Chinese children remaking the European Grand Tour

Swarovski and classical music

Hello Global Jigsaw,

I do apologize for the recent silence, but I have been traveling across India and trying to disconnect after the annus horribilis that the last year has been. I return to Spain at the end of the month and will be back on a regular schedule after that. But I thought I would send you a truly fascinating piece to tide you over. One that details the time I spent tailing a troupe of Chinese primary schoolers as they remade the traditional European Grand Tour according to their own tastes and consumer culture. Let me know what you think.

Oh, and do subscribe, if possible.

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A thick layer of snow brightened the Tyrolean night sky as the streets of Kufstein gradually fell silent. Tired out by a busy day on the ski slopes the tourist throngs were turning in for bed. But within the usually lugubrious environs of the Thaler hotel there was pandemonium. Great gaggles of ten-year-old Chinese kids swarmed the corridors, their chatter echoing loudly.  

“Hi,” one of them called out to me boldly. Her friends clustered around giggling. “Ni hao”, I replied. “Have you had a fun day?” My Chinese was rusty, but adequate. The kids looked nonplussed and momentarily fell silent.

“Are you Chinese?” asked a bespectacled boy. “Do I look Chinese?” I countered. “You speak Chinese,” he said. A girl with smart, bobbed hair and a very grown up expression sighed at his ignorance. “Don’t you know?” she said, turning towards him with a slight frown. “These days its normal for foreigners to speak Chinese. Its no big deal.”

What was in fact increasingly normal was the sight of hordes of Chinese children hitting Europe’s ski slopes, fanning through the continent’s shopping malls and filling up its chocolate shops. If its school vacation in China, its study-tour time in Europe.

I joined one of six groups of kids a German company, European Culture and Studies  (ECS) Tours, had brought over to Europe for the Chinese New Year break in late January. ECS was run by a young couple: a German lawyer Rudolf Reiet and his Chinese girlfriend Xing Li.

They were new players in the lucrative market for Chinese study groups in Europe. Parents paid up to RMB 60,000 ($9,500) to send their kids on a 2-3 week whirlwind tour of the continent’s sights. But in addition to holiday pictures the kids were also expected to bring home skills like eating with a fork and knife and learning the appropriate time to clap at a western classical music concert.

Chinese children holiday in Europe (top) to learn on Kufstein’s ski slopes (Photo of children by Pallavi Aiyar)

So what was on the agenda? Chinese tourists, who visit the continent by the busload, much like the Japanese before them, had already re-made the traditional European Grand Tour according to their own tastes and consumer culture. Typical stops included Paris for the romance and Louis Vuiton, Switzerland for mountains and chocolates, little know German towns like Trier, the birthplace of Karl Marx and Metzingen, home to several factory outlets and the headquarters of Hugo Boss, and Italy for canals and gondolas.

The kids from Chongqing were getting a truncated version of this Grand Tour with a few days each in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. By the time I met up with them they’d already been to Switzerland and had a day in Austria. I was to travel with them to Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Munich, before parting ways.

There were 35 children in my group all from Bashu Primary School in Chongqing. It was the playground for China’s elite.  There were three types of kids who are part of the tour Rudolph explained. The largest group was made up of the children of high officials of China’s ruling Communist Party. “Its really easy to tell who these are. They talk just like little lingdao (leaders), ready to launch into a politically correct speech at the asking.”

Then there were the kids of entrepreneurs.  “You can spot these pretty easily too,” smiled Rudolph telling me about a child from last summer’s group who brought extra packets of instant noodles along with him to sell to classmates fed up of the European fare on offer at the inflated price of 5 euro each.

The third category of students was the smallest. Children of parents of modest means who had saved up to afford their kids the opportunity of visiting Europe. 

The next day we’d set off early. It was icy cold, but the children were warmly dressed in wool-lined boots and gore-tex jackets.  Our coach driver was a beefy, mustachioed Hungarian. Drivers from Hungary were cheaper and much more flexible regarding work hours compared to their Austrian counterparts, Ge Qingfei, the young tourist guide accompanying us informed me. Guide Ge was from Shanghai and had the kind of chocolate-box good looks of a Taiwanese pop star. He’d lived in Germany since his student days and was in charge of all the logistics for our group.

I sat up front next to Zhang Qi, the group’s “cultural instructor.” It was Teacher Zhang’s job to play DVDs relating to the cultural particularities of the country we happened to be passing through. After watching the video, quizzes were handed out to the kids and the teacher talked them through these.

Originally from China’s northeast Liaoning province, Teacher Zhang now lived in Germany where she worked as an interpreter.  I noticeed over the next few days how the kids are rarely impressed with her tidbits about European culture. “So tell us something we don’t already know,” their expressions seemed to suggest as she launched into a lecture about appropriate table manners.

