【商业周刊 20150422】游艇人民共和国

满仓

【中文标题】游艇人民共和国
【原文标题】The People’s Republic of Cruiseland
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文作者】Christopher Beam
【原文链接】http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-china-cruises/



意大利主题邮轮歌诗达大西洋号从中国的海岸出发，开始了为期两天的航程。在为支付高额费用的乘客定制的特别晚餐上，首席大厨丹尼尔•马丁内兹首先开始解释什么叫做面包。他说：“面包，对我们来说，就像亚洲人的大米。”一名船员把他的话翻译成中文，8位中国客人聚精会神地听着。旁边没有支付高端费用的客人也凑过来听他解说。侍者端过来一个盘子，里面是4块新鲜烤制的大师级美食，包括一片那不勒斯特制奶酪和几块火腿。马丁内兹说：“Buon appetito！”周围的人试探性地重复他的话。

坐在我旁边的是一位满头白发的65岁老人，来自陕西，叫李成刚，他碰也没有碰桌子上的面包。他对干煎腌制芝麻虾、冷番茄汤泡马斯卡普尼干酪慕斯、豆豉酱拌意大利面、咖喱鳕鱼、闷猪肚和黑巧克力蛋糕配榛仁冰淇淋一律不感兴趣。他说：“我不习惯西方的食物。”当马丁内兹解释食物与红酒的搭配时，翻译结结巴巴地思考“丹宁酸”的中文解释，李不打算尝一尝杯子里的红酒。我问他觉得这一顿饭如何，他说：“老实讲，糟透了。”他宁愿吃陕西简单的食物biangbiang面。

和这艘船上2630名乘客——98％是中国人——中的大部分人一样，这是李第一次乘坐邮轮出行。李自诩为工作狂，他在陕西省成功运作着一家建筑公司。为了让自己享受一下，她给自己和孙侄女、一位医学院学生李瑞娟预定了这艘邮轮最昂贵的服务套餐——价值4000美元的带阳台套房和无限量的水果供应。到目前为止，他对享受到的服务并不满意。他说，这里的服务“冷冰冰”，没有什么中国食物。他主要的抱怨是，所谓的特殊服务根本不特殊，“钱能证明一切，我有钱。”

数百万中国人都和李一样。如果说全球顶级邮轮公司尚不明了如何取悦李，那么他们的确在想尽一切办法来学习。美国和加拿大的市场已经趋于饱和，重量级的奢华邮轮公司，尤其是嘉年华和皇家加勒比，正在向东前进。嘉年华旗下的歌诗达在2006年率先进入中国，皇家加勒比和公主邮轮分别在2007年和2014年接踵而至。现在，这几家公司搞起了海上的顾客关怀军备竞赛。3月份，歌诗达第一艘环球邮轮从上海启航。嘉年华刚刚与中国最大的造船厂签署谅解备忘录，研究投产中国新型邮轮生产线。与此同时，皇家加勒比认为自己需要更大的船，这家公司将在6月份把它最新型的邮轮海洋量子号水上主题公园开到上海，全年不休地在海上运行。2016年，它还会把排水量16.78万吨级的“小妹妹”海洋礼赞号开到天津。

中国的邮轮市场规模依然很小。2014年，大约有70万中国人搭乘邮轮出游，美国和欧洲的数字分别是1000万人和600万人。但是中国的数字在迅速攀升，从2012年到2014年，邮轮消费人数增长了79％，这还远远不到市场的饱和点。在美国和澳大利亚，大约3.5％的人口每年乘邮轮出行，中国这个比例还不到六十分之一。有些人预测，中国将在2017年成为邮轮的第二大市场，最终将会取代美国的位置，成为世界上最大的市场。


邮轮在海上航行，船员带领乘客跳队列舞。

地方政府已经在三亚、上海、天津和厦门修建了邮轮码头，还有至少4个沿海城市正在大兴土木。只要中国的码头容得下，邮轮公司立即就会用新船把那里挤满。但是硬件仅仅是一方面，软件——中国顾客的登船体验——依然处于初级阶段。本地化已经不是新鲜事了，从肯德基、奥利奥到好莱坞，都在客制化自己的产品来迎合中国市场，成功的案例不胜枚举。对邮轮公司来说，这不是简单地聘请一位中国明星做代言，或者把菜品里添加一点绿茶味就完事大吉的。他们必须重新思考整个邮轮体验，从食物、装潢到一个迅速资本化的社会是如何理解阶级和奢侈概念的。

在美国和欧洲，邮轮让人们联想到一系列美好的事物：夏威夷衬衫、皮娜可乐达（译者注：用菠萝汁、椰子汁和朗姆酒调制的饮料）、马卡雷娜（译者注：西班牙河边二重唱）。自从《爱之船》在1977年首映，邮轮就变成了享乐产业漂在水面上的象征，它代表着终极的美国梦，或者，在像大卫•福斯特•华莱士和乔纳森•弗兰岑那样的文学抑郁症患者眼中，代表着终极的空虚。而大部分中国人只对邮轮有一个模糊的概念，如果他们的确听说过这个名词的话。公主号邮轮中文网站下拉菜单中的第一项就是“什么是邮轮旅行”。用嘉年华首席执行官阿诺德•唐纳德的话来说，这个国家“就是一张白纸”，迅速崛起的中产阶级消费观念等着别人前来塑造。那么，邮轮公司必须要向它的客户解释清楚的，不仅仅是自己的品牌有哪些特别之处，而且还要说服他们为什么要在一艘船上度过一个星期。

为了了解中国人究竟如何乘船旅游，我在2月份春节期间预定了歌诗达号邮轮六天五晚的行程，从上海出发，经停日本和韩国。宣传手册就是一个大杂烩：舷窗外一片远古、碧蓝的海洋；优雅的女演员高圆圆戴着一个化妆舞会的面具，摆出性感的造型；广受欢迎的中国动画片《喜羊羊与灰太郎》打扮成水手的样子；主题邮轮“威尼斯嘉年华”的标志，再加上一句含义是“邮轮”和“享受旅行”的中文双关语，它还可以解释成“游泳愉快”的意思。我看着窗外北京冬天令人沮丧的荒原景色，心想这是一个完美的选择。


来自陕西省的建筑师李成刚给他的侄孙女李瑞娟拍照。

出租车到达上海北部的吴淞口国际邮轮码头时，大雨磅礴而下。在雨雾中，我只能隐约看到一艘船的轮廓。附近搭起了一座帐篷，数千名旅客在里面等待登船。当我们通过两块塑料板搭起的门口时，一位女士说：“这里就像是一个超市。”家人们携带着巨大的行李箱，相互挤来挤去，有一个穿着绣花夹克的女孩在尖叫。一片混乱中，我找到了我的摄影师卡。他是一个短小精悍、消息灵通的上海人，穿着时髦的羊毛马甲，戴着圆圆的眼镜。他说：“太多了人了，太吵了。”在中国，这意味着发生了不同寻常的事情。

帐篷外围排列着50多名导游，每个人都负责几十名旅客。根据中国的法律，导游不可以直接预定国际邮轮的服务，而必须通过一家中国旅游公司。我们在第5桌找到了我们的导游，中国青年旅行社的怡华。她穿着一件明黄色的外套，戴着红色发带，在一片混乱中流露出恬静、淡然的神色。她在我们的名字后做好标记，我看到这个团中的游客来自全国各地，包括重庆、贵州、兰州、南京、陕西、深圳。她给我们每个人发了一张胸牌和一个“歌诗达卡”，主要的用途是在购物时尽可能地便利。

我们托运过行李之后，排队等待登船。船上禁止外带食物，所以旅客们聚集在一个小饮水间里，狼吞虎咽地吃掉最后一碗方便面。通过海关之后，一个放在椅子上的电子扩音器循环播放着录音：“欢迎来到免税商店！回国之后你就买不到这些东西了！别错过这个机会！”中国进口奢侈品的关税高达40％，所以免税店是中国赴海外游客的主要消费场所。我感觉这肯定不是“最后的机会”，但是喇叭里的号召似乎起了一些作用，旅客们在灯光昏暗的商店里逡巡，检视着香烟、香水和高端电饭煲。

