids when they see you, loudly complain when you sit next to them on the bus, refuse to do business with you, etc etc. Of course in rich areas of tier one cities where the government has an image to uphold, this will happen much less frequently. That said, definitely in the case of hotels there are loads of hotels it seems there is a legal aspect as well. If you lived in China you might be familiar with the long and boring process of registration with the police every time you move house. Sometimes you even have to register at more than one place because you moved into a different urban area. According to the law, all foreigners must do this everywhere they go in China, including tourists who are on holiday. It wouldn't be very efficient to make tourists spend a couple hours at the police station every time they checked into a hotel, so some hotels have some arrangement with the local police to do this on their guests' behalf behind the scenes. Most tourists nowadays don't even know that they have been registered with the police everywhere they travel. But smaller hotels don't provide that service. I have successfully blagged my way into staying at one smaller hotel by assuring them i would visit the local police myself to register, but a lot of them don't want the hassle or (perhaps) attention from the local authorities, so they just ban foreigners. When I left China it was during the pandemic, and pretty much no hotels at all would allow foreigners to stay. This was xenophobia, pure and simple. There were a few times I had to first visit the police station and ask the police where I could stay, because hotel after hotel after hotel refused me, despite my green health code, valid visa and so on.
  - carlmr 5y ago
    I've had smaller hotels tell me they can't host foreigners due to some law that you need to have a star rating which they didn't. The only time I had problems booking a hotel was in Shanghai and Beijing though, in other cities there was never an issue. Also I was always greeted with utter friendliness, so I don't get the everybody's xenophobic aspect. I do speak some (very basic) Mandarin though so maybe that helps with how you're treated.
imbnwa 5y ago
On a lower frequency, this similar to why I'm not interested in tourism as "self-discovery", "new experience", or some shit, like the rest of the world is just stage and props for my existential theatre. I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. Even worse, the middle-class trend to make the number of distinct places you've visited some form of social currency ("how many stamps are in your passport?"). I remember this sales guy who always made it a point to tell every woman he talked to that he did Peace Corps in Africa and how it changed him working with Africans. Like, you could've just volunteered somewhere on the south side of the city if you really wanted to help some African folk.
- rajin444 5y ago
  Are you saying Africans and (black, which I assume you mean but I’m trying to be charitable) people in your city are basically the same? I imagine the lives and cultures in Africa are vastly different than whatever city you’re in.
  - martin_a 5y ago
    I think OP is talking about some kind of "charity tourism" that's happening. I think Europe has some effects like this, too, where people prefer to go to Africa to "help some children" while they could be "doing good" by getting active in local organisations. No need to travel some thousand kilometres for that.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    You're also assuming that their town doesn't have a lot of African immigrants living on its south side, and that the speaker wasn't (very questionably) saying that their experience with Africans affected the way they interacted with local black people.
    - rajin444 5y ago
      That’s why I mentioned lives and cultures in Africa. African immigrant lives in x city are gonna be different than in Africa.
rootsudo 5y ago
This is mostly because they don't know how to register foreign passports. If you show them how to do it and present your passport, it is not an issue. https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/foreigners-allowed-hotel-registration-tutorial/ https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/for... So many foreigners/laowai spread the same misinformation. You can stay, if you have sufficient Chinese/Mandarin, you can explain the above and it works. If you have a good friend explain, it also works. Most say the same thing as you "kicked out" "not allowed" or "rascism". Not true at all, - at some hotels where I stayed I was really the first foreigner to ever pass through. (I wasn't staying in typical Shanghai places for example, more north and more west.) Not an issue at all, explained, showed, registered, done.
- legofr 5y ago