As we pulled up by the ski slopes just outside Kufstein, Guide Ge clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “We’re going to spend 2 hours learning how to ski, followed by lunch,” he announced.

“What’s for lunch?” yelled one of the kids from the back of the bus. “I’ll die if its schnitzel again,” moaned a podgy lad sitting behind me. The children cracked up. “We hate schnitzel,” many of them called out. “That’s enough,” said Guide Ge and herded them out of the bus. 

Half an hour later everyone was kitted out with skiing boots, sun visors and gloves. I took the ski lift up the slopes with the two English girls who were to be the instructors for the morning. They’d been teaching groups of Chinese children all week they told me, so many that they’re seriously begun to contemplate taking a Chinese language class.

Do you ever get any Indians I asked them? They shook their heads. Never. I was about to find out why. It was my first time out on a ski slope and the cold was brutal. It took around a minute before I realized this was not my element. Indians were made to gasp as snow, chuck a few snowballs, and then retire for chai and samosas.

Chai-stalls being scarce in the Austrian Alps, I opted for the second best option and headed off for a coffee at the restaurant we were to have lunch in later, leaving the kids to their skis.

The time passed quickly and I was almost fully thawed by the time the children returned, their breath thick white from their exertions. Three girls and two boys slid in at the table next to me. Almost immediately the ipads and mobile phones were out. How was the morning, I asked them, above the beeps of video games.

“Not bad,” Lei Ya Qi, a tall eleven-year-old girl replied with studied nonchalance.  And the trip so far? How do you like Europe?

“Well, the traffic seems really confusing here. So many rules to follow on the road. I’m not sure who gets right of way. It must be scary to drive here!”

Lei’s father was in real estate, she said and her mother worked for the Chongqing municipal authorities. Sitting next to her was Zhao Zi Yi whose dad was an engineer and mother a housewife. In China’s communist heyday, “housewives” had virtually ceased to exist as a category with women almost always holding jobs out of the home. But they were making a come back in the context of the country’s nouveau riche.

“Also I don’t like the breakfast here,” added Zhao, continuing from where Lei left off. “All that ham,” she muttered. The Chinese usually ate hot buns stuffed with pork or a rich bowl of congee (a rice porridge) in the morning. Bread, cold ham and butter did not seem to be going down too well.

“But,” Zhao continued, “it’s a lot more peaceful out here than in China. Quiet.”

I thought about where the kids came from. Chongqing, a municipality in China’s southwest, was one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. It was home to 32 million people, four times the size of Austria’s 8 million-strong population.

What I remembered most from my visit to the city in the mid-2000s, was the ceaseless aural assault. The churning of cement mixers, the sizzle of spicy noodles at road-side stalls, the spluttering of exhaust pipes and the heavy thud of wrecking balls: everywhere the sounds of trade and movement, of the old giving way to the new.

“You mean it’s a lot more boring out here,” giggled Lei.The Austrian countryside boring compared to Chongqing? I had to agree too.

Later I sat between Lei and Zhang on the way down the ski slope. Guide Ge and two other girls were opposite us. The girls flirted with the guide, teasing him about his messy hair. Guide Ge was indulgent, enjoying the attention. Suddenly, he burped loudly. The girls burst into peals of laughter.

Ge decided to turn the embarrassment into a teaching opportunity. “In Europe you must cover your mouth and say sorry when you burp,” he said solemnly. “Shouldn’t you do that in China too?” shot back one of the girls.

It was still common in China then for groups of tourists visiting abroad to be handed out instructions on how to behave, including injunctions not to spit, litter or burp at meals. But these kids were of a different generation.

Guide Ge’s cheeks flamed a deep red. “You must pronounce the “r” in sorry clearly,” he said, swiftly changing the topic. “Try practicing “rrrrrr. Sorrrry” 

“Rrrrrrr. Sorrrrrry” the girls growled in unison all the way down.

Back on the bus it was DVD time. An animated video provided all kinds of useful information such as the Austrian passion for Apple Strudel, ice-skating and coffee shops. “Austrians love to spend time in coffee shops eating cake,” ran the commentary.

Afterwards Teacher Zhang led the group in a pop quiz. “Name three famous Austrian people,” she demanded. “Swarovski” chanted the bulk of the students in reply. “Very good. Any more?” There is a long silence. “Any one at all?”

 “Beethoven?” replied the rotund schnitzel-averse lad.  “He’s German,” corrected Teacher Zhang. “Haven’t you all heard of Hayden or Schubert?” But no one bothered answering her. They are all agog, staring out of the window at a giant statue of Daniel Swarovski. We has arrived in Wattens, another essential stop on any Chinese tour of Europe, headquarters of the Swarovski crystal empire.

