China Now

01Two Kinds of Now

What in present-day China does a visitor bump into, and what has to be travelled to see?

There are two ways a foreign visitor meets contemporary China. One kind bumps into the visitor. The other requires a decision to travel somewhere specific. The bump-into kind needs no planning. A robot drops a plate at the table, a shared bike unlocks when scanned, a hospital registration slot is already arranged in the phone before leaving the hotel. The destination kind asks a quieter question: what will the eye actually see today, and which day should I go to see it?

This page uses that split as a filter. If a place cannot answer what the eye sees today, it does not earn a card. An exhibition board and a slogan are not sights.

Three objections have to be settled before the split holds.

Objection one: green-skin trains are not new, so why are they on a page called Now? Because this page asks what the present looks like. It does not ask what is new. The green sleeper and the Fuxing train run on the same network at the same hour, at two price points. The Beijing to Shanghai corridor is the cleanest illustration. The slow train covers the route in about 19 hours across many stops, with a hard seat at a fraction of the fast fare, which means the country can be crossed cheaply by anyone with the night to spend. The Fuxing on the same corridor covers it in about four and a half hours, at a fare several times the green-skin one, and saves a large part of a day. Both are running today. This page does not rank them.

Second objection: villages with a well-known story turn out to be exhibition boards on arrival. The filter applies. Such a place either gets no card, or it gets one line saying pass through if nearby, do not plan a detour. The villages that pass this screen are the ones with a bed and a meal. Xiajiang village in Chun'an has dozens of B&Bs, which means a weekend trip ends with a home-cooked dinner and a room, and the village is a place to stay. Longji (龙脊梯田) Dazhai, Youyang Taohuayuan, and Wulong (武隆) Jingzhu clear the same bar for the same reason.

Third objection: driverless taxis are well known from headlines, and a foreign passport rarely unlocks one. That is exactly the failure case of the bump-into category, and it belongs on this page. White sensor-topped cars turn at intersections in Wuhan (武汉). A visitor will probably not ride one. Being able to describe what is visible and what is locked is more useful than being told that driverless taxis exist in China.

02Two Chinas on the Train

What is it like to ride a Chinese slow train instead of the high-speed one?

Two passenger rail systems run on the same tracks in China today. The high-speed network carries silver-and-red Fuxing trains at up to 350 kilometers an hour, and the conventional network carries green-painted slow trains that stop at every county. They are two price tiers on one grid, and this block compares them by price and time without declaring which is better.

The Beijing to Shanghai corridor shows the gap. A Fuxing second-class seat covers the route in about 4.5 hours, which means a traveler can leave the capital after breakfast and take lunch in Shanghai. The slow train on the same corridor costs a fraction of the high-speed fare and takes about 19 hours across many stops, which means the same distance is crossed far more cheaply, if the journey is treated as part of the trip.

Three slow routes are worth naming, because they are still running. The Baoji to Guangyuan (广元) slow train covers 350 kilometers across 33 stops in about 9 hours and 30 minutes, a full day of slow rural travel at a very low fare. The Zibo (淄博) to Taishan (泰山) slow train covers 184 kilometers in about 4 hours, which means a morning ride to the foot of Mount Tai (泰山) costs next to nothing. Note the station name: the slow train ends at Taishan station near the mountain, while the high-speed train ends at Tai'an station, which is a different stop. The Zibo to Tai'an high-speed alternative runs about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Cross-border sleepers have their own status. The Beijing to Ulaanbaatar sleeper runs weekly. The Beijing to Moscow service has not been restored to regular running, and online posts saying it has returned are mostly travel-agency marketing. For a long international sleeper, the K23 domestic segment to Erenhot (二连浩特) can be arranged on 12306, with the international segment handled at the window.

Foreign passports can register and buy train seats on 12306. The catch is at the station: the auto machines do not read foreign passports, so the manual window is used or the physical passport is scanned through the gate. Allow an extra 20 minutes for this on an opening trip.

