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Sofa so good
By Erik Nilsson (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-01 07:53
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Cui Lin has discovered she can engage the cultures of the globe without leaving her couch - that is, by bringing the world to her sofa.
The 24-year-old from Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu is among the tens of thousands of Chinese "couch surfers" who offer travelers free accommodation in their homes or stay in others' homes when traveling.
The university student has so far enjoyed putting up Malaysians, Singaporeans, Britons, Americans, Australians, Fins and Israelis. While learning about their world outlooks, she also shows them around her hometown, offering local insight and taking them to places no tour agency or guidebook could.
"I thought it was a very good idea for young people who'd like to see the outside world but maybe don't have the budget," the university student says.
"As I study English at university, I thought I could meet people from other countries by hosting them and, at the same time, learn about foreign cultures and get to use the language I've been studying."
Cui says she has enjoyed watching foreigners' reactions to spicy hotpot and listening to their experiences with local people, who often stare or smile at them.
She recalls that her roommates organized a lavish banquet for a Finnish guest, who got very drunk - as did her roommates.
"The funniest experience was when my roommate snuck into the (Finn's) room that night and tried to scare him," she recalls.
"Her boyfriend got angry because she wouldn't let our guest sleep, and we had to drag her out."
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China has become the 11th biggest couch-surfing destination, with 36,654 members among the global total of 1.9 million living on the mainland, couchsurfing.com figures show.
And with 66,623 surfers communicating in Chinese, it has become the seventh most commonly used language in the couch surfing community.
Sessions are organized on couchsurfing.com, where members post profiles about themselves and whom they seek to accommodate or stay with. Hosts and travelers vouch for one another, enabling others to assess what kind of person a member is by the comments others post on their profiles.
While Chinese couch surfers are finding it's a good way to provide foreigners with a deeper understanding of their homeland, it also opens new windows for Chinese who travel abroad.
"I do it because I want to really know the places I go to and can do that better through experiencing the lives of the people who live there," 22-year-old Beijinger Jing Zhou says.
"I improved my Spanish while attending couch surfing meetings in Madrid, otherwise I wouldn't have met so many Spanish people, even though I was in their country."
Beijinger Wei Yingle says she hoped to learn more about the local culture of Chicago when she traveled to the city for her first couch surfing session.
"I also wanted to see whether or not the distance between people of different cultural backgrounds could easily be cancelled during one or two stays," the 32-year-old says.
That experience showed it can, she says. And this extends not only to travel in other countries but also to different parts of China, she explains.
"One of the best couches I had was in Hong Kong. In the beginning, I thought they wouldn't be willing to host people from the mainland," she recalls. "But the couple was so kind that their behavior improved my feelings toward Hong Kong so much that I stayed more days than planned."
Wei says that couch surfing not only allows Chinese people to experience more while visiting other countries but also helps them see things they normally wouldn't in China.
She recalls that when she told a Briton she had taken to Tian'anmen Square that the dinner celebrating New China's founding was held in the Beijing Hotel, he asked if she'd ever been there.
"When I said 'no', he took me to the hotel and pretended to be one of the foreign guests staying there, and we walked around the place together."
Wei says she believes that couch surfing not only offers travelers and hosts chances to have fun but also sends a message to Chinese people."Most of the people in the world are good, and the true essence of human beings cannot be portrayed by some ugly happenings alone," she says.
"That leads to serious misunderstandings about human virtues. That's what couch surfing has taught me."
Jing Ren agrees. The 32-year-old Beijinger says his experiences of hosting 10 people from Israel, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, Germany and Austria have taught him how easy it can be to quickly feel close to people from different backgrounds.
"This form of travel helps people a lot," he says. "It shows that all it might take to eliminate the distance between people is a couch."