当我们登上跳板，终于看到了这艘船的真面目。毫无疑问，大西洋号邮轮很大，根据旅行社发给我的宣传手册，它的长度相当于三个足球场，高度与米兰大教堂差不多。但是在中国这个世界上最大型建筑物聚集的国家，在公共广场、水族馆、跨海大桥和高速铁路网络的映衬下，规模也只是相对的。看着这个白色的庞然大物，周围的游客表现出“也就那么回事”的神态。


歌诗达大西洋号上的游客在2月份享受热水浴。

酒店高层员工在舷梯上列队迎接我们，他们穿着干净整洁的深蓝色制服、袖口上装饰着金色是麦穗。一位沉着的男人戴着白色檐帽，留着精心修建的胡须，伸出手说：“欢迎登船。”他说自己是马可•奇维泰拉，酒店总管，他的工作是确保每一位乘客可以享受到始终如一的愉悦感。另一位船员把一个装有两块巧克力金币和红信封放到我的手里，这是中国春节的传统习俗，给家人和朋友发钱。说到适应一个地方的传统习俗，贿赂的确是一个最好的切入点。

登上大西洋号的过程就像是通过一个传送门，一边是中国，另一边是混杂了意大利与拉斯维加斯、历史与未来、奢华与破落、现实与虚幻、海洋与月球的大杂烩，简而言之，就是具有中国特色的邮轮景象。卡和我把行李放在空间不大但装修奢华的房间里，我们来到甲板的入口处，那里是“纵欲大厅”，正在进行船长的欢迎仪式。红色的中国灯笼挂在吊灯上，头顶上飞扬的是一排中国国旗。伴随着乐队的演奏，一队船员穿着水手服跳《小苹果》的舞步，这首流行于2014年的歌曲经常被称为中国的《江南Style》。

在蕴含着航海文化和中国文化的维恩图上，跳队列舞是最恰当不过的了。在中国的城市里，女人喜欢聚集在空地上，伴随着大声的音乐连跳几个小时。这样的活动实在太过流行，以至于政府发布了一些规定，限制部分舞蹈动作。但是，根据我眼前这位大妈就像是在《灵魂列车》中的舞蹈身段，这些法令的效果显然就像是禁赌令。队列舞是一个明智的破冰举措，游客们意识到他们在体验一些新的东西，但也不算太新。群魔乱舞中，我都没有意识到船已经开动，我们来到了海上。

远离舞蹈人群的甲板，我在寻找有没有小吃，奶昔和巧克力苹果什么的，这时听到有人用英语喊：“裸体！”一位船员正在出售《蓝天鹅绒》的门票，这是安排在旅行最后一晚的滑稽歌舞剧。看到引起我的注意，他把手环成杯状扣在胸前，露出狡猾的笑容说：“很大！”让我吃惊的是，把目标客户定为中国家庭的旅游日程中，怎么会有脱衣舞表演呢？我后来了解到，歌诗达只在亚洲开放这个表演，用执行总监吉奥瓦尼•阿奇罗的话来说：“他们有点害羞，但是都很好奇。”

我观看了晚间的歌舞表演，那是一个流行音乐剧，有《Thriller》、《I Will Survive》和辣妹组合中的一些歌曲，观众自始至终是沉默的。在一个下流的脱衣舞演员伴随着《你可以留下你的帽子》（译者注：兰迪•纽曼的一首歌曲）舞蹈结束后，她身上只剩下一条贴身内裤（还有帽子），坐在我旁边的一个女人皱起了眉毛。后来，我问那位医学院的学生林，她认为这个表演怎么样。她用外交辞令回答：“我听不大懂歌词。”不过她接下来承认歌词不是重点。

阿奇罗说中国观众表达鉴赏力的方式不一样。“他们不习惯看到女孩子穿比基尼，他们的反应是‘哇……’，但是我们得到的反馈还不错。”观众似乎的确有一些参与度，尽管演出前有声明说不允许拍照，但观众席上是一片星星点点的蓝色小长方形。一个男人站起来，把相机的长焦摄像头靠在一根柱子上。阿奇罗说：“用意大利语说，‘这是一场必输的战争’。”

毛的前信徒在他的豪华套间里，边抽烟边说：“一定会有阶级划分。”

第二天晚上的演出《伊万与朱莉亚的魔法》效果要好一些。舞台上，伊万把六七把长刀插入朱莉亚容身的箱子里，我想，魔术是所有人的语言。每个包袱出现，观众都会鼓掌。歌诗达为中国邮轮所选择的节目更侧重于动作，而不是语言；马戏表演，而不是幽默戏剧；魔术，而不是催眠术。我问阿奇罗，他是否会考虑安排一些中国式的娱乐节目，比如京剧。他说：“不会，”他们希望让中国顾客看到一些新的东西，但又不能失礼。涉足那些“我们理解不深”的文化“或许并不明智”。

从剧场里出来，我看到一个小舞池里聚集着一些人，声音嘈杂。舞池的中间坐着一位蒙着眼睛的老人，一个男人戴着金色假发，穿着一身红裙，胸前塞着两个气球，在老人的两腿间跳艳舞。眼罩被拿掉后，主持人宣布：“看看你的女朋友！”老人露出欢快的笑容，周围的人也哈哈大笑，羞怯的心理似乎一下子变得无法解释演出时观众席上的寂静了。这更可能是一种新事物，观众的反应——无论是在摇滚音乐会上疯狂地挥舞拳头，还是在脱衣舞俱乐部中拼命的嚎叫——都是一种后天行为。就像歌诗达在学习中国顾客究竟需要什么，中国顾客也在学习他们应该需要什么，以及如何表达自己的需求。

节目单上的最后一项活动是单身派对，地点在最下层甲板上的一个俗气透顶的迪斯科舞厅，叫做“但丁”。我到那里的时候，以为自己来得太早，或者太晚，因为这个活动就像它的名字一样，只有一个参与者，就是我。我和一个酒吧招待攀谈，这个年轻的中国女人曾经到过欧洲，她说欧洲人会跳舞直到凌晨三四点，在中国，这种聚会总是空无一人。酒吧也一样，中国客人不怎么饮酒。另一位招待张龙军说：“你总是要问很多次他们才会买一杯酒。”稍晚的时候，几个十来岁的孩子走进来，点了几杯鸡尾酒。我问他们为什么不跳舞，他们说不会跳。我自己一个人在蓝紫色的灯光下跳了几分钟，就回到房间睡觉去了。


在二月份寒冷的天气里，户外泳池几乎空无一人。

太极拳不容易学，在船上打太极更是难上加难，甲板的稍许晃动都会让你失去平衡。我起得很早，在室内泳池边试图敛气，为一整天的海上生活做好准备。当我试图模仿教师的动作时，突然变得踉踉跄跄。周围的门外汉也都和我一样，包括一个穿着全套西装的男人。这就像是一个为内耳损伤患者开办的物理治疗课程。这样的场景，似乎完美映射了邮轮公司所面临的挑战：他们试图提供中国消费者所需要的服务，但是一艘船远远不够。

邮轮业的生存过程就是一个不断适应的过程。轮船公司最早在1844年开始提供娱乐邮轮服务，但是在19世纪，大部分横跨大西洋的客轮生意都依赖从欧洲到美国淘金的生意人。当美国在一战后收紧了移民法律，邮轮公司被迫开始寻找新的客源。富有的美国人迅速弥补了这个空缺，尤其是当第18项禁酒修正案在1920年通过之后。（一家法国公司在它的宣传手册上强调了痛饮烈酒的机会：“当你扬帆远航，远离受第18项修正案管束的土地，那些可爱的小冰块，亮晶晶地漂浮在水晶玻璃杯中……噢，一饮而尽的感觉太美妙了！”）50年代航空业的突起再一次抢夺了客运邮轮的市场，这些公司不得不把奢侈邮轮的目标市场从上流社会转移到美国的中产阶级。战后经济发展让邮轮的市场一飞冲天，一直兴旺至今，目前全球邮轮产业年增长率为7％。

