Safety worries mount for Chinese traveling abroad(2)

Chinese and African men, employed by Sinohydro, a Chinese State-owned hydropower engineering and construction company, return to their dormitories at the end of the working day in the port city of Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Abdelhak Senna/AFP

One of Teng's colleagues had a brush with death when a thief who had snatched his bag thought the man was about to fight back.

"The move incensed the thief, who pulled a gun and opened fire. Luckily, the bullet hit a laptop computer my colleague was carrying and apart from a large hole burned in his clothes, he was uninjured," Teng said.

Although he had a narrow escape, Teng's colleague was so severely traumatized that he remains too frightened to leave home alone after dark, even in China.

Dianne Yan, a Chinese student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, said she tries to avoid traveling alone after 11 pm and always keeps between $40 and $60 in her purse as a survival strategy in the event of robbery or attack. Her parents and many older Chinese immigrants advised Yan to give the money to the assailant and say, "I didn't see your face. Just take what you want and go away please."

Changing times

Data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that more than 83 million residents of the Chinese mainland traveled overseas in 2012, a massive increase from the 200,000 that went abroad in 1978.

The ministry's annual report on China's development of outbound tourism shows the number of outbound tourists is expected to reach 94.3 million this year.

Moreover, there are more than 20,000 Chinese-invested enterprises overseas.

On average, the ministry and Chinese embassies and consulates around the world deal with about 100 consular protection cases every day.

Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Peking University, said that in the 1980s very few Chinese had the opportunity to travel overseas and most who did were selected representatives of various industries.

However, times have changed. "Nowadays, as long as you have money, you can go abroad. But examples of poor behavior by some Chinese tourists, such as speaking loudly, queue jumping or vandalizing historic relics, often raise eyebrows among the locals," he said. Indeed, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist was recently forced to issue an apology after defacing the 3,500-year-old Luxor Temple in Egypt by carving his name into the stone.

This sort of unpleasant behavior not only tarnishes the image of China overseas, but can also spark conflict with annoyed locals.

Although Xia believes that most of the incidents are isolated cases, he pointed out that Chinese tourists often leave themselves open to attack; for example, it's well known that many Chinese refuse to use credit or debit cards overseas. As a result, they carry large amounts of cash on their person, making them easy targets for thieves.

Moreover, Xia said some of the attacks are a result of the current international situation.