Shanghai adds one more train. The maglev from Longyang (隆阳) Road to Pudong Airport takes 8 minutes and reaches 430 kilometers an hour, which is the fastest commercial ride in the country and a viable way to catch a tight connection.

High-speed stations are buildings in their own right. Shanghai Hongqiao station links airport, metro, and long-distance bus under one roof, which means new visitors should allow at least 40 minutes to walk from the metro exit to the correct platform.

03On the Road

What can a visitor actually do with China's metros, robotaxis and sea bridges?

Once outside the station, the surface layer of present-day China has four recurring pieces: metro, robotaxis, long bridges, and highway rest stops.

The metro in many cities uses a security screening at the entrance. Bags go on a conveyor and the visitor walks through a frame, which adds five to ten minutes to a trip at rush hour and means a train connection should not be cut close. Chengdu (成都)'s fares are among the cheapest urban rail in Asia, and entry is by scanning an Alipay (支付宝) or WeChat (微信) QR code without a paper pass. Last trains run in the late evening depending on the line, which means a late dinner in another district needs a plan home after that hour.

Robotaxis are the visible-but-unusable item. In Wuhan (武汉), driverless vehicles operate across a large area, so white sensor-topped cars can be seen on the street. In Beijing's Yizhuang district, several companies run commercial driverless services, but the zone sits far from central tourist areas. In Shenzhen (深圳), a city-wide driverless permit has been granted. The shared problem is access. Each standalone app expects a Chinese ID number, a face scan, and a Chinese mobile number, and foreign passport self-registration consistently stalls at the real-name step. The working bypass for tourists is to call through Amap (高德地图)'s aggregated ride-hailing, paid by Alipay, which works smoothly in Guangzhou (广州) and Shenzhen. In Wuhan and Yizhuang, the reliable path is asking a local or the hotel desk to order on their account. Expect to see them everywhere and ride them rarely.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is 55 kilometers of bridge and immersed tube tunnel. The shuttle (观光车) bus crosses in about 40 minutes, which is a practical way to move between Hong Kong and Zhuhai without the long drive through Humen (虎门). A small private car pays a crossing fee, and pedestrians cannot walk onto the bridge, so the shuttle is the way.

On intercity highways, service areas appear roughly every 50 to 60 kilometers. They offer fuel, toilets, and simple food, and the larger ones now carry familiar chains such as KFC or Starbucks, which means a long road trip can be planned around coffee and a clean restroom, and no snack bag needs packing. Truckers sleep in their cabs at the back of the lot, and a few service areas now have cheap showers for drivers, a detail noticed by those who stop past midnight.

04The Unlocking Thing

Can a foreigner unlock a shared bike, a power bank or a massage chair in China?

The opening small shock in a Chinese city is how many objects unlock when a phone is pointed at a QR code. Bikes, power banks, umbrellas, and massage chairs all run on the same idea: scan, pay, use, return. The question for a foreign visitor is whether a passport and a foreign credit card clear the gate.

For shared bikes, the path that works for many tourists is inside Alipay (支付宝). A Visa or Mastercard is bound to Alipay before arrival, which completes identity verification once, and then the bike QR code is scanned directly. Three brands dominate. HelloBike, painted blue, is the smoothest: searching HelloBike inside Alipay opens the mini-program (小程序) that uses the existing Alipay identity, with no separate registration. Meituan (美团), painted yellow, hides the passport option inside a low-contrast document-type dropdown in its standalone app, and a foreign passport goes to manual review that takes a day or more, so the upload should come two days before riding. Qingju, painted green, reuses the Didi (滴滴) account and mostly works, but occasional rejections are reported, so HelloBike is the backup. A single ride is cheap, cheaper than a single metro trip in many European cities.

Shared power banks live in cabinets at restaurants, malls, and cinemas. Scan the cabinet, pull one out, and return it to any matching cabinet. Rates are modest per hour, with a daily cap, which means forgetting to return one overnight costs the cap, and it does not keep running as an open-ended meter.

Shared umbrellas and massage chairs work the same way. A massage chair in a mall or station costs a small sum for 20 minutes, and without payment it can still be sat on with the motors not running.

