New visa waivers, enjoy the charm of China!
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Discussion keeps the world turning. This is Roundtable. You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang. I'm joined by Fei-Fei and Niu He Lin in the studio. Coming up, a new visa waiver policy is here, allowing citizens from another nine countries to enter China with ease. Is your country on the list? Check it out and get ready to embark on an exciting adventure in China. And Alipay's Ant Forest has...

has been a hit for rewarding sustainable actions. But some users are apparently finding shortcuts to earn rewards without doing the eco-friendly work. Why do anybody cheat in a game? Well, for many reasons. But this one, let alone a game about going green. Why are they cheating? Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcast. Apple Podcast it is. Now let's switch it up.

Great news for international travelers looking to explore China. China's visa waiver policy has now expanded to include 38 countries, allowing citizens from these nations to enjoy a hassle-free travel experience. With the inclusion of nine new countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania, South Korea and Japan, travelers can stay isolated.

for up to 30 days without a visa. This is the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in China's rich culture, delicious cuisine, and beautiful and breathtaking landscapes, just to name a few things you can do here. So what specific benefits do you think the visa waiver policy will bring to tourists?

From these newly added countries? Oh, definitely. I believe there would be a lot, a lot of benefits and convenience to those from these countries. Actually, we're talking about Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Montana grow, North Korea.

So Macedonia, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, and also actually these nine countries are just included into, well, if we include these nine different countries, actually we've already got 38 visa-free countries. So that's starting from November the 3rd.

These countries can enter China for business, tourism, family visits, exchange visits, or transit without a visa, provided their stay does not exceed 30 days. And 30 days is good enough for those who want to, you know,

experience a long tourist and have a really good vacation. And after the announcement of the optimized visa-free policy, the search volume for relevant Chinese destinations on sea trips overseas platforms increased rapidly. Actually, searches on the European-Japanese sites rising by 60%.

95% and 112%, respectively. Particularly, we see that the demand for direct flights from various cities in Japan, for example, to domestic destinations in China saw a significant surge. So yes, tourists are happy because they can now, like He Yang has just said, enter China painless because they do not have to go through all of these paperwork and

And for those who are, for example, running an Airbnb, they're receiving more tourists and they are accepting for a better search in their business. And I also think we will see more cultural exchanges with more inbound and also outbound travelers. For example, for the list of nine countries that's been newly added this time, I don't think we...

we've seen a lot of tourists coming from these countries before. And now I think with the new visa waiver policy, I do think more tourists from these nine countries will come to China. And in fact,

I think it was last year maybe, policies like the 144-hour transit visa has proved to be very successful. We've seen a lot of tourists coming from around the world coming to China and explore.

But now I think with the 30-day, the expansion of the period people can stay here, I think more cities and regions that are less well-known to international travelers will also start to see some unfamiliar faces. For example, I love to see travel vlogs online. And I do see a lot of the vloggers out there have started to post videos about going to Kunming, going to Nanning,

and Chongqing, which are not traditionally proved to be popular among international travelers, they decided Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen are not that exciting for them anymore because they've been to these cities and now they want to explore. And then they start to realize how diverse Chinese cultures are. You see people experiencing...

you know, the fruit snacks in the city of Nanning, and then maybe they took a high speed rail trip to Xi'an, they start to see a completely different culture and cuisine there. So I think there's more exciting travel vlogs coming on the way.

That's for sure. Actually, you talked about the 144-hour transit visa. I've seen the power of this during the National Day holiday because I went back home to my hometown, Shanxi province. Again, it's not a traditional popular destination for especially overseas travelers. Yeah, during my stay there, stay at my own hometown, I've seen a lot of foreign faces.

And I've helped one or two also because they do not really have the language set. Chinese is a hard to learn language. Yet they still enjoy the food quite a lot. And they've, many of them went to the Dartmouth, the,

the places that are, that inspired certain scenes in the video game and they want to go and check it out because they love the video games have helped. Yes. A young boy. He does not know any Chinese. Yes. Yet he enjoyed his visit quite a lot. So I agree with Fei Fei. You mean Black Myth Wu Kong? Yes. Oh, lovely. Very nice.