  In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done. In China you either need to go through an agency that have something similar to "The Negro Motorist Green Book" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book), or you need to speak Chinese, convince the reception that they don't need a certificate they believe they're legally required to have, convince the reception to call the owner who will no doubt repeat a foreigner is not allowed, then you need to contact the police to convince the owner, if the police agree that a certificate is required then you need to convince the police that they don't know their own laws, convince them to call the Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau.. that's what the person in your blogpost has been doing. She even told the police to give her their badge numbers so she could file an official complaint. That person is certainly living on the edge. Even if it's technically legal, then surely the end result will be the same - 9/10 hotels and apartments will refuse foreigners (for the apartments I rented then everything was done on paper, I doubt they have the booking system mentioned in the blogpost - not sure if all hotels use the same since I have never walked behind the desk and looked at their computer.. and they probably wouldn't allow it if I asked) because who in their right mind want to spend several hours and likely get the police involved just so they can rent a room for 200rmb.
  - 5y ago
freeflight 5y ago
Reminds me of this channel 4 [0] interview with writer Benjamin Zephaniah. Tbh I find his reasoning, go there and see for yourself, much more convincing than your reasoning. Particularly this; > when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see Just reads like FUD, it's not China that locks up people at the highest rate on the planet. That "feat" is reserved to a country were nobody would say "don't visit there you might die!" even tho the chance for that to happen there is much more likely than in China or NK, where most police don't even carry guns. [0] https://youtu.be/zowOkv0Cuhk https://youtu.be/zowOkv0Cuhk
- belval 5y ago
  Considering the locked up two Canadians in retaliation for Canada arresting Meng Wanghzu. I just don't see how I could go there and not have anxiety for the whole trip. It's a shame though, I always wanted to see China.
  - alisonatwork 5y ago
    I have Canadian citizenship and lived in China when the two Michaels were locked up. In reality, even if the worst fears are true and every foreigner is explicitly tracked and constantly monitored by the local police department, it still wouldn't really be worth the government's effort to "disappear" the average foreigner, or even "invite them to tea". Most of us simply aren't that influential or important. Of course, it does feel a bit suspicious when you say something mildly critical of the government online or during a meal with friends and then "mysteriously" the next day your VPN stops working, but it's just as likely that it could be coincidence and you're reading too much into it. But that's exactly how things are supposed to work in an authoritarian regime. Most of the time the government isn't explicitly watching over everyone, but because the legal system is deliberately opaque, everyone maintains a tiny bit of fear inside them that maybe they could be being watched, or that there might be a secret police just around the corner, so they self-censor and limit their behaviors just in case. So, you're right that you might have anxiety the whole trip, but arguably that means you're getting to experience the "real China". Living under a constant chilling effect[0] is probably worse for locals than foreigners. At least as a foreigner you can leave when the pressure gets too much. Most locals don't have that privilege. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
powerapple 5y ago
It is true. The reason is that only hotels with passport verification system can accept foreign guests (all hotels have a system connected to police department to verify national id), most hotels only have a small national id verification system (because it was cheaper I guess), only some 4 star and 5 star hotels have these. I had once tried to use my passport to stay in a hotel, they didn't allow me then I learnt about this.
- rvba 5y ago
  Probably only the bigger hotels have an agent of ministry of state security on premises. You should assume that you get a bugged room too. Russians did it in the 80s, even easier now.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    All hotels have to report their guests to the local PSB, but some smaller hotels don’t (rules aren’t that enforced in China), but will avoid foreign guests because they easily bring attention from authorities. You can get away without reporting to the PSB in some way out places (like a hostel in the middle of nowhere I stayed in that lacked electricity beyond a simply hydro wheel), but those are rare, and not in big cities. The rooms aren’t bugged. Most foreigners aren’t that special. Maybe they will big some special hotel that gets lots of diplomats? But most of us won’t stay in those.
