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Photos claim to show difference between Chinese and other travelers, somehow show less and more

Casey Baseel Oct 25, 2014
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There’s a collection of photos making its way around the Internet which attempts to point out a huge difference between Chinese and Western travelers in airports. Whereas the latter are content to relax or read a good book, the Chinese can’t seem to take their eyes off their electronic gizmos. Haha! Isn’t China wacky, guys?

Honestly, I like a cheap laugh as much as the next guy, but just like how there’s a certain price point you shouldn’t go below when buying underwear, there’s such a thing as a laugh that’s too cheap. When you really stop and take a look at what’s going on in these photos, trying to draw any sort of broad conclusions about the Chinese character from them makes about as much sense as slipping on a pair of burlap boxer shorts.

Racism is an ugly thing, because it ignores the fact that deep down inside, all of us are equally capable of arriving at dumb conclusions.

“Okay, who brain-farted?”
“We all did!”
“It smells like a rainbow!”

For example, even though the photo collection has been posted on English-language sites under the title “Chinese glued to technology vs foreigners chilling out at Bangkok airport,” the photos, and theme, originally come from the Chinese news site Zhejiang Daily.

▼ By the way, that’s a weird title when you remember that in Thailand, Chinese people are foreigners too.

If you quickly skim through the photos, they do all indeed seem to show Chinese travelers engrossed in playing with their tablets and smartphones. Meanwhile, nearby Caucasian travelers seem to be far less tethered to technology.

Except, can this all be chalked up to just a difference in nationality? Is everyone in China so committed to hurtling towards the future and staying up to the minute on online trends, while people of other nations are enlightened enough to enjoy the timeless appeal of a good book?

Maybe, but I’m not exactly sure the photos stands as irrefutable proof. Remember, these photos were taken in Bangkok. From there, it’s about a four-hour flight back to Shanghai, and roughly four and a half hours to Beijing. That means the technophiles from China probably have a much shorter flight home than the Western travelers around them, who may be looking at nine hours to Sydney, 12 hours to Frankfurt, or a 16-hour trip to San Francisco.

If you figure an inflight movie is going to kill two hours, and allow another 30 minutes or so for the meal, it’s not surprising that the Chinese man seen in one of the photos decided not to pack a bulky, heavy hardcover for his trip to Bangkok, just so he could kill an hour or so of downtime. The blond guy behind him, though, could probably use plenty of extra reading material, seeing as how his smartphone battery might not last for his whole flight home.

Besides, it’s not like carrying a book automatically means you’ve risen above the dumbed-down siren song of technology, as evidenced by several photos of Western man wearing headphones while reading a paper book.

Wearing noise-cancelling headphones revokes your right to be called a luddite, no matter how attached you are to paper media.

Something else to note is that in some of these shots, the people with smartphones look to be a couple of decades younger than the ones without. In one photo, an older Chinese man is only looking at a smartphone because the younger woman seated on his left is showing him the screen, and he doesn’t look particularly interested in the device.

“Man, I could really go for some books about now.”

Again, we’re guessing the dichotomy seen below has less to do with the smartphone users being Chinese, and more to do with their being born after 1990.

But still, doesn’t this point to a shortcoming in Chinese social skills? How can they all be that wrapped up in their gadgets? Why, they should take a cue from the non-Chinese around them. You know, the people who haven’t forgotten the art of conversation. Surely they’re all absorbed in lively discussions, right? Nope, as man of the Western travelers are shown staring straight ahead, with zero conversation going on between them.

“I swear to God, if I have to listen to Roy crunching on those damned potato chips for the whole flight back, I’m gonna kill him.”

Hmm, maybe these Chinese travelers are onto something about bringing a smartphone to keep yourself entertained while waiting for your flight. And yeah, sometimes when things look weird overseas, there’s actually a reason for it.

Source: Shanghai List, Tianya
Insert image: Wikipedia/gronico