China has long had a law allowing foreigners to only stay in hotels approved for foreigners. Yet, despite this law being on the books, I had never been turned away from a Chinese hotel in the two years I lived in this country, from 2006 to 2007 and then from 2009 to 2010, no matter how shady the flophouse I was staying in.

However, just four years after living in China, my experience has been starkly different. On this trip, we have struggled constantly to find hotels that could accept us. In Xian, China’s second biggest tourist city, I made a reservation at a motel chain, 7-Days, but, when I showed up, they said they could not accept foreigners. I bounded across the street to a different chain, Hanting. They also could not accept foreigners. I almost exploded in anger before the manager arrived and arranged for me to stay at a different Hanting, one just down the street, which could accept foreigners.

Each city we go through, I have been forced to try to find somewhere willing to let us stay.

The craziest experience I have had was in a Hanting in Lanzhou. A day before, I had called to make a reservation, just to make sure that this Hanting was authorized to accept foreigners. Though there were a dozen Hantings in Lanzhou, only a handful accepted foreigners. The reservationist assured me that the one we had booked could accept us.

But, when we arrived at the hotel, the woman at the front desk told me that they were not allowed to accept foreigners. I told her Hanting’s headquarters thought otherwise, and we argued for several minutes. She told me they had not been allowed to let a Japanese person stay until the Japanese person was able to ‘borrow’ a local Chinese friend’s I.D. Card (very illegal, by the way).

I decided to call up Hanting’s headquarters. The woman on the phone told me that yes, my reservation was for a place that accepted foreigners. I handed the phone to the receptionists, and the two of them hashed it out for a few more minutes. Headquarters straightened her out, and she handed us a room key. Victory was sweet. Check out the video of the encounter Galen put together:

The government says the law is for my safety and comfort. Hotels approved for foreigners are inspected more thoroughly to ensure they meet foreigner’s standards. In fact, that is nonsense. The nicest hotel we have stayed in so far was not approved for foreigners; it was also the cheapest hotel we have stayed at, less than $20USD. How do we stay in hotels not approved for foreigners? Many Chinese hoteliers are not even aware of it. By allowing us to stay at their insufficiently licensed hotel, many of them are committing a crime and so are we.

In fact, the law has nothing to do with safety and comfort. There are two reasons that the government insists on this law: paternalism and control. Paternalism is the need that officials have to hand-hold people, the belief that regular folks just are not smart enough to make their own decisions. Control is the fear that officials have that foreigners are always out to destroy China and the government must monitor them. Both this paternalism and this control are part of a ancient strain of Chinese xenophobia that long cut China off from the rest of the world and are part of the reason China is still not a democracy.

This post has been particularly pessimistic about China, but it is necessary to report this in full, in order to explain darker events to come.