Freedom To Enter, Freedom To Leave
As an Australian foreigner living in China, I have come to appreciate the numerous differences associated with living abroad. Despite how foreigners in China stick out like sore thumbs to curious local Chinese, China nevertheless affords me relative anonymity.
Far from Sydney, Australia and all its associated pressures, in China I can travel, work, study and live as a relatively anonymous individual. No one knows my history, or background. I can just make a new persona up, or detox from my Western identity in a land where English is not the national language.
In China, I also have come to appreciate that us foreigners have the freedom to enter, and the freedom to leave. When a foreigner from abroad comes to China, it is a bonus to fall in love with the lifestyle in China. Foreigners who like China can thoroughly enjoy themselves, explore the country, and find reasons to legally extend their stay in the country.
However, on the flipside, if foreigners for whatever reasons don’t like China, those foreigners are free to leave at any time. A foreigner like me only needs to book an airplane ticket, travel back to Australia, and return to those beautiful blue skies, pristine weather, deep blue oceans, and the friendly Australian people.
This freedom to enter, freedom to leave, is a freedom that Chinese people as a whole cannot enjoy for themselves.
Overseas Travel Barriers That Chinese Face
Chinese government policy on the requirements for overseas travel is quite strict on Chinese nationals. Chinese people wishing to travel abroad are first required to prove that they have a large amount of money in their bank account. This is the reason that group travel emerged in the Chinese market, to circumvent the Chinese government policy requirements on personal finances.
Chinese people also need to prove their intentions to the government. If an international business sponsors a Chinese national to travel abroad for work purposes, or Chinese have an invitation letter from an international university (and tens of thousands of dollars in their bank account), these would be favorable to the visa approval process.
If a Chinese national plans to backpack or simply wing it in a Western country, the chances to be granted a visa would be slim.
The threshold to leave China for a majority of Chinese is so great that they are trapped in their own country, unable to leave. China has made it easier to be granted a visa for certain countries (e.g. Russia) and harder for Western countries (e.g. America).
A Chinese person’s hukou (户口) status also factors into their chances to travel abroad. For a Chinese person living in the countryside with a rural hukou, escape from China would be a dream.
The Benefit Of Being A Foreigner In China
In terms of class cultures in China, it is important to note that foreigners are not imprisoned in China, unable to escape. Foreigners have a ticket to leave China whenever we want, whereas a Chinese person has to achieve a certain threshold to ever travel outside of their homeland.
The truth that travel agents will probably never tell you is that almost every other country in the world has somewhere better to go to than China.
The exclusivity of international travel for Chinese nationals is such an obstacle, that those Chinese nationals who have tried yet failed to obtain a travel visa, probably look at us foreigners in China differently afterwards.
Embracing Cross-Cultural Friendships In China
Personally, I believe that if Chinese people are unable to leave China due to their status in society (i.e. class and wealth), it would be beneficial to make friends with foreigners in China. However, in my personal experience, I have come to learn that there are many cultural differences to overcome. When Chinese befriend foreigners, it becomes a complex but rewarding friendship.
If Chinese people and foreigners tried to develop a friendship, both parties could learn many different aspects of a foreign culture from each other that could not be learnt from their own society. They can each develop their mind and gain experience from exchanging stories and cultural differences, and they will develop as individuals as well.
However, if Chinese people limited themselves to only makes friends with their class level, to make friends, eat dinner, and see a movie only with Chinese people, to make all their friends, colleagues, and bosses Chinese, and conduct all their communication in Chinese, then these same Chinese people will never challenge themselves in life.
In my travels around China, I have encountered many Chinese friends who have never traveled overseas yet have amassed worldly experience. These Chinese people are not content to just live in a small world, with a small-mind mentality.
Like Westerners who also are open to befriend people from various cultures all over the world, these friendships help to build tolerance and acceptance for other cultures.
Globalism has changed the way the world interacts. More Chinese people are leaving China than ever before. More foreigners come to experience China than ever before too. The Chinese visa system leaves many of these Chinese people behind.
Sometimes when I encounter unsavory locals in China, I think to myself, “I can leave any time I want, but you are stuck here.”
That is the harsh reality of the Chinese visa system.
As the dynamics of the world change, and affluent Chinese leave to travel overseas, the ones who are unable to leave could adopt a ‘freedom to approach, freedom to explore’ mentality. Otherwise, when a local Chinese is confronted with a foreigner who holds a different position to theirs in society, they will be stuck in their inescapable class prison, and won’t know what to do.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
