They went for the luxurious caress of a French leather handbag (or several), the cathartic splash of a high-tech Japanese toilet’s bidet feature or the perfect selfie-stick pose in front of Bilbo Baggins’s round hobbit door, tucked into the lush hills of New Zealand.

 

他们出去，是为了体验一个（或好几个）法国皮手包的奢侈触感，享受具有坐浴盆特色的日本高科技坐便器的畅快淋漓，或是在霍比特人比尔博·巴金斯(Bilbo Baggins)隐藏于新西兰葱郁青山中的圆洞门前利用自拍架摆出完美造型。

More than five million Chinese were estimated to have traveled abroad over the Lunar New Year holiday that ended on Wednesday, a 10 percent increase over the year before and the first time Chinese tourists bound for foreign lands outnumbered those vacationing domestically, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Flush with cash and wanderlust, over 60 percent of mainland Chinese who chose to travel during the holiday — eschewing the traditions of gathering at home with relatives to eat dumplings and watch the Communist Party’s propaganda-drenched Spring Festival Gala — preferred to get their passports stamped, surf uncensored Internet sites and fill their suitcases with souvenirs.

官方媒体新华网报道，本周三结束的春节假日期间，出国旅游的中国游客人数估计超过了500万，同比增长10%，出境游人数首次超过国内游人数。不少大陆人选择在春节期间出游，避开与亲人在家吃饺子、观看充满共产党宣传意味的春节联欢晚会的传统。由于资金充裕，旅游意愿又旺盛，其中60%的人更青睐跨出国门，畅通无阻地上网，往箱子里塞满纪念品。

这个春节，百万中国人出境扫货.jpg

 

Li Zhao, 24, who works for a candy company in Beijing, took her family to Bali, Indonesia, for their first overseas vacation together. On the island they went white-water rafting, rode elephants and watched dolphins — along with masses of other mainland Chinese. “Almost all of the big tour buses I saw there had Chinese characters on them,” she said.

 

24岁的李昭（音）在北京一家糖果公司工作，带着家人到印度尼西亚的巴厘岛度假。这是他们全家首次集体出国度假。他们在巴厘岛玩激流漂流，骑大象，看海豚——周围有很多同样来自中国大陆的游客。“我在那里看到的几乎所有旅游大巴上都有汉字，” 她说。

Like a weeklong version of Black Friday in the United States, the Lunar New Year holiday is increasingly known for astounding displays of conspicuous consumption by Chinese traveling abroad. The China Tourism Academy estimated that Chinese tourists shelled out more than 140 billion renminbi, or $22 billion, during the holiday, Xinhua reported. The weakening yen and euro provided an additional lure to Chinese shoppers.

就像是美国黑色星期五的加长版，为期一周的春节假期越来越出名的地方在于，中国出境游客令人瞠目结舌的炫耀性消费行为。新华网的报道称，中国旅游研究院估计，中国游客在春节期间的花费超过了1400亿元人民币。日元和欧元的疲软对于中国购物者来说是一种额外的诱惑。

In Tokyo, Chinese tourists cleaned out shelves of mechanized toilet seats, digital cameras and rice cookers, according to People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece. On Sunday, a 27-year-old Chinese woman spent more than $300,000 on clothes, jewelry, cosmetics and a $45,000 Cartier watch at a South Korean mall, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. An online Chinese shopping guide for Thailand recommended buying crocodile leather goods, snake medicine and visiting a tailor shop in the Holiday Inn Bangkok that supposedly helped outfit foreign leaders with suits and shirts for a diplomatic summit meeting.

共产党喉舌《人民日报》报道，在东京的中国游客将机械化马桶座圈、数码相机及电饭锅抢购一空。韩国的《朝鲜日报》(Chosun Ilbo)则报道，一名27岁的中国女性周日在当地的一家商场花费逾30万美元（约合188万元人民币）购买了服装、珠宝、化妆品和一块售价4.5万美元的卡地亚(Cartier)手表。网上的一份中文版泰国购物指南建议游客购买鳄鱼皮具和蛇药，前往曼谷假日酒店(Holiday Inn Bangkok)的裁缝店——据说这家店曾为参加外交峰会的外国领导人提供西装和衬衫。

Yet even as countries have clamored to profit from the Chinese travel bug by loosening visa restrictions and hiring Mandarin-speaking sales clerks, Chinese tourists are finding that money does not always buy love abroad, including from other Chinese.

然而，虽然各个国家纷纷放宽签证限制、雇佣会讲汉语的售货员，急切地希望从中国人的旅游热潮中获利，中国游客却发现，有钱在国外也不一定能享受到笑脸，包括从其他中国人那里。

Liu Yikun, 26, an accountant, took her mother along for what she thought would be a relaxing trip to Boracay, a tropical island in the Philippines famed for its white-sand beaches and Windex-blue waters. But she quickly discovered that droves of her compatriots had the same idea.

26岁的刘亦昆（音）是一名会计，带着母亲一起前往菲律宾的热带岛屿长滩岛游玩。那里以雪白的沙滩和碧蓝的大海而闻名，她原本以为这会是一次令人放松的旅行，但很快就发现，很多同胞有着同样的想法。

“I rolled my eyes when I saw Chinese tour groups going to the beaches,” said Ms. Liu. Desperate to avoid the crowds, the Lius fled to a less popular strip of sand and returned to Beijing before the peak travel days.

