[legofr]

In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.

In China you either need to go through an agency that have something similar to "The Negro Motorist Green Book" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book), or you need to speak Chinese, convince the reception that they don't need a certificate they believe they're legally required to have, convince the reception to call the owner who will no doubt repeat a foreigner is not allowed, then you need to contact the police to convince the owner, if the police agree that a certificate is required then you need to convince the police that they don't know their own laws, convince them to call the Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau.. that's what the person in your blogpost has been doing. She even told the police to give her their badge numbers so she could file an official complaint. That person is certainly living on the edge.

Even if it's technically legal, then surely the end result will be the same - 9/10 hotels and apartments will refuse foreigners (for the apartments I rented then everything was done on paper, I doubt they have the booking system mentioned in the blogpost - not sure if all hotels use the same since I have never walked behind the desk and looked at their computer.. and they probably wouldn't allow it if I asked) because who in their right mind want to spend several hours and likely get the police involved just so they can rent a room for 200rmb.

[rootsudo]

It's the same in China for most hotels that know what they're doing. " In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.".

If you go off the beaten path or less than 4 stars hotels, then that.

And not unique just in China, Japan will do it too with some places - granted mostly it's love hotels which is ironic cause they're not supposed to know whose checking in, no passport is required, but many a foreigner can't read Kanji or talk.

[freeflight]

> In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.

There are nearly 200 countries on this planet, in that context your claim sounds more like quite the generalization, on your part, rather than an actual fact.

edit; Wow, never would have thought that stating a simple fact could be controversial on HN.

What is going on in these comments? People acting like everybody is American/Canadian, and as if the whole world is all the same, but only China is some weird outlier, smh