Xiamen is a very relaxed city by Chinese standards. People say that is because of the proximity to Taiwan, meaning there has always been affluence and a certain limited exposure to the outside world. No one batted an eyelid to see a Westerner. Xiamen is popular as a tourist destination for the Chinese, although it's a more laidback type of tourism, people come for the beaches and to hire tandems to cycle along the promenade.
I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the hostel I am staying at, who is Chinese but married to a Westerner, about the dramatic shift in China from Communism and collectivism to rampant consumerism. This is something almost every traveller I have met in China has remarked upon, but it is hard to escape: in modern China, shopping malls are everywhere, garishly lit up and packed with crowds, and advertising is everywhere too - even on the Subway systems, there are screens showing advertisements.
Read more at http://www.travelblog.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment