Visitors dream of taking China's serenity, safety home

The new normal

"When I first came to Beijing two years ago, I went outside at night and found there were still a lot of people walking around, and everything felt normal, like it wasn't even that late. At that moment, I thought 'this place is actually really safe'," said Salah Eddine Ben Mhmed, a 20-year-old student from Morocco, who is now studying at Dalian Polytechnic University in Liaoning province.

"It felt strange seeing people outside late at night without a worry. But now it feels completely normal to me," he added. He attributes this feeling to a combination of public order and a general trust that daily life is calm and well-managed.

This transition from a surprise to seeing it as normal is common among many long-term foreign residents in China.

Merlin Palmer, 40, a Canadian IT engineer who works in Beijing, arrived in China in 2012 and planned to stay only briefly. "I was thinking about traveling the world as an English teacher," he said.

That was before he met his wife Bonny Liu. Fourteen years later, he lives happily in Chaoyang district with his wife, 5-year-old son Arthur, and a puppy called Chocolate.

Palmer said living in Beijing had fundamentally changed his perspective on parenting and safety.

"Parents don't have to worry about guns or drugs, or racism or bullying," he said. "Arthur is in a classroom of 99 percent ethnically Chinese children, and he has never experienced any kind of 'othering' because of that. He is very much accepted and loved within his peer group."

Palmer credits not just legal protections, but also school food standards, community safety measures, and everyday kindness from strangers. "In China, there are a lot of policies about children's safety that may feel restrictive to some people, but in the end, they make a meaningful impact on the safety of children day-to-day."

Eddy, an American host at Dunhuang Media Center in Gansu province, pointed to the absence of gun violence as a major difference to the United States.

Growing up in an environment where school shooting drills were routine, he finds a special meaning in China's sense of security. He also pointed out that China's safety goes beyond law enforcement.

From fire safety education on campus to community awareness and shared responsibility, he believes the country's strong sense of security is built not only by institutions, but also by the people and communities who look out for one another every day.

Italian artist Federico Gentile, who visited Dalian during this year's Summer Davos forum in June, was equally impressed.

"People roam free and don't worry about anything. It's amazing to see a lot of happy families, having fun with their kids," he said.

During the May Day holiday, the "unattended luggage wall" at Liyuan station of Wuhan metro in Hubei province went viral.

Tourists neatly lined up their suitcases along the station wall before heading out to explore the city. This unguarded and perfectly orderly wall of luggage went viral on Chinese social media, becoming a symbol of the country's trademark "worry-free" travel.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also shared a video on social media with the caption, "In Central China's Wuhan, unattended luggage lined the walls of a metro station, left behind by tourists eager to explore the city. Safe and worry-free!"

Unattended luggage walls and designated luggage storage areas are not unique to Wuhan.

They can also be found at metro stations in Changsha, Hunan province, Foshan in Guangdong, Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and Fuzhou, Fujian province, and other cities. This sense of security goes beyond trusting that one's suitcase will remain safe; it reflects a deeper confidence in the sense of security in China that people have come to rely on.