歌诗达公司最早与中国政府接触的目的，是计划2005年在上海停靠邮轮。时任歌诗达亚洲运营部副总裁的马西莫•布兰卡罗尼说，政府起初表现出怀疑的态度，他们担心歌诗达经营的是赌博船，就和那些从香港驶往公海的船只一样。布兰卡罗尼和他的同事们尽量解释了邮轮的概念——精美的食物、娱乐、对家人友善的环境，他们的态度缓和了许多。

中国的法律并没有专门针对客轮的内容，而主要是规范货轮的行为。他们必须要考虑制定新的法规，允许船只在港口补给，但不可以征税。（大西洋号提供的食物来自世界各地，包括泰国大米、德国果酱、希腊橙汁、韩国草莓和阿联酋扁豆。）上海当时的基础设施也无法满足国际标准，很多邮轮的高度无法通过把这个城市的主要港口与海洋分割开的大桥，于是直到吴淞口码头建成之后，大型船只才得以运作。

2014年，嘉年华的首席执行官阿兰•巴克鲁从迈阿密来到上海工作，我在船上见到了他。当我问到中国目前的市场状况时，他说：“这让我想起了自己年轻的时候，在70年代末和80年代初，美国的邮轮业与今天的中国有很多相似之处。”当时，邮轮的航行路线基本上依附于一个主要的码头。飞行邮轮——先搭乘飞机，再登上邮轮，一般是全套服务——还不普及。航行的路线往往比较短，后来培养出一些固定的客户，包括退休人员的出现开始让邮轮公司推出更长的航程。在中国，邮轮的航程一般只有三到四天，主要是迎合这个国家比较短的假期。


客人在室内泳池边休息。

嘉年华和皇家加勒比总是在相互争夺市场份额（嘉年华曾经被称为“嘉年兽”，因为它喜欢兼并其它公司），中国也不例外。两家公司分别亮出重型武器——皇家加勒比公司的百万吨级海洋量子号和海洋礼赞号，嘉年华公司的环球航线和歌诗达赛琳娜号，而且他们都在拼命讨好新主顾。皇家加勒比首席执行官迈克尔•巴力在3月份北京的一次新闻发布会上说：“中国的历史是世界上最古老的文明，我们期望成为这个辉煌历史长河中的一个小浪花。”中国是一块崭新的市场，所以竞争还算不上是个零和游戏。当我问到皇家加勒比的竞争力时，巴克鲁说：“我们希望他们可以成功，这样我们也会成功。”目前看来，这句话的意思是强调品牌差异化。歌诗达强调的是它的意大利血统，公主号邮轮的主题就是为提升自我修养而营造一个安静的环境。皇家加勒比则努力彰显它最先进的设施，包括攀岩和极限跳伞模拟器。（这家公司的口号就是“哇”。）当然，在其它国家卓有成效的做法不一定适用于中国。

午餐就像置身于疯人院。这艘船有两个自助餐厅，都挤满了人。队伍排到了拐角，人们手里的盘子上摞着杯子，在人群中努力保持平衡，错误的午餐时间让人群之间的摩擦升级成冲突。对于没有足够中国食物的抱怨声，在我看来完全不是那么回事——包子、炒面、炒饭、粥——尽管这些食物都偏向南方发甜的口味。很多客人愿意尝试新鲜的口味，排队等待汉堡包的人和等待面条的队伍一样长。为了努力融合双方的文化，餐厅还提供猕猴桃味、原味和西瓜味的凉茶——意大利国旗的颜色。

酒店主管奇维泰拉带我参观厨房，他穿着一双闪闪发亮的黑鞋，有一副甜美的笑容。他说，在中国的邮轮上，午餐是一天最匆忙的一餐，“与欧洲客人相比，中国人的午餐时间很早。”而且他们吃得很快，也就是说厨房备餐的动作比平时要快一倍，而且酒类供应很少。他在2010年第一次随歌诗达号来到中国时，一队客人只点一杯鸡尾酒，每个人轮流喝一口，并拍照留念。

之后，情况慢慢有了变化。酒的销量有所增加，客人不再使用筷子，并且开始接受意大利食物了。尽管如此，在围桌而坐的晚餐上，还是有大约60％的客人选择亚洲菜单，而不是意大利菜单。（奇维泰拉说，台湾客人喜欢意大利食物是出于“政治”原因。）厨房聘请了十几位中国厨师和一位来自上海的主厨。在VIP“主厨餐桌”上，厨师在客人面前烹制食物，这项服务很受欢迎。奇维泰拉说：“你知道，中国客人比较骄傲，他们喜欢让别人知道自己很重要。”

中国游客需要更明显的阶层区别对待，这个概念引起了很多的抱怨。我首次遇到李，就是那个对面包不屑一顾的建筑师，是游客在日本靠岸观光的时候。他抱怨到，作为一个购买最高级服务的客人，他应该被安排汽车上最好的座位。他说：“钱能买到的就是最好的服务。”他努力工作的目的就是让花出去的钱能物有所值。有一天在泳池边，我遇到了弗兰克•吴，他是一位年轻的父亲，在香港从事奢侈品行业分析师的工作，他也有同样的看法。他说：“所有人享受到的都是一样的服务。”团费价格从1162美元——大约相当于中国人平均年收入的三分之一——到6456美元。“这里形形色色的人都有，他们应该享受更高级的服务。”

在经历了20世纪初期严格划分阶层的邮轮服务之后——想想杰克和罗丝在泰坦尼克号上的情景——邮轮业在过去几十年里已经成为了社交扁平化的场所。尽管有铺天盖地的广告宣传无微不至的关怀的皇家享受，邮轮基本上把奢华民主化了。一旦登船，每个人都是同等的帝王，但是吴和李似乎期望邮轮是一个漂浮在海面上的种姓制度。吴说：“集体主义在现在已经不是一个好词，”有钱的那些中国人“期望有不同的待遇，仅仅是因为他们比住在隔壁的人多挣那么一点点钱。”

最后一晚的滑稽歌舞剧结束之后。吴说：“这是文化的碰撞。”他又一次说对了。

如果说炫耀性消费是中国人的目标，那么机会实在太多了。纵欲大厅上方的包厢旁边，有一排奢侈品商店，包括古驰、欧米茄和浪琴，这些店铺在去年装修完成，专门供应中国市场。游客在走向剧场观看晚间表演的时候，必须要经过这一排琳琅满目的免税店。促销的喇叭声再一次想起。晚间舞台节目开始之前，有15分钟的“时尚购物表演”，也就是表演者推销各种可以在船上买到的商品。首先是一个男人和一个女人像时装模特一样走上台，他把一枚戒指戴在她的手指上，他们变换各种姿势，让钻石在舞台上闪闪发光。这本应是一个绝妙的销售策略，如果伴乐不是坎耶•维斯特的《塞拉利昂的钻石》的话。

接下来的就是炫富仪式的最高潮：赌场。我终于明白为什么那天晚上只有我一个人在跳舞了，所有的人都跑到这里来。这里有14张赌桌和几十台角子机，主题包括“金猴子”、“亚洲公主”和“丝绸之路上的佐罗”。每张桌子都挤满了赌客，根据旁观人数来判断，最受欢迎的赌桌是巴卡拉纸牌和掷骰子，这都是歌诗达为亚洲邮轮专门安排的活动内容。

主管赌场的人是一个头发精心打理过的澳大利亚人，名叫内森•欧布赖恩，他向我解释了掷骰子的规则。他让我看一个盖起来的小容器，里面有三颗骰子，旁边有一个电子公告板，列举过去十轮的骰子点数。庄家让容器中的骰子开始滚动，玩家下注骰子的点数——大（11点到17点）、小（4点到10点）、单、双、对、豹子，以及其它有可能出现的情况——根据最近几轮的结果。我说：“当然是因为这其中有必然的联系。”他笑着说：“你说对了。”

一位玩家孙春洪是来自北京的一个餐厅老板，他留着一部稀疏的胡子，几乎垂到胸前。他和我分享了他的策略，这不仅关乎运气，而是需要等待某种模式的出现。在骰子点数连续出现了三次“小”之后，他在“小”上放了25美元筹码。盖子打开，结果是“大”。筹码被取走了。尽管如此，孙依然对自己的策略有信心，他向我保证：“我可以很好地控制自己。”

在巴卡拉赌桌上，几位中年男人和一位女士长时间霸占着赌台，手里都捂着一个热水杯。其中一个人来自杭州，梳着背头，脸上泛着油光。每次有关键的牌发出来，他会极为小心地把牌的一角掀起，就像是在花很大的力气撕掉桌面上的贴纸，边尖叫边从慢慢扩大的缝隙往里看。我看到玩家们每一手都下了500美元、1000美元、2000美元的赌注，比有些人所支付的登船费用还要高。赌注最高的一些玩家消失在一个隔离的私人包间里，其他人只能凭想象猜测那里赌注的规模。


一位船员在室内泳池边带领游客跳舞。

我们下了船，踏上了陆地，熟悉的是双脚又踩上了坚实的土地，不熟悉的是日本南部港口城市福冈。我们通过海关，坐上大巴，当地一位导游段菲接管了我们。她问：“有谁来到过日本？”没人举手。但是有很多人高兴地分享他们对日本的理解。一位来自云南的科技工作者和他的母亲一起旅行，他说：“这里菜品的量非常小，一般人吃不饱。”当大巴行驶过传统风格的房屋，坐在我旁边一位脾气暴躁的公司高管钱祺说这都是来自中国的建筑风格，他说：“唐朝文化对日本有很深的影响。”李——那位建筑师——在搞怪，模仿日本人鞠很深的躬，然后假装打他所模仿对象的嘴巴。

在一个各种乱象有可能、并且已经出现的产业中——冲突、枪击、诺如病毒爆发，离岸短途旅行可能存在着特殊的风险。一些试图移民但无法得到签证的中国人，有可能会在旅游中消失。据我的导游怡华所说，申请签证的旅客必须支付10万元人民币的押金，相当于1.6万美元。如果某个游客携带的行李非常简单，歌诗达会上报给当局，作为疑似旅行风险。在2012年两国争夺钓鱼岛进入白热化阶段，一名中国游客在歌诗达停靠在福冈期间，展开一面具有挑衅意味的旗帜，导致日本警察登船干涉。再加上语言障碍，一队身处日本的中国游客有很高的几率发生国际外交事件。当我们在长崎原子弹爆炸死难者和平纪念馆参观时，一位中国船员大声向我解释为什么美国人丢下原子弹是英雄般的举动。

所有人，从歌诗达员工到导游、到水手，都想方设法在维护和谐的关系。游客登船的时候，头顶有一个LED面板，用中英文显示“文明行为，享受旅游”。旁边的一个窗户上贴着7项不受欢迎的行为，包括插队、随地吐痰、在树木和古迹上乱涂乱画、公开场合裸露上身。我们在日本的导游段也提醒我们不要乱丢垃圾，他甚至警告我们在人群拥挤的地段小心保管好贵重物品，不是为了防范当地的小偷——日本是个非常安全的国家——而是因为“周围有很多中国人”。我的那些游伴也非常小心，尽量不暴露中国游客的陋习，他们的行为毕恭毕敬。有些人对当地的文化表现出极强的适应性，比如一对年轻的夫妇，他们买了一套用塑料纸包裹的日本色情光盘，在大巴上传阅时，大家议论纷纷。

在体验过温泉和日本烧烤之后，旅游团开始办正经事了：购物。大巴把游客们带到一个叫做DrugOn的药店，所有人都拿起一个篮子。我看到李直奔体检站，有两个可供选择的体检套餐，一个250美元，另一个高级的要1000美元。他选择了后者，消失在后面的一个房间里。


游客在餐厅享受晚餐。

后来，我看到几位医生了李坐在一条长凳上。初步的血液检查结果显示他患有疾病。李知道，他告诉，他最近被诊断出胃部和结肠有癌症。他只是需要听听更多热的见解，也就是日本人的见解。现在我明白了，在众多家庭成员中，李为什么会选择一个医学院学生作为旅伴。

和邮轮公司一样，DrugOn也为中国游客专门调整了服务内容。不同的产品区用简体中文标识，大约一半的店员都是中国人。其中一位店员是来自宁波的学生，叫夏治水，他说这里大部分的客人都是中国游客。“现在，所有人都喜欢‘日本制造’，因为他们觉得中国的药品不安全。”日本也因此批准了一些药品可以在柜台销售，这些药品在中国要么没有出售，要么需要处方。亚特兰大号邮轮上的乘客用各种各样的东西塞满背包，从润肤霜到额头降温贴到缓解宿醉的姜茶。

那一天剩下的时间——实际上接下来的几天里——我们从一个免税店来到另一个免税店。它们一个接一个地出现，就好像是一个大商店，有虫洞把它们连接在一起。它们的装修几乎一模一样，强烈的灯光就像是太阳黑子爆发，人头攒动，似乎有意营造一个摧毁人类防御心理的环境。当我们走进第无数个商店时，钱说：“我觉得头痛。”几分钟之后，他买了一个松下剃须刀。商店里出售的商品也如出一辙，除了千篇一律的名表、化妆品和珠宝，还有保健药品、保温瓶和电饭煲。李几乎照单全收。

在无尽的免税店巡礼之后，明显的一个事实是，对很多人来说，购物是邮轮旅行的精华之处。福冈旅游那一天的晚上，段请游客投票决定继续购物还是返回邮轮。投票结果几乎是一边倒的。歌诗达亚太区和中国区高级副总裁布迪•博克说：“我们所了解到的抱怨，都是说购物的时间安排得不够。”

尽管对像我这种憎恨购物的人来说完全不能理解这样的安排，但中国游客似乎乐此不疲。就像典型的美国邮轮喜欢进行“看你能吃多少”的自助餐压力测试，中国游客把邮轮旅行视为自我提升的机会。公主号邮轮的中国总监彻丽•王说：“中国游客喜欢探索新事物，它们希望提升生活的品质。”这代表参观更多的地方，学习更多的技巧，提升经济地位。王说这与中国经济的快速增长有关，正如很多新型的中产阶级依然记得过去困苦的日子。“很多人会想：‘我现在有了更多的实力，但如果我放松享受，一两年之后我就会落后。’”

这同时可以解释邮轮安排各种活动的原因。大部分中国游客不想无所事事地闲逛或者看一本书，他们在家里也可以做这些事。在船上，他们希望参与（很多人使用“体验”这个词）。但有些体验实在太过另类，费里尼的系列影片没有观众，于是歌诗达给换成了一些中国影片，比如《十面埋伏》。还有一些不够另类的活动，大西洋号上曾经有水疗，但后来取消了，因为这在中国太普遍了。博克说：“水疗需要时间”，大部分中国邮轮旅行的时间都不长。而且，对于一个具有数千年文化的国家来说，水疗没有太多的新奇和异域特点。

我遇到过的人里并不都喜欢填鸭式的日程安排，尤其是年轻人，他们说靠岸旅行的时间太长了。34岁的朱海滨梳着一个标志性的发髻，他觉得没有理由去赶时间。“如果你去一个以游客为导向的国家，比如日本，你就要体验游客的导向。”他更喜欢和妻子远离人群随便逛逛，他说下一次不坐邮轮了，要选择“自由行”。


