Recently two French friends of mine who had come to China in 1993 announced their intention of returning for a second visit. They asked me to draft a hassle-free itinerary that would enable them to travel on their own. Why the caution? There are two big problems. By far the greater is the difficulty of getting basic information in China. The second headache is language, which remains a major obstacle to relaxed, confident travel. True, a huge wave of English study swept over China after Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics. But though many study, few learn -- learn, that is, enough useful spoken English to offer outsiders effective help.
Tourists are not on the job when they leave home. If travel in China is too much of a slog, they will choose another destination. Poor information -- absent, wrong, inappropriate, hard to obtain, hard to understand -- constantly threatens to undermine the pleasure of visiting this country.
Everywhere signs are inadequate. Suppose a tourist wants to take a bus out to the Great Wall: where to get the bus, where to buy a ticket, when buses run, whether seats are limited, which number to phone to find out -- all of these things are unclear.
And nowhere in China do there seem to be the sort of well-marked street-side tourist offices or information booths where a traveller can go and get complete, free information about an area -- the sights, lodging, transport, entertainment, shops, food, timetables, prices -- in a number of languages. And travel agencies in China don't even have local maps! Why would they? They exist only to sell plane or train tickets to customers who already have an itinerary. Ask a travel agent in Guiyang what's worth visiting in the area and the answer will probably be "Nothing." Why bother to stock information and maps for travellers when there is no money to be made for the travel agency? What would be the point of knowing how many kilometres there are between Guiyang and, say, Sanjiang? In Qinghai not a soul could tell me how many buses run from Xining to Golmud, or when. As travel agencies don't sell bus tickets and get no commission for helping tourists, why should they go to the trouble of obtaining this information and spreading it around?
One time, before leaving Beijing for Qinghai, I checked the Xining website. There wasn't much information there -- another lost opportunity to make travellers feel at ease -- but it did say that there was a travel agency in an important hotel near the train station. Once at the hotel, however, I had to ask five people staffing the front desk before one finally said, "A travel agency? Uh, maybe in the courtyard…" And lo, there was a travel agency of sorts, with two young women chatting away, unable to answer even my most basic questions. But believe me, you don't have to go to out-of-the-way places like Xining to encounter this sort of problem in China.
Tour guides: very few really know what they are doing. Often their knowledge of English is so limited that they must stick to a fixed text, which they recite by rote. They can't actually converse with visitors, and questions are an unwelcome embarrassment. The information guides give is superficial, and they have no further knowledge to add. Just try asking a local guide (even in Chinese) about the significance of a Taoist monument for Taoists, for example. Most visitors soon recognize the inadequacy of guides here and, out of pity or disgust, stop asking real questions.
Foreigners who travel in China have usually visited other countries. Guides should not talk to tourists as if China were full of wonders without parallel elsewhere. The Neolithic was not unique to China, nor were stone axes and knives, bone needles, or fired pottery. Westerners may well have seen similar things elsewhere -- and almost always in better museums. Also, cross-culturally sophisticated guides would not date Chinese objects by dynasty, as this will puzzle any Westerner not versed in Chinese history. It is better to say "This temple was founded in 1550" or " about 450 years ago" or "in the 16th century" rather than "in the Ming Dynasty".
Tourism could give a powerful boost to the economy in many parts of China, not least in poor but beautiful areas with few other resources. But tourists will never feel at ease till the authorities and private entrepreneurs understand the value of dependable information provided by friendly, intelligent faces in a timely fashion -- or on well designed websites. The fear of being helpless amid chaos and indifference will keep countless travellers away. It doesn't have to be that way: China could easily learn from Europe how to set up a convenient system of public information for travellers that would provide abundant benefits for visitors, businessmen, innkeepers, preservationists, guides, and language students alike.