  - powerapple 5y ago
    China only start to recognize passport as identification a few years ago, previously a Chinese citizen can only use national id. It was just a lot extra work for the hotel if they don't have this system. No, you can get bugged, but by the state, maybe by some creeps.
dfjhakdfhadkf 5y ago
gavinray 5y ago
Hey what sort of bullshit is this HN? I was reading a reply by a guy who counter-commented on this, a bunch of links of people on YouTube walking around this same area and not seeing anything like this. Then went to comment, and it says "flagged" and was deleted, in under 10 minutes. I don't really care about politics or China at all, but that is some spooky-tier censorship here on HN. Wtf is going on here? Here's one of the links I followed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENwvxsfVM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENwvxsfVM8
- andrewxdiamond 5y ago
  I encourage you to apply occam's razor here. I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN.
  - gavinray 5y ago
    Here is the post that has vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 > I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN. I wish I could pull a cached view of the comment up (I tried), there wasn't anything I would interpret as being inflammatory in there. The comment boiled down to: "VICE isn't what I'd call the most reputable/unbiased source. I'd encourage everyone to do their own research/make their own decision. Here are a bunch of links of people walking around the same area, and it looks nothing like what is cut together from that VICE episode." The speed at which it was flagged and removed was shocking. Like I said, (maybe I am a bad person for this), I don't really care that much about China or politics in general. There are a lot of other things I'd rather spend my energy caring about, that directly impact me. I just wanted to call out this very odd behavior. I don't see HN as a place where people who speak objectively + respectfully get silenced, generally.
    - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
      As for the flagging, I believe HN auto-flags comments from new accounts that receive a large number of downvotes as an anti-spam feature.
hulitu 5y ago
> I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as USA since they searched phones at the border and you could be treated like a criminal based on who knows what.
- xinniethepooh 5y ago
  The difference is that in the USA the media is allowed, and does cover this. In China, there is absolute suppression of free speech/media/religion, and the active internment of people who dissent. You can't even compare the USA and China; China is objectively less free and more repressive.
chrischen 5y ago
I’m ethnically Chinese. While I speak a little I am still mistaken for a foreigner since I often hire a translator and I traveled extensively through China throughout the last 2 decades to many places both remote and urban on a US passport. Never had a problem with hotels (though mostly booked online) nor staying at relatives/friends houses, nor anything blatantly authoritarian besides my internet bring blocked (which I got around using a SOCKS proxy). I was also part of an Obama administration sponsored group of Americans sent to China for an entrepreneurship exchange trip and I think more Americans should be sent to China to learn about it rather than reading biased second hand accounts over the internet. While it was a guided and escorted tour, we were also allowed to freely wander the cities in some of the evenings. It would go a long way to ease tensions and reduce enmity between the two nations if there was more genuine cultural interaction instead of spooky observations from afar. People tend to exaggerate and boogeyman what they don’t know and understand.
- itsagavin 5y ago
  The reality is every step you took was observed and I would assume even where you slept both video and audio were recorded.
  - bigmanwalter 5y ago
    I backpacked through China and stayed in youth hostels. Highly doubt they were bugged. They didn’t even have heating (we used electric blankets)
    - chrischen 5y ago
      I think part of that is that a lot of infrastructure is missing, but also culturally less wasteful than American lifestyles. For example I stayed in my Japanese friend's house in Tokyo and he doesn't heat the entire place even though it's a pretty small apartment. My room just had a heated blanket as well. But I agree, for any random foreigner the government is not competent enough to surveil him/her and much less motivated to do so. The fact is any given foreigner is not actually that important...

