>read up that Hainan,China is visa free
>get excited and start planning my trip there
>contact hotels and airlines in the area to ask about the visa free policy
>they tell me they don't know and to contact the immigration bureau in the province (of course none of them leave a phone number or email for me to contact them)
>do some reading
>apparently visa free is only for people directly flying to Hainan Island
>no flights from my country fly direct to that island
>only possible option is to fly through Hong Kong
>that option literally doubles my airline ticket
so wtf is even the point of making it "visa free"?
>so wtf is even the point of making it "visa free"?
So that people pay up to fly in directly, duh.
>Travelers coming from the 59 eligible countries can also apply for the 30-day free visa, if they travel from or transit via Hong Kong (or other third country/region) to Hainan by a direct flight.
As i understand, it's visa free if you landed in Hong Kong.
Pretty much like Macau
China is shit for foreigners, don't go there, they don't need your money and don't appreciate you being there.
What countries are better than China?
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Maybe I should go to San Francisco to see the poop on the streets or the Paris subway.
>What countries are better than China?
frick off chang, show me the visitor numbers to all those countries your government gave visa-free access to. No one wants to go to your shithole. Just hammer out cheap trinkets, that's the value you bring, frick off with everything else.
Well the OP wanted to go to that "shithole" and we have a general on China so....
>what countries are better than China
Practically any. China is the only country that makes booking a hotel inconvenient and stressful as fricking frick. I literally wasted an entire day going to like 20 hotels because of their moronic ass fricking "sorry we don't accept passports here" policy. After I found a hotel my trip was great but until they fix that China is in my bottom 5 countries that I recommend visiting. It doesn't even make sense as if they were to fix this China would be in my top 5 countries to visit. they are purposefully shooting their international tourism industry in the foot with this moronic policy.
My guess is that the tourism bureau of China is filled with moronic rich boomers who think every international tourist wants to go on a tour and stay at the most expensive over rated hotels in their country.
Can't risk having any journalists
>"sorry we don't accept passports here" policy
what the frick is this?
>I literally wasted an entire day going to like 20 hotels because of their moronic ass fricking "sorry we don't accept passports here" policy.
any branded 3star or above hotel is part of the system which accepts foreigners. if you were trying to get some local guesthouse to accept you then fair enough, that might not be so easy, but if you are staying in a hotel they can definitely take you if they want.
>practically any
Can we please stop with this? If someone wants to go to China, they should go to China. There's no substitute. I don't care what you say, and Taiwan isn't the same. Does it suck that China is a commie hellhole? Yes. Does it mean "go somewhere else?" No, frick off. That's like saying Russia sucks so you should go to Ukraine instead. It's dumb.
Ukraine and Russia really are the same though. Ukraine is just a poorer Russia.
What you call "shit for foreigners", another would call "challenging, authentic and unspoiled by mass tourism". Even in Taiwan, which is reputed to be far more friendly than the mainland, most people are decidedly cool toward foreign visitors. Smiling warm welcomes are rare, though everyone politely says thank you in Chinese after doing business.
But if you are adventurous enough to break through the cultural barrier of frigid Chinese personalities and extroverted enough to stand out in a crowd, you can find it very rewarding.
I actually think Chinese are incredibly welcoming amd friendly. The problem is that their culture is incredibly different, the language barrier and they are quite uncooth. Taiwanese are much better at english and more westernized so they don't really have this problem.
Another problem is that brainwashed morons will come to China and think everything is a CCP conspiracy. Knew a guy who thought he was getting spied on. moronic mutt was an English teacher teaching kindergarteners. Have to be delusional to think the government gives two shits about you.
I had the same highly welcoming experience with Chinamen. They literally gave me free money when I got stranded due to a banking snafu. Possibly why I counter-shill so hard against the people hating on China and Chinese people.
Kek me 2
>go to China after COVID restrictions get lifted
>everyone was super friendly and overly nice to me
>shilll for them for free on SighSee
Dem lil chiggas can pay me back later
>Dem lil chiggas can pay me back later
kek based happy Tuesday bro
They were literally the friendliest people I met. Well, the ones who interacted with me. Got so much food, drinks, travel tips, tips on how to not pay for tourist attractions, etc.
I ended up drinking with locals at basically every bar I went to alone over a 2 week period, are you brown perchance? Because then it would make sense
Come on now, half of Taiwanese are as brown as any Southeast Asian.
I'm European American and don't speak Chinese. They don't like that any more than Americans would feel kindly toward a lone foreigner who refuses to speak English.
Ching chong ping ling
You slanty eyed c**ts deserved nanjing btw
Many countries (most western ones, some others) can get a 144-hour transit visa on arrival in China. It limits you to stay in to the city/surrounding area you arrived, but you can go and see Beijing+great wall, Shanghai, or wherever for a few days without bothering with the hassle of getting a visa
I haven't done it but I likely will later this year/next year. Some European countries that sucked Xi's wiener got 2 weeks visa free now too but not mine
Something to note though, if you have a Turkish stamp in your passport you could potentially be denied the transit without visa. Some Chinese visa centres in Asia will apparently even deny tourist visas if there's a Turkish stamp.
Why Turkey? I have a Taiwan stamp, could that cause me problems?
No issues with Taiwan, but people have been denied the transit without visa for having Turkish stamps, it's because of Turkey's position on the Uyghurs. Admittedly I don't know the situation as of 2024 but it was definitely the case before covid, I know it because I wanted to use the 72 hour transit without visa to go to North Korea, and Koryo Tours recommended to get a Chinese tourist visa, they said "if you have a Turkish stamp in your passport, expect to be denied the TWOV". Google "china turkey stamp" or something like that and you'll find reports from people who have been denied it
you can transit to hainan from china too. what it means is that if you are passing immigration for the first time in china at the immigration in hainan, then you will be given the visa-free entry for hainan. so you can fly to any major chinese airport and then, if you connect directly through the transit channel and not enter china, fly to hainan and collect the 30 day visa exempt entry.
it is also saying that if you are in china and then go to hainan, you cannot get the 30 days visa free entry and need to rely on your china visa.
god damn chinese architects are on a whole other level of badass
you can say that again
Hainan is renowned as an oppressive shithole. Why are you even sweating visa shit when you can go to Taiwan and have an actual good time
mainland china was almost too comfy when I went there 7 years ago. I just want to experience that again, holly molly
This. As a black transgendered women I never felt so hated as I did in China.