One category does not open to foreign visitors. Standalone electric-scooter rentals, the kind found at a beach or scenic strip, typically require a Chinese mobile number and a Chinese bank card, and some cities add a local driving permit. Treat them as unavailable and rely on the shared pedal-assisted e-bikes inside the Alipay flow, which ride on the same rules as the bikes. A row of colorful scooters locked to a rack that cannot be unlocked is the foreign-card boundary, not a broken lock.

05The Robot's Dish

Where do robots serve food in China, and what is it like?

The robot a visitor is likely to meet is not the humanoid in a lab. It is a waist-high tray on wheels, and it is already in the restaurants, hotel corridors, and campus paths of many Chinese cities.

Food-running robots are the commonest sight. Pudu Robotics, a leading maker in this segment, has shipped well over a hundred thousand units, which means they are found at Haidilao and other national hotpot chains, where they carry raw plates from the kitchen to numbered tables. When one reaches the table, it speaks a short recorded line in Chinese asking diners to take their dishes, and it waits until they do. If a diner or a chair blocks its path, it stops, waits, and routes around. At peak dinner it is slower than a human server, because it politely yields to every obstacle, but it never forgets which table ordered what.

Hotels run a second variant. When takeout is ordered or something is bought through the hotel app, the front desk places the bag on a robot shelf, and the robot rides the elevator to the floor, rings the room phone, and waits outside. The door opens, the bag is taken, and the robot returns to the lobby. This is common enough in mid-tier business hotels that it saves a front-desk trip at 11 p.m.

Dedicated robot restaurants exist but are fewer. The Country Garden Qianxi robot restaurants, in Guangzhou (广州) and Foshan (佛山), use robotic arms to assemble steamers and burgers and rail carts to deliver dishes to the right table. Haidilao's smart-restaurant branches add a noodle-pulling arm in the waiting area. These are experiences planned for, not ones bumped into on the street.

Unmanned delivery vehicles operate inside closed campuses and industrial parks. They are seen on university roads and in gated office compounds, carrying parcels and takeout between a delivery shed and a building lobby. On public streets they are still rare, and foreign tourists rarely interact with them directly. They drive slowly, stop for pedestrians, and sometimes honk a recorded tone when a bicycle crosses their path.

The honest experience note: these robots are quiet, predictable, and slightly slower than the human they replace. They do not make small talk, and they do not rush. Watching one for five minutes explains the labor arrangement more clearly than any product brochure. It also shows which jobs they have not touched: the dishwashing, the soup ladling, the noodle pulling, and the greeting at the door still belong to people.

06A Day in One Phone

What does a day handled entirely by phone look like in China?

A normal day in a Chinese city is organized around one phone, and the parts that surprise new visitors are the routine ones.

Hospital visits are a large shift. Instead of lining up before dawn at a hospital gate, the hospital app or the city health platform is opened, a department, a doctor, and a time slot are picked, and the consultation fee is paid on the phone. On arrival, the patient goes straight to the waiting area and the screen calls the name. Lab fees and pharmacy payments also settle in the app, which means no cash is carried to a clinic and there is no line at a cashier window. For a foreign visitor who has set up Alipay (支付宝) with a foreign card, this is usable, though some hospital apps still default to Chinese ID numbers and may ask for registration at the front desk once.

Government halls follow the same logic. A one-stop government service hall lets an applicant submit one application and have several departments process it together, and a foreign passport can usually be handled at a single window, which means an administrative visit takes one trip instead of walking from building to building across a government campus.

Street-level commerce is cashless. A wet-market stall has a printed Alipay or WeChat (微信) QR card taped to its counter. The card is scanned, the amount the vendor calls out is typed, and the green confirmation screen is shown. No one expects small bills, and older vendors read the confirmation screen as carefully as they once counted cash.

Takeout arrives in lockers. The rider cannot enter many residential compounds, so the order goes into a metal cabinet at the compound gate, and the app sends a pickup code. The code is typed and the door springs open. This means no waiting on the street for a rider, and no missed delivery because of being in the shower.