邮轮总监吉奥瓦尼•阿奇罗与船长和酒店总监，与游客举杯相庆。

在邮轮上的最后一晚，我偷偷溜进《蓝天鹅绒》歌舞剧表演的剧院。里面坐满了人，事先没人提到会来观看，但突然之间所有的人都出现了。当穿着警察服装的脱衣舞女和一个白人饶舌歌手表演《Crazy in Love》时，我看到我的团里的一对夫妇坐在我前面，他们依偎自一起。一队舞蹈演员摘到白色的帽子，脱掉大衣，唱一首歌词多次重复“打我屁股”的歌曲时，我看到李和他的孙侄女专心致志地看着，就好像在认真地聆听TED演讲。谢幕时，观众席上一如既往地寂静。奢侈品专家吴说：“这就是文化的碰撞。”我想她又说对了。

第二天早晨我们醒来，船已经靠近了上海。离登岸还有几个小时，但船上的活动已经停止，于是乘客们散坐在甲板上，让过往的人不得不跋涉过购物袋形成的山山水水。尽管缺少中国食物、仓促的上岸旅行和不明显的阶级划分，但大部分人似乎感觉很满意。我感到筋疲力尽。过去的6天里，除了晕船、观看表演、免税店购物和警惕国际外交事件的发生，不剩下什么放松的时间，让我觉得还需要再参加一次邮轮旅行来恢复自己的疲惫。但我算不上是他们的目标顾客，大部分人都说还会再考虑邮轮旅行。


来自南京的两对夫妇在甲板上自拍。

我还想和李见最后一面。我敲了敲他舱室的门，他邀请我进来。他用新买的保温瓶给我倒了一杯茶，递给我一支烟，那是武汉的高端品牌“黄鹤楼”。（如果李决定放任癌症继续抽烟，他显然也不会顾忌歌诗达禁止吸烟的规定。）当我问到最后一晚的歌舞表演，他说他早就习惯了这类东西，“我去过红磨坊，那是很经典的艺术，比中国的色情表演强多了。”

李提到了他幼年时的生活。他生长在陕西农村，“家里没有粮食”。他记得吃过树皮，还把玉米穗磨成粉，作为食物。在极度饥饿中，他依然忠于共产党。他说：“所有人都把毛主席当作神。”1969年，他遇到了中国当代建筑学之父梁思成的一个学生，并成为了他的门生。尽管文化大革命宣扬“捣毁旧世界，建立新世界”，但李对中国传统建筑产生了浓厚的兴趣。他后来成立了一家设计公司，专门建造古代风格的建筑物，在目前的中国非常流行。他说他现在每年能挣数百万美元。

我问他怎么理解早期对毛的信仰和目前VIP级别的旅游之间的差异。他说：“哪里都有阶级差别，如果没有这种差别，人们就没有工作的动力。”那么人人平等的理念呢？他说：“那只是一个理念。共产主义就是一个理念，就像你们国家的宗教：基督教、圣母玛丽亚、天堂，天堂是什么？你到过天堂吗？”

近年来，习近平主席提到了“中国梦”。李说他认为这与邮轮旅行有一点关系。“什么是中国梦？就是让你通过辛苦的工作有所收获。你的收获是什么呢？享受。”现在，他就要享受，他点起一支黄鹤楼。“担心没有用，如果你怕死，你就活不长。”

他的孙侄女林在整个行程中都不怎么说话。我后来问她觉得这次体验如何，她的回复颇带感情色彩。她写到：“这是一次浪漫之旅。这艘船就像一个充满异域风情的国家，一个罕见的平静的环境……参加各类活动，人们并不认识，但高兴地在一起……偶尔独自坐在咖啡厅，听音乐。这是一种享受，我希望还能再有这样的机会。”



原文：

Aboard the Italian-themed cruise ship Costa Atlantica, two days’ sail from the coast of China, at a special dinner for high-paying passengers, head chef Daniel Martinez began by explaining the concept of bread. “The bread, for us,” he said, “is like for Asian people, the rice.” The eight Chinese guests at our table listened attentively as a crew member translated into Mandarin. Diners at other, less premium tables leaned in to hear the speech. Waiters brought baskets containing four fresh-baked masterpieces, including a Neapolitan specialty with cheese and bits of ham. “Buon appetito!” said Martinez, and the phrase echoed tentatively around the table.

My neighbor, a silver-maned 65-year-old from Shaanxi province named Li Chenggang, barely touched his bread. Nor was he fond of the pan-fried marinated sesame shrimps, the mascarpone cheese mousse in cold tomato soup, the linguine pasta with lobster sauce, the sambal codfish, the glazed pork belly, or the dark chocolate cake with hazelnut ice cream. “I’m not used to eating Western food,” he said. When Martinez explained the science behind wine pairings, the translator stumbling on the Chinese word for “tannins,” Li left his glass unsipped. I asked what he thought of the meal. “To be honest, it’s awful,” he said, adding that he preferred biang biang noodles, a simple Shaanxi dish.

As with most of the 2,635 passengers on the ship—98 percent of whom were from China—it was Li’s first time taking a cruise. A self-declared workaholic, he spent his career at a successful architecture firm in Shaanxi province. Wanting a treat, he’d signed up himself and his grandniece Lin Ruijuan, a medical student, for one of the cruise’s most expensive packages, a $4,000 suite with a balcony and a never-ending supply of fruit plates. So far, he wasn’t impressed. The service was “cold,” he said, and there wasn’t enough Chinese food. His main complaint: The special treatment he was receiving wasn’t special enough. “Money speaks for itself,” Li told me. “I have money.”

So do hundreds of millions of Chinese like him. And if the global cruise industry doesn’t yet know how to make Li happy, it’s doing everything in its power to learn. As the markets in the U.S. and Canada approach saturation, the heavyweights of luxury cruising, particularly Carnival and Royal Caribbean Cruises, have been sailing east. Costa Crociere, which is owned by Carnival, was the first company to enter China, in 2006, followed by Royal Caribbean in 2007 and Princess Cruises, another Carnival brand, in 2014. Now the companies are engaged in an arms race of pampering-at-sea. In March, Costa launched the first around-the-world cruise from Shanghai. Carnival recently signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s largest shipbuilder to explore creating a new Chinese cruise line. Royal Caribbean, meanwhile, decided it’s going to need a bigger boat: In June the company will bring to Shanghai its newest ship, the theme-park-on-water Quantum of the Seas, to travel year-round, followed in 2016 by its 167,800-ton “little sister,” Ovation of the Seas, sailing from Tianjin.

The cruise business in China is still small. In 2014 about 700,000 Chinese travelers cruised, compared with 10 million Americans and more than 6 million Europeans. But the numbers are climbing rapidly—an increase of 79 percent from 2012 to 2014—and the ceiling isn’t yet visible. In the U.S. and Australia, about 3.5 percent of the population cruises each year; the proportion in China is less than one-sixtieth of that. Some forecasters estimate that China will be the No. 2 market by 2017—and that it could eventually replace the U.S. as the largest in the world.

As the cruise gets under way, crew members lead a line dancing activity.

Local governments have already built cruise terminals in Sanya, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Xiamen, with more on the way in at least four other coastal cities. Cruise companies are bringing ships to China as fast as the ports can squeeze them in. But the hardware is the easy part. The software—the onboard experience of the Chinese customer—is still in beta. Localization itself is nothing new; brands from KFC to Oreo as well as Hollywood studios have tailored their products to the Chinese market, with varying levels of success. For cruise companies, it’s more complicated than hiring a Chinese celebrity spokesperson or throwing in a green tea flavor. They must rethink the entire cruise experience, from food to décor to how a rapidly capitalizing society thinks about class and luxury.