by legofr 5y ago

RealityVoid 5y ago

I am surprised at what you say regarding the hosting of foreigners. My girlfriend was there for a couple of months and she didn't notice any such thing, and she actually rented a place with a couple of friends, also foreigners. Is this what you describe because of racism or because of government?

arvigeus 5y ago
Depends on where she lived. Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities are ok for foreigners. The further away you get, the more blurry situation gets.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  - mlindner 5y ago
    What? The US doesn't require anyone to register with the local government when traveling, foreigner or US citizen. Where are you getting this kind of misinformation?
    - dijonman2 5y ago
      Chinese misinformation campaign?
      - pksebben 5y ago
        going through whimsicalisms posts, and it's actually hard to build a picture of state-run propaganda. They talk about Taiwanese independence like it's a given, for example. This could possibly be a cultural misunderstanding. Never attribute to malice etc.
    - yawaworht1978 5y ago
      I don't know about the us, but in some places in Europe , the police or a security agency passes by daily to pick up a form that's filled out when checking in. Source, friend worked in a hotel and I have seen it with my own eyes.
  - learc83 5y ago
    Where did you get this from? US hotels most definitely do not “register (resident or non-resident) guests with the local government”. A few states require hotel guests to present an ID at checkin.
    - beebeepka 5y ago
      How can you tell if a hotel registers you with the local government? I am not saying they are (never bothered to cross the Atlantic) but you have no way of knowing what they do. My assumption is they all do, directly or not. I mean, 2013 did happen. Guess not everyone was paying attention
      - snomad 5y ago
        remind me, what happened in 2013?
        beebeepka 5y ago
        Check out this Snowden guy. He made some uncomfortable revelations
      - learc83 5y ago
        The “local government” are my neighbors the Sheriff and the County Commissioner. Then there are freedom of information requests, journalist, whistleblowers working for local government, and whistleblowers working for hotels. If the Sheriff knew who you were and had probable cause he could get a warrant to get your credit card transactions from your bank and from that see you were in a hotel. But that’s pretty far away from “hotels register you with the local government.” There was actually a hotel owner who took it on himself to report suspected undocumented immigrants to ICE a few years ago. We know about it because it quickly made its way to the papers, and caused an enormous uproar.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        Spoken like someone who's never spent any time in or around the US service industry. People will gossip, and something like this would be known - hell, I'd likely know it, just on account of knowing some folks who would know and would want to talk about it. I don't live in a tech monoculture, either geographically or socially, and I'm friendly, personable, and good at explaining complex systems simply. Because of that I get a lot of questions from acquaintances about everything from phone and PC repair to what human life might look like after a hard-takeoff singularity. Those conversations go lots of places, but often tend to converge on people's worries about tech in general, as they take the chance of a discussion with someone knowledgeable to check their anxieties against reality. So the surprise, if this were happening, would be more that by now someone hadn't mentioned it, over drinks or otherwise, in my hearing. That said, I don't find that lack at all surprising. What you're thinking of here is more of a Stasi-style "informers everywhere" kind of deal, and US domestic mass surveillance really doesn't work that way. Much more likely would be something like NSA watching payment card transactions en masse for debits from hotels and associating those with cell tower and identity data, and maybe also having quietly penetrated the major booking systems to spot cash purchases. In light of Snowden's 2013 revelations, it wouldn't surprise me to hear about either of those, and indeed I assume they are both being done. (Not least because that's probably how I'd build it. Why deal openly with a bunch of separate businesses and fractious employees when you can much more quietly and easily learn all you want from what's going over the wire?) And aside from all that - not for nothing is it so common a theme in our popular media, especially these last couple of decades, that by and large we'd really just rather not know. You've mentioned that you don't really understand America, and that checks out; if you did, you'd neither be surprised that the response to Snowden was mostly a yawn, nor need telling anything I've said in this comment. Our intelligence agencies certainly don't.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    The hell you talking about. I've been to roughly 40 states, and am "non-white" and have never had to do this shit at any hotel
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      You don't have to show your ID to check in?
alisonatwork 5y ago
Both. I have been refused access to a place because the landlord was openly racist and didn't want to rent to me after she found out I was a foreigner. There is pretty much no recourse for foreigners who are victims of racism in China, it's an extremely racist country. When you're a foreigner you just kinda have to accept that there are people who will cross the street or shield their kids when they see you, loudly complain when you sit next to them on the bus, refuse to do business with you, etc etc. Of course in rich areas of tier one cities where the government has an image to uphold, this will happen much less frequently. That said, definitely in the case of hotels there are loads of hotels it seems there is a legal aspect as well. If you lived in China you might be familiar with the long and boring process of registration with the police every time you move house. Sometimes you even have to register at more than one place because you moved into a different urban area. According to the law, all foreigners must do this everywhere they go in China, including tourists who are on holiday. It wouldn't be very efficient to make tourists spend a couple hours at the police station every time they checked into a hotel, so some hotels have some arrangement with the local police to do this on their guests' behalf behind the scenes. Most tourists nowadays don't even know that they have been registered with the police everywhere they travel. But smaller hotels don't provide that service. I have successfully blagged my way into staying at one smaller hotel by assuring them i would visit the local police myself to register, but a lot of them don't want the hassle or (perhaps) attention from the local authorities, so they just ban foreigners. When I left China it was during the pandemic, and pretty much no hotels at all would allow foreigners to stay. This was xenophobia, pure and simple. There were a few times I had to first visit the police station and ask the police where I could stay, because hotel after hotel after hotel refused me, despite my green health code, valid visa and so on.
- carlmr 5y ago
  I've had smaller hotels tell me they can't host foreigners due to some law that you need to have a star rating which they didn't. The only time I had problems booking a hotel was in Shanghai and Beijing though, in other cities there was never an issue. Also I was always greeted with utter friendliness, so I don't get the everybody's xenophobic aspect. I do speak some (very basic) Mandarin though so maybe that helps with how you're treated.

imbnwa 5y ago

On a lower frequency, this similar to why I'm not interested in tourism as "self-discovery", "new experience", or some shit, like the rest of the world is just stage and props for my existential theatre. I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. Even worse, the middle-class trend to make the number of distinct places you've visited some form of social currency ("how many stamps are in your passport?"). I remember this sales guy who always made it a point to tell every woman he talked to that he did Peace Corps in Africa and how it changed him working with Africans. Like, you could've just volunteered somewhere on the south side of the city if you really wanted to help some African folk.