Unmanned convenience stores appear in office lobbies, subway stations, and airport concourses. A code is scanned at the gate, the shopper walks in, takes a drink or a sandwich, and walks out; the system bills the card on file on leaving. They are small, usually under 30 square meters, and stock drinks, instant noodles, and snacks.

The backbone of all of this is 12306, the railway platform, which has hundreds of millions of registered users and accepts foreign passport registration. If the phone can buy a train seat, it can also hold a doctor appointment, a vegetable purchase, and a midnight snack.

07How Fast It Gets There

How fast are delivery, courier and trains in China, in practice?

A visitor arrives in a city and within two hours understands its pace: it arrives through deliveries. This block is scenes and figures.

The meal at the hotel. Delivery ordered from the room in a city like Shanghai, Chengdu (成都), or Guangzhou (广州) typically arrives within about half an hour by the platform's own account. What this means for a trip is that an order placed in the early evening can meet the rider at the front desk soon after. Peak lunch and dinner windows, rainy evenings, and city-center traffic stretch the wait, so fifteen to twenty minutes is worth adding at mealtimes. The rider sends a message in the app, and many hotels hold food at the front desk for guests.

The parcel that follows. An item marked self-operated and ordered before the daily cutoff is usually delivered the next day across covered cities. What this means for a trip is that a purchase made in Shanghai can reach the front desk of a hotel in Chengdu by the next afternoon, which matters when a charger, a replacement item, or a piece of clothing is needed mid-journey. Remote counties and western provinces sit outside the next-day promise, and the platform states the cutoff time at checkout.

The train that leaves on time. Boarding usually opens about ten minutes before departure at the gate, the doors close a minute before, and the train pulls out on the printed minute. Arrival at the destination is normally within about five minutes of the printed time. What this means for a trip is that tight connections work: a forty-five minute transfer between two high-speed trains is comfortable, and a dinner or a driver pickup can be arranged at the city end without padding the arrival.

The locker downstairs. Residential compounds and office buildings across many cities place parcel lockers in the lobby or the ground floor. When no one signs for a parcel, the courier leaves it in a locker and sends a code to the phone. What this means for a trip is that a hotel or a short-stay apartment can receive parcels around the clock without anyone present to receive them.

The wider figures for network length sit on the transport page. Here, the half hour, the next day, the on-time departure, and the locker code.

08How Far a Passport Gets

What does a foreign passport actually get in China, and what needs a Chinese ID?

This block is the scale for the whole page. Every service named in blocks 01 to 07 sits in one of four tiers: what a passport alone opens, what needs a Chinese mobile number, what needs a Chinese resident ID card, and what will be photographed on the street and cannot be used.

Tier 1, passport plus a bound foreign card is enough.

• Train seats on 12306: register with the passport, then collect at the manual window or pass the gate by scanning the passport; the self-service machines do not read foreign passports. What this means: any domestic train seat can be bought before landing.
• QR payment: bind a Visa or Mastercard to Alipay (支付宝) or WeChat Pay (微信支付), and the payment code works at shops, street stalls, and metro gates.
• Shared bikes: the smoothest route is the HelloBike mini-program (小程序) inside Alipay, where the Alipay identity carries over with no separate signup. Meituan (美团)'s own app hides the passport option in a dropdown and runs a manual review of a day or more, so open that review two days ahead; Qingju occasionally fails, which is why HelloBike is the fallback.
• Shared power banks and the metro ride QR: the same code opens the power-bank case and the metro gate.
• The Shanghai maglev: pay at the window or scan the code.
• Many scenic-area entries: take the passport to the staffed window.

Tier 2, a Chinese mobile number is required.

• Meituan Bike's standalone app sends a verification code to a phone number, and without a +86 number the loop closes; the Alipay mini-program bypasses this.
• Some unmanned convenience stores run entry and checkout through an app that verifies a Chinese number.
• Food delivery: Meituan announced support for overseas-number registration on 10 August 2026, covering browsing, ordering and delivery, with payment still running through Alipay or Weixin Pay. Eleme still asks for a Chinese number at signup, and for either of them the Alipay mini-program remains the route that rides on the identity already held.