Already? Yes. That's fantastic. I also helped out an international traveler the other day in Beijing. Well, it's just Beijing because I don't go anywhere else because I'm on this trip. And it was a mom who came to Beijing to join her son at some convention thing. And now they can have like mother-son meetings.

travel experience together and she doesn't need to get a visa. She's from Britain and we chatted about stuff. And, you know, also I think just, you know, for Chinese people, don't hesitate. Like instead of staring at this person, just go up and ask, how are you doing? Do you need help? If that person looked like, you know, they're a little bit puzzled. I've encountered a situation of going up and say, hey, do you need help? And that person was like,

No, thank you. I can look at this navigation app. But anyway, so I think it's a really, we're really friendly people here. And aside from, you know, clearing the visa boundaries, so to speak, for these new countries added to the list of visa waivers, what else has sort of society done?

to beef up to make it easier for international travelers to come and go. Well, one thing I know is that with international transactions and payments, apparently, you know, more cards are being accepted. And that's

That's really essential, you know, for people to either use their own credit cards in their home country or make it convenient for them to join Alipay or WeChat Pay, you know, these popular digital payment methods that we have in this country. Yes. I don't know.

I don't know if we've already mentioned this on Roundtable, but previously I learned that if you have a visa card, you can actually just swipe your visa card for the subway system here in Beijing. So very convenient for those foreign visitors. At the same time, we see bilingual signs in a lot of different places. We see the kind of, for example, English, Chinese, and sometimes Chinese.

other languages. I'm not really sure. It depends on different places. For example, in Beijing, you see Chinese and English a lot. If you are visiting, for example, a museum or an art gallery, you can see the signs. At the same time, the kind of guiding services in a little gadget you can get, and you do not really need to hire or have the help of a tour guide anymore, because with that tour guidance kind of device, you would have the description in

of all of the exhibits already. But in other places, I've also seen, for example, Chinese and Japanese, also Chinese and South Korean, depending on the place. China is a big place.

It's a big country. But I do think for places that are not traditionally popular among international travelers, like the cities I mentioned, like Nanjing or Kunming, I don't think they need improvements in terms of addressing these language barriers. Because, well, first of all, they don't use to see this amount of...

international tourists and of course they need time to get ready but then I think for a lot of the apps that we use daily here in China for example like WeChat and Alipay I think they've been improving on how to offer easier access to these international travelers because of course for example on WeChat it's not only a payment app it can also help them to translate

to communicate with Chinese locals if that person don't know how to speak a foreign language. And I've seen that which has been proved to be very useful and popular and helpful to a lot of international travelers coming to Beijing. So I think that's one thing. And also, I

Another thing is about flight frequencies. And I think with these new visa waiver policies in place, I can imagine a lot of tourists will make last minute decisions to come to China. Oh, yeah. And of course, that requires a lot more flights than before coming between China and, for example, with these newly added nine countries. But I think it will come in...

start to catch up because you know it's commercial um for commercial flights they will catch up if there is a market demands out there you're definitely i think you're definitely right because um talking about last minute decisions previously if you are going to a different country definitely you need to make a huge plan you need to figure out which hotel to stay in you need to get

all of the paperwork done beforehand. Yet with this visa waiver policy, for instance, for those who are, again, currently, for example, living in Japan or South Korea, you can, if you want to, by the end of a working day on Friday, if you want to really enjoy an overseas experience, you can book a

a flight ticket, and after several hours, you're in China. Spend the two days in China. Go to a... Oh, this is the winter days. You can go to a bathhouse and then enjoy the food and go to one or two, let's say, museum and one or two historic sites. And then by the end of Sunday night, you're back to your home and ready to go to work Monday. So that would be a new thing. Yeah, and...

