I knew traveling as part of a tour group was the pits. I knew that the Lunar New Year holiday is the worst time to travel.
Yet when my father proposed that my family go with a group of 20 other people to Thailand for Lunar New Year, I complied.
I did it out of guilt and a sense of duty, as a prodigal Chinese daughter who in the past eight years had barely seen my family. Short on time to plan a trip myself but feeling compelled to spend some time with my family, I thought I’d put up with the excruciation and the absurdity of being on a tour group.
As we arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of February 8, it turned out that more than 330,000 other Chinese people had had the same idea. Chinese made up a third of all international visitors to the South East Asian country over the Lunar New Year period.
Large groups of Chinese tourists amplify the loudness, crowdedness, bad behavior, and with their buying power — the stuff I’d read about in news.
In truth, poorly designed trips like ours keep Chinese from observing a different way of life, from thinking for themselves.
Our 5-day itinerary was a classic one for Chinese tour groups: Bangkok – Pattaya – Bangkok, dotted with activities tailored specifically for Chinese and shopping trips to gem factories and luxury outlets.
The vulnerability of the average Chinese like my parents — adventurous enough to want to see a world outside of China, but not sophisticated enough to plan their own trips — was nakedly exposed under the blazing Thai sun.
Everywhere we went, dozens of tour buses were loading or unloading visitors from mainland China. Glamorous ladyboys sang catchy pop Chinese songs from the early 2000s. Beaches were full of Chinese tourists.
New Year’s couplets and lucky posters were hung jubilantly on door frames. Alipay was ubiquitously accepted at stores.
As I suppressed the urge to break away from the organized events, I realized I had taken my English-speaking linguistic privilege for granted.
For the vast majority of Chinese people, their inability to communicate in English means they can barely get anywhere in a foreign country. As a resort, they pay agencies hefty fees, exchanging freedom for comprehensive services. And so they have no choice but to bear with the underwhelming activities, the overcrowded tourist spots and shopping schemes.
Even though the majority of people on my group were immensely bored when we were sent to tightly timed activities like elephant-riding or water fights, barely anyone complained. They simply sat quietly on the side, playing on their phones and murmuring, “home is better.”
Our tour guide, Ms. Yang, a third-generation Chinese from northern Thailand who speaks fluent Mandarin with a hint of a Taiwanese accent, served the group like a 24/7 babysitter.
She juggled multiple roles: money-changer, interpreter, sales agent, teacher of a crash course on everything about her country – and helper requesting extra towels from hotel staff.
Perhaps Ms. Yang was so helpful and considerate that my fellow travelers pretended not to pick up the occasional, subtle mockery concealed in her flattery.
When our tour bus drove by Bangkok’s Grand Palace, we saw people sitting quietly under tents set up outside the tourist attraction. Ms. Yang took the chance to educate the group.
“In Thailand, people have the freedom to protest, which is impossible in China.”
She soon followed it with: “But China’s economic growth has been amazing.”
On one occasion, she sneeringly asked the group, “you all know what Google is, don’t you?” Nobody uttered a sound.
But when a vocal, middle-aged man on our group who – despite repeated warnings from Ms. Yang – sneered loudly after watching a scheduled ladyboy show that transgender people were “dirty animals,” I thought he deserved all the ridicule he received.
I was conflicted throughout the trip. Outrage swelled up inside me when I saw signs only in Chinese warning tourists to behave. But the overbearing signs made sense when I witnessed, with utter embarrassment, a Thai person scolding a Chinese tourist who didn’t flush the toilet after using it.
On the final two days of the trip, nothing was scheduled but shopping. To coax us into spending, Ms. Yang candidly revealed that she would take a 3% commission from our purchases – and added that this was our chance to pay her back for her painstaking services.
As people on the tour proudly showed off their shopping trophies, we learned that two families had spent nearly 400,000 Thai baht ($12,500) on jewelry and purses. I overheard the designer watch-wearing Ms. Yang whisper to a woman she hadn’t hit her sales quota yet. But she appeared content nevertheless.
As Ms. Yang masterfully put it, the Thai government runs group tourism like a wholesale business, and tour guides like her act as sales staff. The growing number of middle-class Chinese tourists are perfect prey to fuel the country’s tourism-reliant economy.
My fellow group members kept buying things up to the minute before we boarded our flight back to Hangzhou.
It finally occurred to me that shopping was probably the only activity that was under their control.
Everyone relished the evenings when, after each full day of sightseeing and bus rides, they ventured into a 7/11 near our hotel and wandered through aisles of Thai snacks.
They paid on their mobile phones via Alipay, with small Lunar New Year cash handouts courtesy of Alibaba – all part of the Chinese tech juggernaut’s handsome subsidies to expand its overseas market. (Alibaba also owns Inkstone.)
We left Thailand without sampling the street food or people-watching on the bustling Bangkok streets.
I didn’t spend much quality time with my family, except for one night when we all opted out of a ladyboy show. Sitting in a bar in Pattaya I explained to my mother, who seemed to be unimpressed unless she was eating fresh durian, what “transgender” meant.
When asked about our trip at a family gathering after we returned home, my father responded plainly:
“Well, we’ve been to Thailand.”
By Shen Lu