Tier 3, a Chinese resident identity card (身份证) is required.

• Standalone robotaxi apps such as Apollo Go, PonyPilot+, and WeRide ask for a Chinese ID number and a face scan. What this means: reliable self-registration with a passport is unlikely.
• Entry to Shibadong Village: the official rule reads "by ID card," and whether a foreign passport reads at the turnstile is unverified.
• Some one-stop government services in the online single window run on the resident ID.

Tier 4, visible but unusable.

• Robotaxis on the street: Wuhan (武汉) runs a large commercial driverless fleet across its district, so they are seen at intersections and curbs. Foreign-passport self-registration commonly stalls at real-name, and the dependable route is a local account, a hotel concierge, or a tour that orders the ride. In Guangzhou (广州) and Shenzhen (深圳), the Amap (高德地图) hail inside Alipay reaches some of these cars.
• Standalone electric-scooter rentals ask for a Chinese number plus a Chinese bank card, and foreign cards rarely clear.
• The K3 Beijing to Moscow sleeper has not resumed regular service despite online posts saying it is back; the Beijing to Ulaanbaatar sleeper runs weekly for a cross-border sleeper.
• Member pricing at some robot restaurants: the dining floor is open, the member tier stays behind a Chinese account.

Tier 1 covers almost everything used each day. Tier 4 is a thing to photograph, then to ask a local to order.

09The Sand Planted Back

Which of China's planted-back deserts can be visited, and when?

Five sites, each answered by one question: standing in it today, what do the eyes meet?

Kubuqi (库布齐), Ordos (鄂尔多斯). A large share of the desert has been treated. What this means for a trip is that the dune stood on is half dune and half fixed ground. At Xiangshawan, Engbei, and Seven Lakes the visitor walks past straw checkerboards, the square straw grids pinned over sand to hold it while saxaul and sand willow take root. Spring and autumn are good months, because summer midday heat closes the desert by noon. Half a day to a day is enough.

Saihanba (塞罕坝), Hebei (河北). Forest cover on the mechanical forest farm has risen from about a tenth to over four fifths. What this means is that driving north from Beijing reaches a sea of even-aged larch and Mongolian pine that runs over the ridges to the horizon. The forest farm and the Seven Lakes wetland park (湿地公园) sit inside the same scenic area (景区). Summer is the cool window; late September brings the autumn yellow. A guide from the farm needs advance arrangement.

Mu Us (毛乌素), Yulin (榆林). The treatment rate around Yulin is very high. What this means is that driving the Baomao expressway through Yulin barely shows a shifting dune out the window; the sand has become farmland and shelterbelts. The Jinjie afforestation base shows the work close up, in rows of pine and willow over straw squares, and it needs a phone call a few days ahead because it is a working base, not a paid park.

Minqin. Between the Tengger (腾格里) and Badain Jaran (巴丹吉林) deserts, Qingtu Lake now holds water again, with reed beds and migrating birds in spring. The Suwu Desert scenic area adds sand sculptures, saxaul rows, and a slide-sand run at a low fee or no charge. What this means is a half-day stop on a drive, with boardwalks over the reeds.

Babusha, Gansu (甘肃). Three generations planted 217,000 mu, about 14,500 hectares, of shrub belt that holds the southern edge of the Tengger. What is seen is waist-high caragana and saxaul between straw grids, with a ranger hut by the road. Entry is free but needs a call two days ahead through the practice base, which provides an explanation.

One figure frames all of this: national forest cover has risen steadily over the decades. What this means is that the green seen from the plane over northern China is a real trend, and these five sites are where the visitor can walk inside it. Each is remote; plan a car.

To walk in the sand rather than look at it from a platform, the hiking page carries the desert and grassland routes.

10Managing Water

Which Chinese dams and water works can a visitor see, and on what dates?

Four water projects, each answered by when to go and what is on the water that day.