I know a lot of people in Shanghai are already doing that. They have sort of a long-term visa, for example, to countries like Japan, and they are only like two hours flight away from a Japanese city, and they can hop on a flight, spend a weekend in Tokyo, and then come back for work on Monday. Yeah. So that very much depends on, of course, the visa policy and also the geographic location. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, for Shanghai people to go to Japan is actually closer as compared to going to a home province such as Heilongjiang because China is such a big country. So it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and giving people sort of a new travel idea, you know, I love that thought.

of a weekend getaway but actually in a different country. Yeah, it's exciting. No need to, you know, thinking about for a weekend trip we can only think about, you know, which suburb of Beijing we can go to, which...

start to sound a little boring after a few years, you know, you've seen them all, you want to experience something new. And we talk about language barriers, but actually, if you are in an environment with everyone speaking a different language, it feels, it can feel strangely good as well. It reminds me of my experience when I lived as

lived in Brussels for around half a year and I did spend a weekend in Netherlands and then I spent another weekend in France. I do not know any of those languages and I cannot really smoothly communicate to people there and I cannot even for I do not remember which specific country that was but when I went to the subway station in that country

And the subway station has the machine selling the ticket. I can change the language from its original language to English. I made the change and I realized only words like is, are, the have been changed to English and all the other words that actually matter didn't change. And it was a fun story.

story. I mean, at that exact moment, I feel a little bit frustrated. Yeah, it was a fun story. It was a fun experience. And spending a weekend in a different province definitely would be a weekend getaway trip for sure. But in an entirely different culture, entirely different country, it's even better. It's a total getaway. Yeah. And

What you just described there pretty much, well, you know, that's kind of one of the big benefits of being an EU country. That's also true. So when you're all members and, you know... Yeah, without the requirement of a visa to travel, that does sound to be very ideal. And for Chinese people, I think currently you can... Well, there are...

a few countries that one can go to that goes by a visa, a free policy for Chinese nationals. I know Thailand sounds pretty nice. Singapore and Malaysia as well. So it'd also be very promising if there are more countries that Chinese nationals can go without a visa. And that will bring in a lot of tourist yuan. Yeah.

And actually, you know, here in China as well, when you see a booming international tourism scene, then that's really good for our local economy as well. And, you know, one of the many benefits of international travels, international exchange. And I think, okay, this might sound a little bit of me wearing rosy colored glasses, but...

Getting to know people from different countries. I think that could be the answer of preventing future conflict, wars, and all the things that we would, you know, rather not see in this world. But, you know, we all can take part in that. Coming up next, Allie Hayes.

Ant Forest Game has been celebrated for turning environmental action into a fun challenge with real-world environmental rewards. But some players are reportedly hacking the system to earn points without actually going green. Why would they cheat? Stay tuned.

Looking for passion? How about fiery debate? Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives? Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal. ♪

It's the hour of Roundtable. With myself, Hye-Young, I'm joined by Fei-Fei and Niu-Ho Lin in the studio. If you're one of Alipay's billion users, chances are you've played Ant Forest, the game feature that has been making waves in headlines around the world since 2016 for combining business with climate action. And this year, Alipay, the comprehensive digital payment platform,

took a step further by launching the Forest Market, a green consumption feature that rewards sustainable shopping choices. From buying near-expiry foods to recycling old electronics, it's a win for both the planet and your wallet. But wait, some players and users these days reportedly have been figured out

have figured out how to game the system to earn points. And what exactly is going on in this virtual world? And why would some players go so far as to cheat? Yeah, why? But I think...

First of all, we can explain a little bit about how Ant Forest works. Because not everybody is a user. Yes. So in Ant Forest, users can gain points by doing carbon-reducing quote-unquote green behaviors. For example, selecting paperless billing or buy green products or taking a subway to choose a sustainable way of transport. And by accumulating these points and

You don't accumulate the points actively. It's kind of like you give the data, let's say, option, allowing the app to get your data of walking around, of buying things, and then it will calculate the kind of points that you...

you this exact behavior deserves. And then by clicking on the little bubble with a number on it, it'll tell you, ah, by, let's say, using the subway instead of taking a taxi, you've collected 200 cool points, something like that.

And these points are called green energy. Yes, not two points. And it could then be used to grow a virtual tree. And then when it's fully grown, and then apparently the company will plant the tree in your name. Yeah, in a desert, probably. I have two trees, by the way. I think a lot of my trees were planted in Mongolia. Well done. I've planted, I think, five, six, ten trees already. Wow, winner here. I'm really devoted to the game. So did you cheat?