rajin444 5y ago
Are you saying Africans and (black, which I assume you mean but I’m trying to be charitable) people in your city are basically the same? I imagine the lives and cultures in Africa are vastly different than whatever city you’re in.
- martin_a 5y ago
  I think OP is talking about some kind of "charity tourism" that's happening. I think Europe has some effects like this, too, where people prefer to go to Africa to "help some children" while they could be "doing good" by getting active in local organisations. No need to travel some thousand kilometres for that.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  You're also assuming that their town doesn't have a lot of African immigrants living on its south side, and that the speaker wasn't (very questionably) saying that their experience with Africans affected the way they interacted with local black people.
  - rajin444 5y ago
    That’s why I mentioned lives and cultures in Africa. African immigrant lives in x city are gonna be different than in Africa.

rootsudo 5y ago

This is mostly because they don't know how to register foreign passports. If you show them how to do it and present your passport, it is not an issue. https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/foreigners-allowed-hotel-registration-tutorial/ https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/for... So many foreigners/laowai spread the same misinformation. You can stay, if you have sufficient Chinese/Mandarin, you can explain the above and it works. If you have a good friend explain, it also works. Most say the same thing as you "kicked out" "not allowed" or "rascism". Not true at all, - at some hotels where I stayed I was really the first foreigner to ever pass through. (I wasn't staying in typical Shanghai places for example, more north and more west.) Not an issue at all, explained, showed, registered, done.

legofr 5y ago
In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done. In China you either need to go through an agency that have something similar to "The Negro Motorist Green Book" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book), or you need to speak Chinese, convince the reception that they don't need a certificate they believe they're legally required to have, convince the reception to call the owner who will no doubt repeat a foreigner is not allowed, then you need to contact the police to convince the owner, if the police agree that a certificate is required then you need to convince the police that they don't know their own laws, convince them to call the Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau.. that's what the person in your blogpost has been doing. She even told the police to give her their badge numbers so she could file an official complaint. That person is certainly living on the edge. Even if it's technically legal, then surely the end result will be the same - 9/10 hotels and apartments will refuse foreigners (for the apartments I rented then everything was done on paper, I doubt they have the booking system mentioned in the blogpost - not sure if all hotels use the same since I have never walked behind the desk and looked at their computer.. and they probably wouldn't allow it if I asked) because who in their right mind want to spend several hours and likely get the police involved just so they can rent a room for 200rmb.
- 5y ago

freeflight 5y ago

Reminds me of this channel 4 [0] interview with writer Benjamin Zephaniah. Tbh I find his reasoning, go there and see for yourself, much more convincing than your reasoning. Particularly this; > when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see Just reads like FUD, it's not China that locks up people at the highest rate on the planet. That "feat" is reserved to a country were nobody would say "don't visit there you might die!" even tho the chance for that to happen there is much more likely than in China or NK, where most police don't even carry guns. [0] https://youtu.be/zowOkv0Cuhk https://youtu.be/zowOkv0Cuhk

belval 5y ago
Considering the locked up two Canadians in retaliation for Canada arresting Meng Wanghzu. I just don't see how I could go there and not have anxiety for the whole trip. It's a shame though, I always wanted to see China.
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  I have Canadian citizenship and lived in China when the two Michaels were locked up. In reality, even if the worst fears are true and every foreigner is explicitly tracked and constantly monitored by the local police department, it still wouldn't really be worth the government's effort to "disappear" the average foreigner, or even "invite them to tea". Most of us simply aren't that influential or important. Of course, it does feel a bit suspicious when you say something mildly critical of the government online or during a meal with friends and then "mysteriously" the next day your VPN stops working, but it's just as likely that it could be coincidence and you're reading too much into it. But that's exactly how things are supposed to work in an authoritarian regime. Most of the time the government isn't explicitly watching over everyone, but because the legal system is deliberately opaque, everyone maintains a tiny bit of fear inside them that maybe they could be being watched, or that there might be a secret police just around the corner, so they self-censor and limit their behaviors just in case. So, you're right that you might have anxiety the whole trip, but arguably that means you're getting to experience the "real China". Living under a constant chilling effect[0] is probably worse for locals than foreigners. At least as a foreigner you can leave when the pressure gets too much. Most locals don't have that privilege. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

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powerapple 5y ago

It is true. The reason is that only hotels with passport verification system can accept foreign guests (all hotels have a system connected to police department to verify national id), most hotels only have a small national id verification system (because it was cheaper I guess), only some 4 star and 5 star hotels have these. I had once tried to use my passport to stay in a hotel, they didn't allow me then I learnt about this.