Dujiangyan (都江堰), Chengdu (成都). Built in 256 BCE as a damless diversion of the Min River (岷江), it still irrigates a large share of the Chengdu plain. What this means for a trip is that the Fish-mouth levee, the Flying-sand weir, and the Bottle-neck channel are working structures, water running through them now. Walking the three structures in order shows how a sloped weir spills flood and gravel back out.

Three Gorges, Yichang (宜昌). The dam station is a major hydropower station. What this means is a concrete gravity dam across the Yangtze wide enough that the five-step shiplock and the vertical shiplift are both visible at once. From the Tanziling viewpoint and the River Closure Memorial Park the visitor looks over the upstream reservoir, the downstream tailrace, and the dump trucks and concrete blocks left from closing the river. The dam area needs advance arrangement.

Middle-route canal head, Xichuan. The Taocha sluice in Xichuan County, Henan (河南), is where water leaves the Danjiangkou reservoir and starts its northward main canal. The transfer moves billions of cubic meters a year. What this means is that part of the tap water drunk in Beijing comes out of these gate openings, and a visitor can stand beside the straight concrete canal running north. Entry to the canal-head scenic area (景区) is free, with a day's advance call for the explanation.

Xiaolangdi (小浪底), Henan. This is the one with a date. The annual sediment-and-water regulation opens in late June and runs about three weeks, with the heavy-flush phase in early July. Weekend capacity fills through the official WeChat (微信) account, and a bus from Luoyang (洛阳) runs to the second visitor center in about two hours. The core viewpoint is the bottom deck at the water outlet, facing the sediment tunnels. What this means is the decision point: in late June to early July a visitor stands under a brown, churning plume of sand-laden water, and outside that window the same dam is a calm green reservoir. Miss the window and the result is a pleasant lake.

11Villages Selling Now

Which Chinese villages are worth a night, and what can be eaten and arranged there?

Six villages, each answered by what a visitor can do in it today: a bed, a meal, a view.

Xiajiang, Chun'an. The village is free and needs no advance step. What this means is a drive in after the Qiandaohu high-speed station, about 40 minutes by car, and a stay without any arrangement anxiety. There are dozens of family inns, and bamboo-raft drifting. The meal is home-style pork and Qiandaohu lake fish. Spring rapeseed and autumn rice color the valley.

Longji (龙脊梯田) Dazhai, Guangxi (广西). A combined pass covers the terraces for several days across Jinkeng, Pingan, and the Zhuang (壮族) village. What this means is a night in a wooden stilt house of the Red Yao, bamboo-tube rice, and the next morning's light on the terraces. The filled-water season is April to May; the ripe-rice season is September to October. The inn owner doubles as a guide.

Youyang Taohuayuan, Chongqing (重庆). A 5A valley reached through a karst cave, with peach trees and paddies in the hollow. Entry is arranged through the county tourism account. What this means is a trip planned around March, when the peach trees flower; outside that window the cave and the fields still work, and the namesake bloom is gone.

Jingzhu, Wulong (武隆). A cluster of renovated old wooden houses on Xiannu Mountain at about 1,200 meters, with a library and a cafe and cured-pork meals. The village itself has no separate fee; what controls entry is the Wulong scenic area (景区), which runs real-name timed entry (分时段预约). What this means is a cool summer base with sea-of-clouds mornings, booked for the room.

Shibadong, western Hunan (湖南). Free to enter, but the rule is advance arrangement through the village WeChat (微信) account and entry "by ID card." Whether a foreign passport reads at the turnstile is unverified, so allow a backup. The shuttle (观光车) is inexpensive; about 13 family inns serve Miao (苗族) home cooking. What this means is a half-day or overnight stop in a Miao hillside village, with stone paths and embroidery stalls, and a plan to ask the inn host about gate entry.

