China
 China | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Language: | Mandarin |
| Capital: | Beijing |
| Population: | 1,321,851,888 |
| Currency: | Yuan (¥) |
| Hitchability: |  (good)
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| Meet fellow hitchhikers on Trustroots | |
| <map lat='35' lng='105' zoom='3' view='0' country='China' /> | |
China is the most populated country in the world and tourism is blooming with its rapidly expanding economy, but hitchhiking is only practiced sporadically and don't expect English can solve your problems. Despite relatively low crime rate compared to many western countries, local people tend to believe that picking a stranger on the road is unsafe especially on the highway and local Chinese also feel hesitated to get aboard on strangers' cars.
Thumb gesture is perceived as "good" and taken as a greeting, Chinese drivers will probably "thumb" you back and say "Hello" without thinking of stopping. The most common signal for hitching is to outstretch your arm and gently wave it. Drivers will try to drop you at a bus or train station.
Traffic regulation is practiced half-heartedly. Expect people to honk, drive while holding a phone, overtaking while going uphill, or combinations of these. Buckle up if you can. But when talking about 1.3 billion people, you can expect a big difference from one to another. Some hitchhikers reported that the driving style in China is a way safer than in Russia and neighboring countries. Chinese usually don't exceed speed limit much and they do buckle up.
How-to
Western concept of hitchhiking, as expected, doesn't exist in China. When many drivers feel unsafe to pick up a stranger, the willing one is likely a driver of commercial vehicles (especially small vans) and they expect a charge.
Even if you successfully hitchhike, it is painfully slow and generally won't get you to your destination, if it's more than 100km. Hitchhiking being an unusual phenomenon, the bus and rail system is efficient and relatively cheap for travelling a long way.
To increase your success, try to hitchhike in a gas station, traffic stop and car parks where cars stop or any places that cars tend to slow down.
Second is appearance. Stinky and hairy foreigners with sunglasses and ripped jeans look scary to some local people. Dress decently, better wear glasses, have a shave (good-student look). However, Chinese tend to be tolerate of all weird foreigners because they think they are. Just don't avoid looking like a hippie or beggar.
It is also unwise to say your final destination if it is far away because drivers may assume that you want them to take you to there. Pick the nearest major waypoint and say "往 X 方向" (Wang X fangxiang) (In the direction of X").
Bring a gaosu gong lu (public highways) atlas. That's gonna be your Bible. The cheapest ones are at the gas stations (30-40 yuan). Since you'll probably need beforehand to get to any gas station, you can buy your atlas at any big bookstore around (60-100 yuan). Don't expect to get one in English or even bilingual. It wouldn't be practical either, since most roadsigns are in chinese. Buy one road atlas in chinese, it will be easier to get locate yourself, and to make yourself clear when you point out your destination to any driver.
Note that the highways (red and yellow in the map) are often new and fast (100-160Km/h), where as the second level roads (yellow in the map) may be really bad and a fatal error. Stick to highways if you want to travel fast.
Cars have the character from their province and a roman letter indicating the city in the province (A is always the capital). If you are in Anhui and see a 成 (Chengdu's "Cheng") with some numbers and an A, that's from Chengdu. These clues just tell you where the cars are from, but if they are outside their province, 50% chance they are traveling outside, 50% they are heading back home, so you can use it as a quite reliable critteria to select which cars to stop. Sometimes, 4 cities in the same highway have A the first one (capital), then B, C and D. If you go from the capital and wanna head far thru this highway, don't pick B, cos yea it may be going to the fourth city but most probably it will stop where it belongs, at the 2nd one. Etc.
Most of the entrance to the highways from the cities in China, have a toll. Go there and talk straight to the drivers, pointing the atlas. Show them your notice. Go like: "Nihao! Qing wen, ni qu nali? Wo qu zheli, ni ne? Ni qu zheli ma? Wo shi yi ge ren!" (Hello! Excuse me, where are you going? I go here, and you? Do you go here? I am just one person!), etc. Keep saying "Oh hao hao, xiexie a!" (Oh good good, thanks, ah!) Unlike in Europe, ppl there will typically tell you the truth about where are they going, and once they do so, if you ask them to go with them and they have free space, they will hardly say "no", either because they are just too naive or because they don't want to loose face.
