Fair enough. :) Another time we should think of some kind things to say of the people in Japan and Minnesota.:D

Of course. But welcoming encompasses more than smiles and open arms. It starts with entry rules and shared values. Standard payment acceptance and technology platforms is somewhere in there.

I doubt you'll find this sign in Minnesota:

https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...ptimize=medium

Japanese store puts up sign criticising foreign customers for 'bad manners'

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/trave...or-bad-manners

People have short memories. Whatever happened in 2020-22 happened, it's not relevant anymore from a short-term tourism perspective. Japan is very easy to travel to, clean, great public transportation, lots of accessible and self-explanatory tourist sites, extra meaningful if you enjoy anime and other Japanese cultural exports. What's not to like?

With the exception of the rare but oft-meme'd "foreigners not welcome" signs or the occasional judgey local, Japanese customer service is (superficially) very good - I'll never know how much (silent) judgment I received for the time I accidentally took two steps onto tatami before taking off my slippers (how mortifying). I continued to receive excellent service throughout my stay, and frankly I don't care if all the staff at that ryokan now think of me or "my people" as Neanderthals based on this experience.

As for China, most of the world has to figure out a visa, and then there's the payments / cellphone number / wechat issue, and the need for a VPN for various day-to-day websites, plus fearmongering / valid concerns (depending on your perspective) about politics and national security stuff, and even the domestic train ticket purchase and collection process sounds daunting. Overall it just feels like much more of a hassle. You have to really want to go to deal with all that.

To be fair, there is much more to see in China just given its sheer geography and size. You just have to dig and work a little harder to get there. But I'm very sure the reward is worth the effort.

Reminds me of my trip to l'Algérie last year, arguably even less tourist friendly than China (expensive visa required for everyone, no tourist facilities). But the experience and authenticity of the place was worth it all in the end.

1. It's surprisingly in English and not Chinese :p

2. I expect to see this in Paris, not so much Japan.

Yes, in this case foreign is code word for Chinese.

https://www.hk01.com/%E7%A0%94%E6%95...86%B1%E6%BD%AE

The figures for the Hong Kong land borders in July shows Chinese visitors at 297.45 (10,000) vs. 440.3 (10,000) in 2018, that is 67.56%. It's not that different from the quoted figure for May from Japan of 68.48%.

Once again, in July there were no Chinese group tourists in Japan because of China's restriction. So Japan's figure would have been higher had there been Chinese group tourists.

Just the fact that the Chinese government restricts the countries to which its own citizens can go to on group tours is very telling. I live in China and love many, many aspects of China (in many ways China has been very very good to me), but this type of thing is hard to understand, and sure does not put a very friendly face on China. What other country in the world do you hear that citizens are restricted by their own government this way? Besides N. Korea?

The USA

Making such a comparison is disingenuous. C'mon, the US doesn't even have passport controls on exit. The US says it doesn't allow visits to certain countries, but practically the ban comes from the receiving country. Heck, it wasn't long ago that Americans could join tours to North Korea, or even now you can probably go to Cuba through say, Canada.

Not to have this discussion devolve into a US vs. China thing, but the current wait for interviews for Chinese to go get a US visa is about 12 months.

Can you guys relate to the awesomeness (e.g. it's 330a, and you're still at Vics!)?

Actually, the US do have controls on exit. The airlines have to transmit your passport informations to the responsible US ministry, who then looks into the data ; that's why OLCI is only 24h before departure for flights departing from the US.

AFAIK the restriction was on technically on businesses, as to where they can run/sell group tours to; individual citizens were free to go to Japan if they were able to meet the requirements (such as a visa) through their own resources or that of their employer/client/family relations. The degree to which this is a meaningful difference from other ways in which governments regulate businesses is a separate topic.