Cliff Village, Zhaojue. The 2,556 steel steps up the cliff have been open as a paid experience, with local villagers as safety guides who show the rope and check the ladder. A cable car (索道) now runs beside the climb. What this means: the climb takes two to three hours each way, wear grip shoes, and go April to June or September to November, avoiding the July to August rains. The villagers have mostly moved to county-seat apartments; the people on the mountain now run the lodge, the restaurant, and the safety line. Whether a gate fee is charged conflicts across sources, so cash and a question on arrival are worth bringing.

This block stays on what can be arranged and eaten. These six are working villages; the old towns proper, with their main streets and second lanes, are on the towns page.

12When to Go

When is the right time to see each of these, and what belongs on other pages?

A timing table for the places on this page, and a note on what this page owns next to three others.

The dates that matter.

• Xiaolangdi water-and-sediment regulation: the third week of June to the middle of July. What this means: plan Luoyang (洛阳) around late June to early July, or a calm lake is the result.
• Desert control sites: April to May and September to October. July midday heat closes the Kubuqi (库布齐) dunes by noon, and winter cold shuts the Gansu (甘肃) shrubs.
• Longji (龙脊梯田) terraces: filled water in April to May, ripe rice in September to October.
• Youyang peach bloom: mid-March to April.
• Cliff Village: April to June and September to November, skipping the July to August rainy season when the steel steps are slick.
• Villages generally: avoid the busy farming double-harvest window and the national Golden Week, when rooms triple; the calendar page carries the dates for that week.

How this page splits from the transport page. The transport page says how long the railway is and how many kinds of train run. This page says what it feels like to sit an overnight green-skinned sleeper: the hard seat for 9.5 hours on the Baoji to Guangyuan (广元) slow train, the vendor walking the aisle, the window that goes dark. The network is theirs; the body of the ride is here.

How this page splits from the digital page. The digital page explains what a cashless society is and which apps to install before landing. This page says the consequence in daily life: the hospital registration line is already handled on the phone by the time of arrival, the parcel waits in the lobby locker, and the food arrives at the front desk. The mechanism is theirs; the line that disappeared is here.

How this page splits from the industry page. The industry page maps where the industrial belts are. This page keeps to what a member of the public can enter: a robot restaurant's dining floor, a plant showroom, a museum. Factory shop floors and technical visits run on a business-visitor line and are not booked by tourists here.

The one-line criterion. The three pages say what this country has. This page says what a visitor's body will bump into, and equally what it will reach for and miss.

13What This Page Is Not

What does this page on present-day China not cover?

Eight corrections for the reader who expects this page to be something it is not.

• Not an achievement exhibition. This page lists what a traveller can see and use, not what the country has built. A number without a consequence for a trip does not appear here.
• No guarantee of hailing a robotaxi. Autonomous cars can be seen on the streets of Wuhan (武汉), Beijing Yizhuang and Shenzhen (深圳) Qianhai. Foreign passport holders usually cannot register the standalone apps, and the fallback is a ride-hailing aggregator or a local person calling for the visitor.
• Not a replacement for the transport, digital and industry pages. Those three pages say how long the railway is, how the cashless system works, and where the industrial belts are. This page says what a body feels when sitting the train, waiting at the hospital, or standing in the showroom.
• No policy narrative. The villages and desert sites are described as they are today, with what can be eaten and where it is possible to sleep. The story of how they got there is not on this page.
• Green trains are not a nostalgia project. The 1461 from Beijing to Shanghai and the 6063 from Baoji to Guangyuan (广元) run on the same network as the high-speed trains. They are a lower price for a longer ride, not a museum piece, and seats sell out at holidays.
• Villages do not guarantee a room. Xiajiang has 37 guesthouses and Shibadong has 13, but both fill on weekends and golden weeks. Walk-in arrival in peak season (旺季) may mean sleeping in the nearest town.
• Water-and-sediment flushing changes date every year. Xiaolangdi opens in late June and runs two to three weeks, but the exact start depends on reservoir levels and rainfall. Check the Yellow River Conservancy Commission notice before planning.
• Prices change, use official channels that year. Train fares, maglev fares and village entry fees change from year to year. 12306 and the official scenic area (景区) accounts are the source to trust.