Travel and tourism

Travelling is 旅行 lǚxíng and going sightseeing is 旅游 lǚyóu. The nuance is the same as between travel and tourism in English: you can 旅行 for work, but you only 旅游 for pleasure. The two words share 旅 lǚ, and the ancient character shows two men walking under a flag; the Han dictionary, the 说文解字, makes it a unit of five hundred soldiers, 军之五百人为旅. The traveller was first a troop on the march. As for 游 yóu, to swim, to stroll, it carries on its right the streamers of a banner. Two flags for a single word (I don't know whether the two are related), and Chinese package tours still follow the guide's little pennant today.

The first choice, then, is between 跟团游 gēntuányóu, “the trip that follows the group”, and 自由行 zìyóuxíng, “free travel” (sentence 9). For the second, you read 攻略 gōnglüè, literally “attack strategy” ⟶ the word first meant the taking of a stronghold, then the walkthrough of a video game, and finally the advice a traveller posts for those who come after (sentence 17). Preparing a trip, in Chinese, amounts to laying siege.

At the border you go through 海关 hǎiguān, “the barrier of the sea”: China's first modern customs houses were those of the ports. 入境 rùjìng is “entering the border”, 出境 chūjìng leaving it. For passports and visas, see Services and formalities. Since the end of 2024, nationals of many European countries, France among them, have been entering China without a visa for short stays: this is 免签 miǎnqiān, “the signature waiver”. But beware, these rules change often: check them before you leave. On arrival there is still 时差 shíchā, “the gap between the hours”, which you 倒, which you “turn over” to get over it (sentence 12).

Luggage is called 行李 xíngli. The 李, the plum, has nothing to do with it: in the 左传, 行李 meant a messenger, an envoy, and I don't know exactly how the emissary turned into a suitcase. Your big suitcase goes 托运 tuōyùn, “entrusted to transport”, and your bag stays 随身 suíshēn, “following the body” (sentence 14). For the plane and the train themselves, see Public transport.

When it comes to hotels, the choice of words is wider than you might think. The 宾馆 bīnguǎn is “the house of guests”, the 旅馆 lǚguǎn “the house of travellers”, more modest. The 酒店 jiǔdiàn, literally “the wine shop”, came from Hong Kong and Cantonese to mean the big hotels. Careful: in Beijing, the 北京饭店 is not a restaurant, it is one of the oldest hotels in the city. The 招待所 zhāodàisuǒ, for its part, was the guesthouse of a government body or a state enterprise, and the 民宿 mínsù, “lodging with the locals”, has taken its place in tourist towns.

At the 前台 qiántái, “the front counter”, you ask for your room, leave a 押金, a deposit (sentence 10), and receive a 房卡 fángkǎ. Watch out for the couples' trap: the 标准间 biāozhǔnjiān, the “standard” room, has two separate beds; for one large bed you have to ask for a 大床房 dàchuángfáng (sentence 11). On the other hand, a small hotel may still turn away a foreign guest, simply because it is not set up to register their passport with the police. When you leave, you 退房 tuìfáng, you “give back the room”, usually before noon (sentence 7).

A good hotel gives the feeling described by 宾至如归 bīn zhì rú guī, “the guest arrives as if returning home” (sentence 21). The phrase comes from the 左传: a minister of Zheng complains there about the lodgings set aside for foreign envoys, recalling the days when visitors felt at home in them. So it started out as a reproach.

Tourism in China means first of all the 景点 jǐngdiǎn, “the scenery point”, and its 门票 ménpiào, “the ticket of the gate”, often expensive (sentence 3). The group follows the 导游 dǎoyóu, “the one who guides the outing”, and the Chinese themselves sum up these tours with a mocking formula: 上车睡觉，下车拍照, “on the coach, sleep; off the coach, snap”. During the National Day holidays, the sites are packed (sentence 13). For the main destinations, see the page Travel.

The photo, in fact, has taken over. People go to a 网红景点 wǎnghóng jǐngdiǎn, a spot made famous on social media, to 打卡 dǎkǎ there, literally to “clock in” as at the factory: you take a picture of yourself in front of it, post it, and leave (sentence 20). The habit is older than you might think. In the 西游记, the “Journey to the West”, the Monkey King believes he has reached the end of the world and writes on a pillar 齐天大圣到此一游, “the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here”. The pillar was one of the Buddha's fingers. Ever since, 到此一游 dào cǐ yì yóu has meant tourist graffiti, and in 2013 a Chinese teenager carved it once again on a temple in Luxor.

China's great traveller remains 徐霞客 Xú Xiákè, who crossed the country on foot for some thirty years under the Ming and kept a travel diary. The first entry (sentence 23) is dated the last day of the third moon of 1613, that is, 19 May, which is why 19 May became China's Tourism Day in 2011, the 中国旅游日. He is a fine illustration of the proverb attributed to the painter 董其昌 Dong Qichang: 读万卷书，行万里路 dú wàn juàn shū, xíng wàn lǐ lù, “read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand li”. Books are not enough.

And yet tradition does not look kindly on leaving. The 游子 yóuzǐ is the son gone far away, the one in the Song of the wandering son by Meng Jiao, whose mother mends his clothes before he sets off. Confucius asked that one not travel far while one's parents were alive, or at least that one say where one was going (sentence 25, see Chapter 4 of the Analects of Confucius). As for Li Bai, he saw the whole world as an inn, 逆旅, “the lodging that goes out to meet” travellers, and time as a 过客 guòkè, a passing traveller (sentence 24). From this he concluded that one should 秉烛夜游, wander at night by candlelight. One more 游.

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