rvba 5y ago
Probably only the bigger hotels have an agent of ministry of state security on premises. You should assume that you get a bugged room too. Russians did it in the 80s, even easier now.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  All hotels have to report their guests to the local PSB, but some smaller hotels don’t (rules aren’t that enforced in China), but will avoid foreign guests because they easily bring attention from authorities. You can get away without reporting to the PSB in some way out places (like a hostel in the middle of nowhere I stayed in that lacked electricity beyond a simply hydro wheel), but those are rare, and not in big cities. The rooms aren’t bugged. Most foreigners aren’t that special. Maybe they will big some special hotel that gets lots of diplomats? But most of us won’t stay in those.
- powerapple 5y ago
  China only start to recognize passport as identification a few years ago, previously a Chinese citizen can only use national id. It was just a lot extra work for the hotel if they don't have this system. No, you can get bugged, but by the state, maybe by some creeps.

dfjhakdfhadkf 5y ago

gavinray 5y ago

Hey what sort of bullshit is this HN? I was reading a reply by a guy who counter-commented on this, a bunch of links of people on YouTube walking around this same area and not seeing anything like this. Then went to comment, and it says "flagged" and was deleted, in under 10 minutes. I don't really care about politics or China at all, but that is some spooky-tier censorship here on HN. Wtf is going on here? Here's one of the links I followed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENwvxsfVM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENwvxsfVM8

andrewxdiamond 5y ago
I encourage you to apply occam's razor here. I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN.
- gavinray 5y ago
  Here is the post that has vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 > I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN. I wish I could pull a cached view of the comment up (I tried), there wasn't anything I would interpret as being inflammatory in there. The comment boiled down to: "VICE isn't what I'd call the most reputable/unbiased source. I'd encourage everyone to do their own research/make their own decision. Here are a bunch of links of people walking around the same area, and it looks nothing like what is cut together from that VICE episode." The speed at which it was flagged and removed was shocking. Like I said, (maybe I am a bad person for this), I don't really care that much about China or politics in general. There are a lot of other things I'd rather spend my energy caring about, that directly impact me. I just wanted to call out this very odd behavior. I don't see HN as a place where people who speak objectively + respectfully get silenced, generally.
  - andrewxdiamond 5y ago
    As for the flagging, I believe HN auto-flags comments from new accounts that receive a large number of downvotes as an anti-spam feature.

hulitu 5y ago

> I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as USA since they searched phones at the border and you could be treated like a criminal based on who knows what.

xinniethepooh 5y ago
The difference is that in the USA the media is allowed, and does cover this. In China, there is absolute suppression of free speech/media/religion, and the active internment of people who dissent. You can't even compare the USA and China; China is objectively less free and more repressive.

chrischen 5y ago

I’m ethnically Chinese. While I speak a little I am still mistaken for a foreigner since I often hire a translator and I traveled extensively through China throughout the last 2 decades to many places both remote and urban on a US passport. Never had a problem with hotels (though mostly booked online) nor staying at relatives/friends houses, nor anything blatantly authoritarian besides my internet bring blocked (which I got around using a SOCKS proxy). I was also part of an Obama administration sponsored group of Americans sent to China for an entrepreneurship exchange trip and I think more Americans should be sent to China to learn about it rather than reading biased second hand accounts over the internet. While it was a guided and escorted tour, we were also allowed to freely wander the cities in some of the evenings. It would go a long way to ease tensions and reduce enmity between the two nations if there was more genuine cultural interaction instead of spooky observations from afar. People tend to exaggerate and boogeyman what they don’t know and understand.

itsagavin 5y ago
The reality is every step you took was observed and I would assume even where you slept both video and audio were recorded.
- bigmanwalter 5y ago
  I backpacked through China and stayed in youth hostels. Highly doubt they were bugged. They didn’t even have heating (we used electric blankets)
  - chrischen 5y ago
    I think part of that is that a lot of infrastructure is missing, but also culturally less wasteful than American lifestyles. For example I stayed in my Japanese friend's house in Tokyo and he doesn't heat the entire place even though it's a pretty small apartment. My room just had a heated blanket as well. But I agree, for any random foreigner the government is not competent enough to surveil him/her and much less motivated to do so. The fact is any given foreigner is not actually that important...