Tips for American Tourists in China

Following up on an earlier post: 15 Guidelines for Chinese Tourists Abroad, I now present AdventureLogue’s own Guidelines for American Tourists Traveling in China:

1. Unless you’ve had a lesson, don’t even try to speak Mandarin to a Native Speaker, they won’t understand you, you’ll sound like a drunk teletubbie to them. Just point to the words in the phrasebook.
2. Don’t ask for directions to ‘Chinatown.’
3. Your taxi driver is not related to Jackie Chan, or Jet Li.
4. The “Ming Dynasty” has nothing to do with basketball.
5. Don’t ask for a refund for all the crappy stuff you bought at Wal-Mart that broke in a week.
6. Don’t Google “Tibetan resistance,” better yet don’t google at all.
7. Don’t offer to host a panel on “Media Censorship in the 21st Century.”
8. Smoke. A lot. And frequently.
9. The term “Sleeper Bus” is not an indication that you may be able to sleep while riding on one.
10. The roller coaster on the Great Wall at Badaling is not historically accurate.
11. Don’t expect to see many signs in English outside Shanghai and Beijing. Except for the words ‘Wal-Mart.’
12. Don’t ask if they use MSG.