At the tolls, if you talk to the booth girls and the guards and tell them where are you going and what is your purpose, they will often offer you to ask the drivers for you as they keep passing with their cars through the booths to pay the fee, so you can just sit down and wait. If you are an extrovert person, you can try this: when you get to a toll, boost your self confidence, smile, raise your arms and make a little theater play, rallying everyone around you, and creating some suspense. Then proceed to explain your mission and involve them into your quest. Where as in most of the Western world they'd think you're a pariah and in a couple places in Russia & around you'd be clearly calling for trouble, in China, you will be surprised how easily you wake up interest among the locals and people actively follows your lead when you show some authority (in a good way). At some point in Gansu, I got myself driven around town with a local police car buzzing the siren to stop other cars and trucks that might be heading my way.
Tolls also have toilets and rest areas for the personnel, where, like in most places in China, you can get in showing enough self confidence (people there hardly question the authority... or people seeming to have it). This, and the lack of malice (at an individual level at least!) of the Han, makes most of China easy to hitchhike 24h without fear. Folks over there are genuinely good people!!
If you want to sleep while on the road, just pick a slow and confortable truck, you'll make 400km in 8h but that's better than getting into a city (count all the time to get in and out + expenses) and even better than sleeping at the tolls or gas stations!
When no tolls around, go to the rest areas where you can talk to people easily, or look for a jiayou zhan, a gas station. Without a big sign, I never got picked up there with the passing cars (ofc most dont stop); with the sign, it took from a few minutes to seconds. If you are in Xinjiang, write down the names in Uyghur too (Arabic script) and go with a Salam Alaykum shaking their hand with both your hands. They will love it and go back with a Walaykum Assalam. It really binds you to them, it gets to a pretty personal level, and you can feel it. It's kind of a muslim honor thing to help each other, and they really -really- feel that they have an obligation to assist you and make sure you will be fine at least until you get out of their "area of hospitality" (that is, their house, their village... their country!!).
In the end, it's all about adapting the message to their mindset. If you show doubt, they may ignore you; if you show self confidence, they will think you're someome and will listen to you; if you explain them you are "hitchhiking" because you enjoy it, they won't be capable of understanding it, no matters how you put it, even if you talk in Chinese - to a 20yo toll clerk in deep Gansu you are little less mysterious than an UFO, and she will more likely be stuck with your white skin, big nose and the fact you speak two words of Chinese than paying attention to what you've got to say; with such lack of understanding, they just won't be able to help you and they will want to take you to the bus station and get u a ticket; if, instead, you create a story, a mission, a purpose, like the cultural thing, and you decor it with nationalistic stuff like "stretching friendship links with Chinese people", they will get it fast and cooperate.
All this information is by no means an attempt to manipulate people, but simply a set of tools and methods that will allow you to improve your game and get the best out of your interactions with people with a complete different mindset. It's, basically, about shaping your message so that they can understand what do you want and help you out in your quest.
Hitchhiking with people from such a distant culture is really an experience.
Regions
There are probably big differences between the different regions in China.
- please add more info if you've hitched in many parts of China
Hong Kong Special Adm. Region of China
Macao Special Adm. Region of China- Tibet Autonomous Region
- Sichuan
- Yunnan
Inner Mongolia
I hitchhiked around several villages in the western Gobi, using Erenhot as a base. Truck drivers do not expect tips--at least, they did not when I offered money to them. However, private drivers will often request inordinate amounts of money for short distances, so it's best to ask "Doh Shao Chian?", which means "how much?" before getting in.
Chinese is the majority language, especially in the cities. As a Mongolian speaker who only knew a few words of Chinese, people were surprised at me, but pretty accommodating--outside of cities, there is usually at least one person in the room who speaks Mongolian.
