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For traveling youngsters, grandeur of nature and culture can’t compete with online media
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I have just returned from a trip to China’s northwest provinces of Gansu and Qinghai, which include some of China’s best-known tourist destinations.
Among these are the Mogao Grottoes and the Singing Sands in Dunhuang, the Jiayu Pass, the Ta’er Monastery and Qinghai Lake.
Admittedly, it was also an arduously long trip that included more than 4,000 km air travel, 1,000 km of bullet-train ride, and 1,500 km by coach. If anything, the whole trip should impress upon travellers the immensity of China’s territory, and how the parched north contrasts with the well-watered south.
It allowed us an intimate experience of the desolate Gobi, which morphed into green pastures and forests as the altitude rose, until we gained a distant view of the snowcapped Gangshika Peak.
But when a colleague asked how my son enjoyed the trip, I did not know how to answer.
The adult travelers in our party were easy to please. One senior gentleman in his 60s pattered about with a camera, and kept asking the guide questions. Mr Xie, a friend, was visiting the grottoes for a second time and still thought the trip worthwhile.
But it was more difficult to gauge the feelings of the six children, aged 12 to 15, in our travel group of 25. As a matter of fact, throughout the trip, I don’t remember any sight that elicited enthusiasm or exclamations among them. Most of the time, they were buried in their iPads or mobile phones. At the departure airport, Xie’s daughter, 12, was eager to share with my wife every tidbit she received on her WeChat moments.
Halfway through the journey, I was astonished to learn from her mother that young Miss Xie had been talking about going back to Shanghai for some days.
Among other complaints, she found it embarrassing to post her pictures on WeChat, for nearly all her classmates had traveled to more grandiose, mostly overseas, destinations.
My 13-year-old son had no such worries, as he did not yet have a WeChat account. But he had his own preoccupations.
Immediately upon arriving at any hotel, my son lost no time in connecting all our mobiles and electronic devices to WiFi. He would then immediately start downloading something, commenting about the speed, and then going straight into a game. When he could no longer bargain for more time, and reluctantly surrendered the device, miraculously, his sensory organs seemed to come alive again, as he walked around, sizing up the toilet, toying with the equipment.
In retrospect, one of the most impressive parts of the trip was the bullet train ride from Zhangye to Xining. Prior to this, the journey along the Hexi Corridor had been through long stretches of the dry, gritty Gobi.
Atrophy of senses
But not long after Zhangye, and a few tunnels into the Qilian Mountain, as if we had traveled through time, the outside scene experienced an abrupt change. The harsh Gobi suddenly gave way to a lush, wild expanse of pastures grazed by cows, horses and yaks under a blindingly blue dome. The outside temperatures, which had hitherto been hovering above 30 degrees, plummeted to 12 in less than 20 minutes.
Most passengers, awed by this transformation, were either busy taking pictures or raiding their bags for more clothes. Between my excitement, I cast sidelong glances at the two children seated on my right and left.
My son was buried in his iPad watching “Transformers,” totally oblivious of the hubbub around him.
On my left, Miss Xie was looking dreamily ahead of her, as if in a daze, yet still vaguely disdainful of the commotion.
When visiting the Ta’er Monastery near Xining in Qinghai, one 15-year-old boy in our group was stricken with altitude sickness.
He threw up twice, suffered dizziness and stomachache, and halfway to the restaurant, he was too weak to stand on his feet. He was taken to a hospital for oxygen and an intravenous drip.
But while being treated, he insisted his parents take pictures of him, so that he could share them on WeChat.
In the famed monastery, under a covered corridor dozens of pious pilgrims prostrated themselves in the direction of a sanctified building, quite oblivious of the throngs of noisy tourists jostling with each other for a better view of the exotic sights. In the mind of these pilgrims, everything in this world was just preparation for bliss in the eternal afterlife.
It would probably be unjust to accuse the tourists of being faithless. Actually, an increasing number of tourists evince a similar detachment, in their faith that this transient, corrupt world matters only in so far as it serves to flatter their vanity in their WeChat moments.
As a consequence, children brought up in the online age have suffered atrophy of their sensory organs.
That’s why when my colleague asked this question about children, I did not know how to say.
As we know, it is both hard and easy to please children in the digital age.
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