We had ostensibly come here to take a look at the Crystal Worlds museum, an exhibition centre for Swarovski crystal-inspired art installations. But the kids zipped through the museum in fifteen minutes flat until they burst upon the vast shop at the end. This was where the serious business for the day begins.

The credit cards came out. Calls were placed on their mobile phones. A quick check with their parents back home and the kids began snapping up Swarovski like candy.  Eleven-year-old Chen Qian Ye picked out a crystal-encrusted watch that cost a cool 2,800 euro. It’s for my auntie, she said.

The sales staff insisted on speaking to her parents before making the sale. They get her father on the phone who gave them the green light. Chen’s dad worked in the Chongqing public security bureau. He was a cop. Her mother was a manager in a state-owned-enterprise. Over the course of the next hour she blew a total of 4,200 euro on gifts for her family.

Chen and the other kids were assisted in their shopping by a battalion of Chinese sales staff.  The shop employed six Chinese salespersons, half the total number of shop floor staff.

At the cash counter, a blonde Tyrolean beauty called Terese, sat dealing with the long queues of Chinese kids. “Mima (pin code),” she instructed one child who was swiping a card in the reader. “Men piao gei wo (give me your entry ticket),” she asked another.

“I’ve had to learn a few sentences in Chinese,” she told me. “Although some of these kids can speak some English.” Terese smiles at the boy in front of her and asked, “Do you speak English?” “How much?” he replied in English, revealing the perfection of his transactional vocabulary. 

The boy was called Chen Si Yao and he’s a naughty one, always playing pranks on the other kids. “What have you bought?” I ask. He holds up a crystal dog. “You know what I like about this?” he grins. “The fact that its not ‘made in China’!”

The orgy of shopping went on for some two hours. I sat in the middle of the shop and chatted with a few of the kids who’re done with their buying. Yuan Zhi Yi, a girl whose mother owns a store that sells the somewhat unlikely combination of Maotai  (an expensive brand of Chinese liquor) and pizza was less than impressed with what she’s experienced of Europe thus far.

“Its ok, but I must say I prefer Chongqing. The food is so much better.”

That night at dinner the conversation at my table was all about money.  “Do you know how much cash her father gave her for this trip?” grinned Fan Shi Rui, a plump, jolly-looking, eleven-year-old pointing at her friend, Xue Yuan Kang Qi.  “Stop it, stop it,” gasped Xue as she tried to put a hand over Fan’s mouth to prevent her from speaking, but Fan shrugged her off. “Four thousand euro!” Can you believe it?”

“How much did your dad give you?” I asked. “Me? 2,000,” she replied happily. Not for the first time I was amazed by how comfortable the kids were talking about money. Ask them a question about politics, even something as innocent as whether their parents were party members and they immediately became stiff and uncomfortable. But ask them about money and they answered with ease.

Not the third girl at our table though. Zeng Zhi Chen’s lips were pressed so close together they’d almost disappeared at Fan’s outburst. “How much did your dad give you?” demanded Fan of her. “I’d rather not say” she replied primly.  “What does he do?” I asked. She seemed reluctant to even answer this, but finally revealed that he was the head of Chongqing bank. Fan let out a whoop of appreciation. “You must be really rolling in it!” she laughed.

“So girls, how’ve you been enjoying Europe?” I asked to alleviate Zeng’s obvious discomfiture. It was Zeng who answers first. “The hotel rooms are rather small here. But still I think it’s better than America because it has so much more history and they’ve protected their environment well.” Zeng was obviously a member of the little “lingdao” (leader) group that Rudolf had told me about. 

The next day we were off to Salzburg and after a quick march through the gardens of the Schloss Mirabell it was time for more shopping in the city’s pedestrianized center.

The group met up later at a Chinese restaurant for lunch. I sat at Chen Si Yao’s table with three other video-game playing boys. They were passing on the buffet lunch in favour of the McDonalds burgers one of them has bought from down the road. They passed on the hot tea as well. “I don’t like hot water,” explained Chen. “I prefer cold drinks like coke.” My association of the Chinese with tea was so strong, I found myself quite shocked by Chen’s attitude.

After, we attended a specially organized concert by a local string quartet who played bits of Mozart and Hayden. Much emphasis was placed on teaching the kids not to clap between movements. Given that half the kids fell asleep during the concert, clapping was not that much of an issue. Teacher Zhang took advantage of one of the lulls in the music to yell at the sleepers for their rudeness. “This is Europe,” she said severely. “This kind of behaviour will not do here.”

The chastened slumberers made an effort to keep awake for the rest of the performance but sometimes they clapped in the wrong places and draw a dirty look from Teacher Zhang.

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For more on this story and others involving the Chinese and Indians in Europe buy my book, New Old World here

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Until soon,

xo

Pallavi