You should know that, if you leave the cities, the police WILL detain you here at least once, and you should make according time allowances. In such a case, do not panic--they will actually be very helpful and friendly when they realize you're not a criminal. They will take you to the station, ask you questions, and when satisfied, release you. Have your visa ready, and expect to be asked "What are you doing here?". The whole process takes between one and three hours. Be prepared for this situation, as it happened to me three times in as many days. Consequently, anyone considering hitchhiking here MUST be able to speak enough Mongolian or Chinese to get through this situation.
Cities
Expressways
“Highway” doesn't mean the same as in occidental countries but express ways are great for going long distances. As of 2007 a lot of expressways are still under construction, and most traffic consists of trucks that don't go too fast. When you can, try to hitch with normal cars. There are quite a few cops on the expressway, but it doesn't seem to be a problem to walk along them.
Cops help you rather than being a problem, they even stop buses for you for free
Language
English in rural or even urban areas are rarely used. Get yourself a phrasebook (beforehand) and a pocket dictionary. Here are some helpful phrases.
Basic Vocab
搭便车 da bian-che: Hitchhhike. That's probably what you want to write on a big card board.
公路 gong-lu: literally public roads, which means either highway or national road
高速公路 gao su gong lu: means expressway (expway)
国道 guo-dao : national road
謝謝 Xie xie : Thank you
这裡 zhe-li: Here
那里/哪里 Na-li : There / Where?
Conversations
我要去..."wo yao qu ...." ( I/want/go to) means "I need/want to go to . . ."
你要去那里？ "ni qu nali?" (you/ go to / where) means "Where are you going?"
在这里停就行 "zai zheli ting jiu xing" (at/here/stop/okay) means "please stop here"
Chinese, like many Asian languages, is a tonal language which means a change in a pitch will drive to different meanings. Without basic training, most westerners will find it hard to pronounce Chinese well at an decipherable level. But if you print the Chinese characters out and show them to the driver, things will work pretty smooth.
Police
In the South the police was unaware, or friendly but very confused, to Guaka and amylin. Most of the time the police didn't do anything while walking along the highway or trying to hitch. Once, at the highway entry of Kaili in Guizhou, they started talking, found someone who spoke English, and brought the hitchers to a bus station, where the police paid for a bus ticket! Another time the highway police was very confused again, and it took 2 1/2 hours to find a translator and be left alone at a highway entrance again. Fijau hitchhiked through Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Henan without being bothered by police. In Xinjiang police even helped him to get a ride. Problems started to occur in Zhejiang (Eastern China, near Shanghai). Several times police didn't let him onto the expressway through the toll gate and took him off the expressway while passing by.
Maps
There are not so many online or offline maps in English. Do buy a map though, even if it's in Chinese, maps of provinces are cheap (10 yuan) and very useful, you can point to it and people might sometimes understand what you mean. You can buy a map of China with names in English and Chinese, but because of the scale it's not very useful while hitching.
Sometimes the indication used for roads aren't very accurate, so you might be thinking you'll be on a nice highway for a while, when it suddenly becomes a 1 lane road going through villages. This is also goes while hitching, on a highway, sometimes a sign might be indicated for a big city, but if you pursuit this, you can find yourself on a dirt road in no time.
Very good is the Tourist Atlas of China. It is in English and Chinese, a small book with all the provinces. But it's hard to find though, Worldhitch got it in Beijing at one of the biggest bookstores. The province maps in Chinese are pretty good, if you have the tourist atlas, you also have the bigger cities in English as a reference point, and hitch on the small roads with the province map.
Note: Be aware of Chinese maps - sometimes they are developed for the (often quickly changing) future! They show highways which are not yet existing, or they having wrong distances between cities. Its always good to have two or three maps (the province maps as well) and then search for the truth in the middle.
Border Crossing
To Kyrgyzstan
Links
- Some very useful info in CS group thread.
- More info in CS hitchhikers group
- Jojo Z's experiences with hitchhiking in China (Jojo is a Chinese girl)
- Hitching in China, a Russian Website with tons of information. Some of them available in English.
- Website with photocopies of maps of all provinces and some cities as well.