In the U.S. and Europe, cruising evokes a ready set of images: retirees, Hawaiian shirts, piña coladas, the Macarena, Croakies. Since The Love Boat premiered in 1977, cruises have become floating symbols of the leisure-industrial complex. They represent the apotheosis of the American dream or, in the eyes of literary depressives such as David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen, its ultimate emptiness. Most Chinese, meanwhile, have only a vague notion of cruising, if they’ve heard the term at all. The first drop-down menu on the Chinese website for Princess Cruises asks, “What Is a Cruise?” The country is, in the words of Carnival Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald, “a blank sheet of paper,” with a rising middle class whose consumption habits are still up for grabs. Then again, cruise companies have to explain to customers not just what differentiates their brand but why they should spend a week on a boat in the first place.

To find out how the Chinese cruise, I signed up for a six-day voyage with Costa over Chinese New Year in February, departing from Shanghai with stops in Japan and South Korea. The promotional brochure was a jumble: a pristine blue ocean seen through a porthole; the elegant actress Gao Yuanyuan, holding a masquerade mask and casting a sultry look; the popular Chinese cartoon characters Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf dressed up as sailors; the logo for the cruise’s theme, “Carnival of Venice”; and a pun on the Mandarin words for “cruise” and “to enjoy a trip,” which can also mean, unsettlingly, “have a good swim.” I looked out my apartment window at the pitiless concrete tundra of Beijing in winter. It sounded perfect.

Li Chenggang, an architect from Shaanxi province, takes a picture of his grandniece, Lin Ruijuan.

Rain poured as the taxi approached the Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal in north Shanghai. Through the mist, I could just make out the silhouette of a ship. Nearby, a large tent served as a holding pen for the thousands of travelers getting ready to board. “It’s like a supermarket,” said one woman as we passed through the vertical plastic flaps that served as a door. Families jostled past with enormous DayGlo roller bags. A small girl in a flower-print jacket was screaming. Despite the mayhem, I found Ka, my photographer, a compact Shanghai hipster, fashionably appointed in a wool vest and round glasses. “Too many people,” he said. “Too loud.” In China, that’s saying something.

Lining the periphery of the tent were more than 50 tour guides, each responsible for a few dozen passengers. Per Chinese law, travelers can’t book an international cruise directly but must go through a Chinese tour company. We spotted our guide, Yi Hua of China Youth Travel Service, at Table 5. She wore a neon yellow vest, had red streaks in her hair, and exuded patience amid the chaos. She checked our names off a list—guests in our group hailed from all over the country, including Chongqing, Guizhou, Lanzhou, Nanjing, Shaanxi, Shenzhen—and gave us each a lanyard and a “Costa Card,” the main purpose of which was to make buying things as easy as possible.

We dropped our luggage and lined up to board. Outside food was forbidden on the ship, so guests gathered in a small cafe area to scarf down one last bowl of instant noodles. Just beyond customs, an electronic bullhorn on a chair looped incessantly. “Welcome to the duty-free store!” it barked. “When you come back to China, you can’t buy these items anymore! Don’t miss this opportunity!” Import duties on luxury goods in China run as high as 40 percent, so duty-free shopping is a major draw for Chinese traveling overseas. Something told me this wouldn’t be the last such “opportunity,” but the urgent appeal seemed to work. Guests roamed the harshly lit store scrutinizing cigarettes, perfume, and high-end rice cookers.

As we filed up the gangplank, we got our first look at the ship itself. The Atlantica was big, no doubt—the length of almost three football fields and, according to the coffee table book about the ship I was given, as tall as the facade of the Milan Cathedral. But in China, home to the world’s largest building, public square, aquarium, sea bridge, and high-speed rail network, scale is relative. Peering up at the white leviathan, the guests around me exhibited less a sense of astonishment than, That seems about right.

Guests enjoy a hot tub in February on board the Costa Atlantica.

At the gangway, senior members of the hotel staff, wearing crisp, dark blue suits with gold-braid rank stripes on the sleeves, lined up to greet us. A well-ballasted man with a cue-ball dome and a trim goatee extended his hand. “Welcome aboard,” he said, introducing himself as Marco Civitella, the hotel director. His job was to make sure every passenger lived in a state of constant if not escalating bliss. Another crew member placed a red envelope containing two chocolate coins in my hand, a riff on the Chinese New Year tradition of giving money to friends and family. When it came to adapting to local culture, bribery seemed a wise place to start.

Boarding the Atlantica was like passing through a portal. On one side was China; on the other, a mishmash of Italy and Vegas and the past and the future and luxury and trash and fact and fiction and the ocean and the moon—in short, Cruiseland—with Chinese characteristics. After dropping our bags in our small but sumptuous cabins, Ka and I reported to the main entrance deck, known as Dolce Vita Hall, where the “Captain’s Welcome” was under way. Red Chinese lanterns hung from chandeliers, and a string of Chinese national flags danced overhead. A live band played, while a team of crew members wearing sailor’s uniforms showed a packed dance floor the moves to Little Apple, the ubiquitous 2014 song that’s often described as China’s Gangnam Style.

In a Venn diagram of cruise culture and Chinese culture, line dancing would fill a good portion of the overlap. In cities, women congregate in public spaces to blast music and dance synchronously for hours; the practice is so popular, the government issued regulations dictating appropriate dance moves. It was clear, however, as I watched one mother shake it like she was on Soul Train, that such rules now applied about as much as gambling laws. Line dancing was a clever opener, signaling to guests that they’d be experiencing something new, but not too new. Surrounded by so much gyration, I didn’t even notice when the ship started to move. We were at sea.

Off to the side of the dance floor, I was perusing the snack options—milkshakes and chocolate-covered apples—when I heard someone shout in English, “Topless!” One of the crew was selling tickets to Blue Velvet, the burlesque show scheduled for the last night of the cruise. Seeing he had my attention, he cupped his hands a short distance from his chest. “Very big!” he said, grinning. I was surprised that a cruise geared toward Chinese families would have a strip show. I later learned that Costa offers this show only in Asia, where, in the words of Cruise Director Giovanni Azzaro, “they’re a little shy, but curious.”

At the stage show I attended that evening, a pop music revue called Solid Gold that included dance numbers based on Thriller, I Will Survive, and songs from the Spice Girls, the audience reacted with near-silence. When a risqué striptease to You Can Leave Your Hat On ended with the dancers in nothing but briefs (and hats), the woman next to me furrowed her brow in concern. Later, I asked Lin, the medical student, what she thought of the show. “I didn’t understand the lyrics,” she said diplomatically, before admitting that the lyrics were perhaps not the point.

Azzaro said that Chinese audiences just have a different way of showing their appreciation. “They are not used to seeing the girls in the bikinis. They’re like, ‘Whoooooaaaaa,’ ” he said. “But we always get good comments.” The audience did seem engaged. Despite the preshow announcement that photography wasn’t permitted, the orchestra level was a galaxy of tiny lighted rectangles. One man stood up and rested a giant SLR zoom lens against a post for stability. “We say in Italian, ‘It’s a lost war,’ ” Azzaro said.

“There must be class divisions,” said the former Mao disciple, smoking inside his deluxe cabin

The following night’s show, Magika With Ivan and Julia, went over better. Magic, I thought, as I watched Ivan shove a half-dozen blades through a box containing Julia, is universal. The audience applauded every stunt. For Chinese cruises, Costa chooses performances that emphasize the physical over the verbal. Instead of a comedian, they feature a circus act; instead of a hypnotist, a magician. I asked Azzaro whether he considered incorporating Chinese-style entertainment, like Peking opera. “Frankly, no,” he said. The point was to offer Chinese customers a chance to see something new—and to avoid any gaffes. To appropriate a culture that “we don’t know deeply,” he said, “could be a mistake.”

Emerging from the theater, I came across a noisy group crowded around a small dance floor. In the center, a blindfolded old man was getting a lap dance—from another man wearing a blond wig and a red dress stuffed with two balloons. When the blindfold came off—“Take a look at your girlfriend!” said the MC—the old man gave a good-humored smile, and everyone burst out laughing. Rampant timidity suddenly seemed like an imperfect explanation for the silence during the stage shows. More likely it was the novelty: Audience reactions, whether it’s throwing up a fist at a rock concert or hooting at a strip club, are learned behaviors. Just as Costa was learning what Chinese guests wanted, the guests were learning what they were supposed to want and how to express that.