“看到中国旅行团向海滩进发时，我翻了个白眼，”刘亦昆说。她和母亲急于避开人群，逃到了知名度较低的一片沙滩，并在交通高峰到来之前返回了北京。

While complaints of Chinese manners — or the lack thereof — are a chronic source of embarrassment in China, occasionally there are more serious consequences. In New Zealand, some police officers blamed a recent spike in fatal car crashes and reckless driving incidents on the 40,000 Chinese tourists who flocked to the country over the holiday, according to The Press newspaper. On Monday, a driver from Beijing with a baby on board was filmed repeatedly crossing into oncoming traffic before a fellow motorist confiscated his rental car keys. A few days earlier, a Chinese tourist was charged with causing the death of a five-year-old New Zealand girl after his car crossed the median and collided with an oncoming vehicle. In court,“the man showed no emotion during the hearing,” Hong Kong’s Standard newspaper reported.

尽管对中国人礼仪——或者说缺乏礼仪——的抱怨一直让中国感到难堪，但偶尔会出现更为严重的后果。新西兰《新闻报》(The Press)报道，一些警员将当地致命性车祸及鲁莽驾驶事件近期的激增归咎于在节日期间涌入该国的4万名中国游客。周一，一名来自北京的司机多次被拍到越过中线，驶进迎面而来的车流，直到另外一辆车的司机夺走了这辆租赁汽车的钥匙。几天之前，一名中国游客被控导致新西兰的一名五岁女孩死亡，他越过中线，撞上了一辆迎面驶来的汽车。香港《英文虎报》(The Standard)报道称，在法庭上，“这名男子在聆讯时面无表情。”

Yet for most of the world’s largest group of outbound travelers, vacations pass without a hitch. Last year, Chinese took more than 100 million trips abroad, according to China’s state tourism administration. Over the New Year holiday, the most popular destinations were South Korea, Thailand and, perhaps surprisingly, Japan.

但世界最大的出境旅游群体中的大多数人，都顺利度过了假期。据中国国家旅游局透露，去年，中国公民出境游突破1亿人次。新年期间最受欢迎的目的地是韩国、泰国，以及日本——这或许让人感到惊讶。

Despite a longstanding territorial dispute with Japan inflamed by Beijing’s accusations that Tokyo must repent for crimes committed during World War II, around 2.4 million Chinese visited the country in 2014, up 83 percent from the previous year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

尽管中日之间存在长期的领土争端，而且中国指责东京应该为二战罪行忏悔也煽动起了民众的情绪，据日本国家旅游局(Japan National Tourism Organization)透露，2014年赴日旅游的中国游客人数达到了240万，同比增长83%。

Not all Chinese citizens were thrilled about their compatriots fraternizing with China’s historic enemy. After word spread of the Chinese shopping spree for Japanese toilets, some irate Chinese took to social media to vent.

并非所有中国公民都对同胞亲近历史上的敌人的行为感到兴奋。在中国人疯狂抢购日本坐便器的消息传开之后，一些愤怒的中国人通过社交媒体大肆发泄。

“The Japanese are raking in Chinese tourists’ money to manufacture weapons,” wrote one microblogger, Xue Ziyu. “I wonder if these shoppers will sit comfortably on their toilet.”

“日本拿着中国游客的钱制造着武器，”微博用户薛子育写道。“不知这些坐在马桶盖的人是否还感到安稳。”

On Thursday, the state-owned Global Times newspaper jumped into the fray with an editorial lashing out at Chinese shoppers for making “a mockery” of grass-roots efforts to boycott Japanese goods. “Chinese customers flooding to Japan for shopping by no means is Chinese people’s glory, nor is it Chinese manufacturing industry’s glory,” it said.

周四，官方报纸《环球时报》加入论战，发表社论，斥责中国购物者让抵制日货的草根行动显得有些“讽刺”。该报称，“中国人却跑到日本去扫货，这肯定不是中国人的光荣，不是中国制造的光荣。”

Still, some Japanese industries do not mind losing out on the influx of Chinese visitors.

然而，有些日本行业并不介意失去蜂拥而至的中国游客。

Along the side streets of Tokyo’s red-light district of Yoshiwara, the anterooms of bathhouses with names like Satin Doll, Candy Girl and Cute were filled with men’s loafers arranged neatly in one corner and strappy high-heels in another, evidence that their owners were mutually occupied elsewhere. “Come inside, the girls are happy to play,” cried a tout.

东京吉原红灯区的小巷两侧，许多澡堂挂着“缎衣娃娃”(Satin Doll)、“蜜糖女孩”(Candy Girl)和“可爱宝贝”(Cute)这样的招牌。澡堂的前厅摆满了男人的拖鞋，这些拖鞋被整齐地摆放在一个角落，另一个角落则放着罗马高跟鞋，这说明它们的主人正在别处一起忙得脱不开身。一个招徕顾客的人喊道，“进来吧，姑娘们很愿意玩玩。”

But Chinese men are no longer welcome in certain Yoshiwara establishments following a spate of incidents in which Chinese tourists behaved roughly with the masseuses, posted clandestine photos of them online or simply refused to pay for erotic services rendered.

但是，在吉原的一些店家看来，中国男人不再受欢迎了。这是因为此前发生的一连串事件：有些中国游客对女按摩师举止粗鲁，把她们的私密照片放在网上，或者干脆拒绝为自己享受的色情服务付费。

“More and more Chinese are coming,” the tout said. “But they get turned away because we know they make trouble.”

“来这里的中国人越来越多，”那个招徕顾客的人说。“但他们会被拒之门外，因为我们知道他们经常制造麻烦。”