No, you can cheat. I didn't know that. That opens another door. Not now you want to cheat. You just want to know how to cheat. Tell me how to cheat. I want to plant more trees. And apparently a lot of the some users, they want to boost their performance to get more points on the ant forest.

And there are different ways, for example, you can sort of, there is a black market emerged with individuals and groups that can sell these energy points on social media, and then also offering you tips on how to cheat the system so that they create these groups

and they sort of communicate with each other on how to get more points, which even though as a devoted player myself on Ant Forest, I don't really quite...

understand the motivations behind. But of course, for some reasons, you want to get more points. And there are different ways, for example, you can use different mobile devices so that you can have multiple accounts filling into one account of yours. I use that as well. Maybe I'm cheating as well. I use my husband's phone.

points and you know you can give points to your friends and I gave my I used my husband's account to give some of his points to my account that's not cheating that's just a family plan

You know, he's wasting his points. Yeah, exactly. We can have those points wasted. They can turn to trees. And then some users are using some device to swing her phone back and forth so that she can get more walking steps. And of course, those steps can be then transferred into certain points in the system as well.

And yeah, that's some of the methods out there. I don't think we can give out, you know, all of the methods on the show for cheating. But apparently, a lot of people think because there is a ranking on Ant Forest to see how I think it matters to a lot of people that ranking on top of that list is something very important. So that's why they decide to go cheating.

I also, I don't know. I mean, usually I am totally against cheating. But in this specific example, I find it a bit funny in the sense that instead of like cheating, okay, so the wavering your phone and making your phone believe that you're walking and making the system think you're walking instead of using a private car or a taxi and protecting the planet, right?

well, the environment, it's definitely not so well. But if you think about some other ones, initially, the reason that these games, these kind of activities were e interactions between the user and the platform or just Alipay, the app itself, of course, they wanted to do something good to the planet is kind of a welfare project.

But on the other hand, it's definitely because they wanted to engage more people. They want more people to click on their app. They want more people to become users of their app. And if and when actually they are doing something good to the entire society, to the entire planet, then people would want to become their users more often. And they want a better engagement. So

on top of having people walk around, having people recycling secondhand goods, they also want people to, you know, for example, watering the virtual tree in the app to get more green points, green energy. Mm-hmm.

And in that case, we can see some people are even buying watering the tree kind of service or kind of virtual goods online so that someone would water your tree three times a day and that becomes a service. But at the end of the day, who's being harmed?

Nobody's being harmed. I don't see a victim here. More trees planted in the desert. And not even the company. The company is getting more clicks, more engagement. And by planting trees, they're doing a favor to the planet, better karma. No one's getting hurt. I don't see this as a huge problem, to be honest. Yeah. I think the three of us are all a little perplexed here. Yeah. We don't like cheating, but we like trees. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't see an obvious loser in any of this either. And this is actually not the only kind of social welfare kind of project. We also have, for those of you who want to take part in, penance.

Only try not to cheat in this one as well. This is, well, this is a similar game by taking part into this game. You also need to plant bamboo, vegetable stealing. It's kind of like the vegetable stealing game if you remember it.

started getting popularity among social media. It's the kind of little farm that you grow on your own. And by interacting with your friends who also owns a farm, you can help them or harm their vegetable a little bit. But only in this sense, if you grow enough bamboo, you can help. You're basically...

By growing more bamboo, you're having the company donating more money to help pandas. So that is another one. And also the WeChat step donation. That is the more you step, the more points you got and you can donate those steps.

steps into different types of social welfare projects, like helping those moms who are in need, helping kids with disabilities, helping kids who are in relatively less developed areas to get books in school, something like those. It's really promising when you see companies or private businesses actively getting involved with these

Projects that shoulder social responsibility is really good press for the company and for lazy users who are probably sitting in a nicely heated room, clicking on your phone and think you're doing some social good.

Isn't that what we all want? And sorry to sound a little sarcastic, but I think we need more of that good energy than without. So there you go. And that brings us to the end of today's Roundtable. Thank you so much, Niu Honglin and Fei Fei for joining the discussion. So lovely to have you lovely ladies. And you can always find us on Apple Podcast at Roundtable China. I'm He Young. We'll see you next time.