The last event on the schedule was Singles Night, located way down in the nether-decks at a eurotrashy disco called Dante’s. When I arrived, I assumed I was early. Or late. As it turned out, the event lived up to its name, as there was only a single person there: me. I chatted up one of the bartenders, a young Chinese woman with tortoiseshell glasses who’d sailed in Europe before. There, she said, people would stay up dancing till 3 or 4 a.m. In China, the club was almost always empty. The bars, too, since Chinese customers don’t drink much. “You have to offer many times before they’ll buy a drink,” said Zhang Longjun, another bartender at the club. Finally, a few teenagers came in and ordered cocktails. I asked them why they weren’t dancing. They said they didn’t know how. I danced alone for a minute in the purple-and-blue lights and went back to my room to sleep.

The outdoor pool area is relatively bare on a brisk day in February.

Tai chi is difficult anywhere, but it’s a lot harder on a boat, where even mild rolling and pitching make balance all but impossible. I’d risen early for class, held beside the indoor pool, eager to get my qi right for our first full day at sea. Now, as I tried to imitate the teacher’s movements, I kept toppling over. So did the amateurs around me, including one man in a full business suit. It looked like a physical therapy session for victims of inner ear damage. The scene was almost too perfect a metaphor for the challenge facing cruise companies: They’re trying to offer what Chinese consumers want, but not everything translates on a boat.

Adaptation has always been key to the cruise industry’s survival. Shipping companies offered pleasure cruises as early as 1844, but most trans-Atlantic passenger ships during the 19th and early 20th centuries relied on immigrants from Europe to the U.S. for their business. When the U.S. tightened immigration laws after World War I, shipping lines were forced to hunt for new customers. Wealthy American tourists eagerly filled the gap, especially after the 18th Amendment banned alcohol in 1920. (One French company emphasized booze in its brochure: “As you sail away, far beyond the range of amendments and thou-shalt-nots, those dear little iced things begin to appear, sparkling aloft on their slender crystal stems … Oh so gurglingly good!”) The advent of air travel in the 1950s disrupted the passenger shipping industry once again, prompting companies to pitch luxury cruises to middle-class Americans rather than just the upper crust. With a boost from the postwar economy, the mass-market cruise industry took off and has thrived ever since, with a current global annual growth rate of 7 percent.

Costa first approached Chinese officials about running cruises out of Shanghai in 2005. The government was initially suspicious, said Massimo Brancaleoni, then vice president for Costa’s Asia operations. They were concerned that Costa wanted to run overnight gambling boats like the kind that set sail out of Hong Kong. After Brancaleoni and his colleagues explained the concept of a cruise—good food, entertainment, a family-friendly environment—they became more amenable.

China’s laws weren’t written with passenger liners in mind; they’re geared to accommodating cargo ships. New rules had to be negotiated allowing vessels to be restocked in port without goods being taxed. (The Atlantica serves food from all over the world, including Thai rice, German jam, Greek orange juice, Korean strawberries, and lentils from the United Arab Emirates.) Nor were Shanghai’s facilities up to international standards. Many cruise ships were too tall to pass under the bridge that separates the city’s primary port from the ocean, so the biggest vessels couldn’t call until the Wusongkou port was built.

In 2014, Carnival’s chief operating officer, Alan Buckelew, relocated from Miami to Shanghai. I met him at the Costa offices there. “It reminds me of my youth,” he said, when I asked about the China market now. “Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, cruising in the U.S. had many of the same characteristics as China today.” It was regionalized, with cruise lines typically based in one home port. Fly cruising—taking a plane to a boat, often as a package deal—hadn’t become popular. Cruises were also shorter, before repeat cruisers and retirees sought out longer voyages. In China, many last only three or four days, to accommodate the country’s shorter holidays.

Guests relax by the indoor pool.

Carnival and Royal Caribbean have always jockeyed for market space (Carnival was once dubbed “Carnivore” for its many acquisitions), and China is no exception. Each company has mobilized some of its biggest weapons—the megaships Quantum and Ovation for Royal Caribbean, the around-the-world cruise and the Costa Serena for Carnival—and hastened to flatter its new crush. “No civilization in the world has a longer history than China,” Royal Caribbean CEO Michael Bayley said at a press conference in Beijing in March. “We look forward to being a small part of that tremendous history for a long time to come.” The market is so fresh that it’s not yet a zero-sum game. “We hope they’re wildly successful,” Buckelew said when I asked about competition from Royal Caribbean. “Then we’ll be wildly successful.” For now, that means brand differentiation. Costa emphasizes its Italian heritage; Princess pitches itself as a quieter experience aimed at self-improvement; and Royal Caribbean hypes its gee-whiz facilities, including climbing walls and sky diving simulators. (Its slogan, in its entirety, is “WOW.”) Of course, what works in other parts of the world doesn’t always work in China.

Lunch was a madhouse. The ship had two separate buffet areas, both jammed. Lines wound around corners, guests squeezed past one another with cups balanced on plates, and the ill-timed lurches of the ship turned brushes into collisions. For all the complaints I heard about there not being enough Chinese food, it seemed plentiful to me—steamed buns, stir-fried noodles, fried rice, porridge—though it skewed toward sweet southeastern cooking rather than inland spice. Many guests ventured beyond local dishes; the line for burgers was just as long as the noodle bar’s. Striving for cultural synthesis, they served bubble tea in kiwi, original, and watermelon flavors—the colors of the Italian flag.

Civitella, the hotel director, gave me a tour of the kitchen. He wore a jolly smile and gleaming black shoes. On China cruises, he explained, lunch is the busiest meal. “Compared with European guests, the Chinese eat very early,” he said. They also eat faster—which means the kitchen has to move twice as quickly—and order far less booze. Back when he first came to China with Costa in 2010, he said, groups would order a single cocktail, passing it around for each person to take a sip and a photo.

Since then, he’s seen behaviors change. Guests are drinking more wine, using chopsticks less, and becoming more receptive to Italian food. Still, during sit-down dinners, about 60 percent of guests will choose the Asian option over the Italian. (Taiwanese guests prefer Italian food, Civitella said, for “political” reasons.) The kitchen has adjusted by hiring a dozen Chinese cooks and one chef from Shanghai. The VIP “Chef’s Table” meal, where cooks prepare food in front of guests, was especially popular. “As you know, Chinese guests are very proud,” Civitella said. “They like to show they are important.”

This idea—that Chinese travelers want more class distinctions rather than fewer—became a refrain. When I first met Li, the architect who disdained bread, we were on a shore excursion in Japan. He was griping that as a top-paying guest, he should have a better seat on the bus. “Money buys good service,” he told me. He’d worked hard and wanted to feel like his earnings were well spent. One day by the pool, I met Frankie Wu, a young father and analyst in the luxury industry in Hong Kong, who had a similar criticism. “They’re treating everyone the same,” he said. Ticket prices ranged from $1,162—about a third of the average Chinese person’s annual disposable income—to $6,456. “People here are from very different backgrounds. They should be treated with more prestige.”

After the rigidly stratified liners of the early 20th century—think Jack and Rose in Titanic—cruising in the last few decades has become a socially flattening activity. Despite all the talk of pampering and royal treatment, cruises are largely about the democratization of luxury. Once aboard, everyone is equally regal. Yet Wu and Li wanted cruising to be more like the floating caste systems of yore. “Collective experience is a dirty word now,” Wu said. Chinese people with money “want to be treated differently, just because they earn a tiny bit more than the people living next door.”

