Can you travel in China without speaking Chinese in 2024?

Travel in China without Chinese

Can you travel in China without speaking Chinese? The simple answer to this is that yes you can. The realistic answer though is that with English regressing and the new payment systems it is extremely hard if you do not speak Chinese.

Now this might well surprise you if you ingest social media at all. This is because it would appear that every “influencer” and their dog are visiting China right now (I swear if I see another Chongqing video I will scream). 

Where did all the English teachers go?

Towards the end of the 2010’s and indeed before Covid-19 came knocking the level of English in China was drastically Improving. This was largely because Chinese kids got lessons from private as well as public schools.

This changed early in the pandemic when China decided kids did too much school and outlawed private English schools. Sadly though while this sounds “nice” English schools (I was a teacher) had a more playful environment and were something Chinese kids looked forward to. 

Alas it has also not worked at all (I have a Chinese kid) as now they just do other classes like piano and the work to rest ratio in China has not changed.

In fact the more cynical among us would suggest it was much more about getting ride of potentially bothersome foreigners who now largely are just not there. This was most profound for me perhaps in Beijing and Yangshuo. Interestingly I found in both places people would assume I was Russian, them now being the “friend”. 

In fact the only people, quite literally who are foreign and still there happen to be married (although they do not have residency.

I find these points particularly interesting when I see and hear of Chinese immigrants to the UK complaining because quite simply it is incomparable. 

Do people in English speak Chinese?

Again prior to now English levels in places like Beijing and Shenzhen were becoming really good, but this has since been seriously retarded. This means that now when I travel to China I really notice it. And I do not mean with street vendors and the like, but even in places like the Hilton where often they will start in English before I need to just whack out my Chinese. 

Therefore this means that when I travel in China alone I am required to speak Chinese all of the time. And yes I know before you say it “but this is China”. I appreciate this, but that does not make it tourist friendly. Also the same people who say this also cry a river in the west if we do not have translators for migrants on boats. I digress…..

These problems sadly cannot be solved by Google translate for the most part with only prices shown in calculators being of any use. Therefore for everyday things you should have at least some base in Chinese even if it is just asking for prices and the like if you wish to travel in China.

Money when you travel in China

Back in 2019 WeChat pay and AliPay were big, but had yet to take over. Nowadays many things cannot be paid in cash even if you can get some from the very shrinking number of cash machines.

This has been fixed to some degree with foreign cards now being able to be added, which is something you surely should do, but it is not a silver bullet. I personally now have my Chinese cards back on WeChat, but they were known to regularly fail leaving you high and dry. It is also very fiddley if you are not used to it. 

Can you use cards when you travel in China? 

Visa, MasterCard, Amex, JCB? All pretty much useless in China with even UnionPay hardly being accepted. The exception here is obviously withdrawing cash, which as we have already discussed is almost useless when you travel in China. 

This excluded high end hotels, BUT even at the Hilton do not rely on the ever lesser used Apple Pay. In fact they do have it, but do not know how to use it with me having to quite literally teach them how it worked when I was in Kunming.

So, can you travel in China without speaking Chinese?

Yes you can, but realistically unless you have a Chinese speaker with you, or come as part of a tour you will not have a great, or easy time. 

This though is something I can help fix with one of my wonderful Young Pioneer Tours China Tours.