The burlesque ended to silence. “A clash of civilizations,” said Wu. Then again, that was the point

If conspicuous consumption was the goal, opportunities abounded. The mezzanine above Dolce Vita Hall was lined with luxury shops, including Gucci, Omega, and Longines—a renovation made last year especially for the China market. Walking to the theater for the nightly show, guests had to traverse a long, sparkling hall of duty-free stores. The sales pitch continued inside. Before that night’s stage act, there was a 15-minute “shopping fashion show” in which performers modeled various available-for-purchase items. It began with a man and woman slinking out like runway models. He put a ring on her finger, and they held the pose, letting the diamond glint in the light. It would have been a perfect piece of salesmanship if it weren’t for the soundtrack, Kanye West’s Diamonds From Sierra Leone.

Next stop was the ground zero of wealth-display rituals, the casino. I realized why I’d been dancing alone the night before: Everyone was here. There were 14 tables for gambling and dozens of slot machines with themes such as “Golden Monkey,” “Asian Princess,” and “Silk Road Zorro.” Almost every table was full, and judging by the number of onlookers, the main events were baccarat and a game called Sic Bo, also known as “big and small.” Both are special to Costa’s Asian cruises.

Presiding over the scene was a well-coiffed Australian named Nathan O’Brien, who explained the rules of Sic Bo. He pointed to a covered popping mechanism containing three dice—sic bo means “precious dice” in Cantonese—and then to an electronic board that logged the last 10 or so rolls. The croupier would pop the hidden dice, and players would bet on what they showed—a “big” total (11-17), a “small” total (4-10), odd, even, double, triple, or some other condition—based on what had been rolled recently. “Because of course there’s a relationship,” I said. “You got it,” O’Brien said with a smile.

One player, Shun Chunhong, a restaurant owner from Beijing with a wispy beard that nearly reached his chest, told me his strategy. It wasn’t about luck, he said. It was about waiting for a pattern to emerge. After a streak of three smalls in a row, he put down a $25 chip on small. The dice popped, and the result came up: big. The chip disappeared. Still, Shun had faith in his method. “I’m an extremely controlled person,” he assured me.

Over at baccarat, a group of middle-aged men and one woman sat glued to their chairs, nursing thermoses of hot water. One of them, a combed-over gentleman from Hangzhou, was maintaining a steady sheen of sweat. Any time a crucial card was dealt, he’d lift the corner with painstaking slowness, as if peeling a decal off the table, and peer into the widening gap while screaming. I watched some players bet $500, $1,000, $2,000—more than some people had paid to get on the ship in the first place—on almost every hand. The highest rollers of all disappeared behind a partition into a private playing area, leaving the rest of us to only imagine the quantities being wagered.

A crew member leads a group dance class by the indoor pool.

We were off the boat now, back on land, familiar in that it was firm, unfamiliar in that it was Fukuoka, a port city in southern Japan. We passed through customs and piled onto a bus, where a local guide named Duan Fei took over. “How many people have been to Japan?” she asked. No hands went up. Yet everyone was happy to share their Japan expertise. “The food portions are so small, it doesn’t fill you up,” said Zhao Yang, an employee at an industrial technology company in Yunnan province who was traveling with his mother. As we drove past some traditional-looking houses, a cantankerous executive sitting next to me, Qian Qi, noted their debt to Chinese architecture. “Tang Dynasty culture had a big influence on Japan,” he said. Li, the architect, jokingly imitated a Japanese person by bowing low, then pretending to smack his interlocutor across the face.

In an industry where many things can and do go wrong—collisions, fires, norovirus outbreaks—shore excursions outside China pose a distinct risk. Chinese who want to emigrate but can’t get a proper visa sometimes just disappear from a tour group. Passengers who arrange their own visas have to pay a deposit of up to 100,000 yuan, or $16,000, according to our tour organizer, Yi Hua. If a guest boards with suspiciously light bags, Costa reports him to the authorities as a possible flight risk. At the height of the tense standoff over the Diaoyu Islands in 2012, a Chinese guest on a Costa ship docking in Fukuoka unfurled a provocative banner, prompting Japanese police to board. Factor in the language barrier, and a Chinese tour group in Japan is an international incident waiting to happen. When we stopped at the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, one Chinese cruiser loudly explained to me why the Americans were heroes to drop the nuke.

Everyone from Costa to the local guides to the cruisers themselves went out of their way to preserve harmonious relations. When first boarding the ship, guests passed underneath an LED board that read in English, “Civilized Behaviors, Enjoyable Trips.” Pasted to the window nearby was a poster listing seven unwelcome behaviors, including cutting in line, spitting on the ground, carving into trees or cultural relics, and removing one’s shirt in public. Our guide in Japan, Duan, reminded us not to litter. She even warned us to mind our valuables in crowded places, not because of local thieves—Japan is notoriously safe—but because “there will be a lot of Chinese people around.” My traveling companions, mindful of stereotypes about Chinese travelers, behaved respectfully. Some adapted especially well to local culture, like the young couple that bought a shrinkwrapped multimedia set of Japanese pornography and passed the DVDs around the bus for appraisal.

After stopping at a hot spring and a Japanese barbecue, our group got down to the real business of the day: shopping. The bus pulled into the parking lot of a pharmacy called DrugOn, and everyone grabbed a basket. I noticed Li beelining for the health checkup station. There were two tiers: basic, for about $250, and premium, for $1,000. He signed up for the latter and disappeared into a back room.

Guests gather for dinner in the main restaurant.

Later, I saw a pair of employees sitting with Li on a bench. Preliminary blood test results indicated he was sick. Li knew, he told them. He’d recently been diagnosed with cancer in his stomach and colon. He just wanted a second opinion—a Japanese one. Now I understood why, of his many family members, Li had chosen for a traveling companion the one who was a medical student.

Like the cruise companies, DrugOn has geared its services to China’s tourist economy. Product sections were labeled in Mandarin, and about half the employees I saw were Chinese. One attendant, a student from Ningbo named Xia Zhishui, said a large portion of their clients are Chinese travel groups. “Right now, everyone likes ‘Made in Japan,’ ” he said. “They think the medicine in China isn’t safe.” Japan also approves some medicines for over-the-counter sale that are unavailable or require a prescription in China. My Atlantica shipmates packed their baskets with everything from moisturizer to forehead-cooling pads to a ginger-based hangover cure.

We spent the rest of the day—indeed, the next several days—hopping from one duty-free store to another. They all blended together, as if they were really one big store connected by wormholes. They were uniform in style, lit like the solar core, and overcrowded, as if designed to wear down one’s defenses. “My head hurts,” said Qian, the executive, as we walked into the umpteenth outlet of the trip. A few minutes later he was buying a Panasonic shaver. The products had a consistency, too. In addition to the inevitable fancy watches and cosmetics and jewelry, there was a wide selection of organic health pills, thermoses, and rice cookers. Li bought all three.

After this eternity of aisle-browsing, it was becoming clear that shopping was, for many people, a highlight of the cruise. Toward the end of our day in Fukuoka, Duan called for a vote on whether to keep shopping or return to the ship. The vote was nearly unanimous. “One usual complaint we see is there’s not enough time for shopping,” said Buhdy Bok, Costa’s senior vice president for Pacific Asia and China.

Inconceivable as this seemed to a mall-phobe like me, it made sense for many Chinese guests. Whereas the typical American cruiser’s ambitions peak at stress-testing the all-you-can-eat buffet, Chinese travelers see cruises as an opportunity for self-improvement. “Chinese guests want to explore,” said Cherry Wang, country director for Princess Cruises in China. “They want to raise their level of life.” That may mean seeing new places, learning new skills, or improving their economic situation. Wang said this has to do with the fast pace of China’s growth, as many now-middle-class consumers still remember extreme hardship. “Many people think, ‘I have a lot of power now, but if I relax and enjoy my life, then in a year or two I won’t be able to catch up.’ ”

This also helped explain the endless activities aboard the ship. Most Chinese guests didn’t want to veg out and read a book; they could do that at home. On the cruise, they wanted to be engaged. (The word many people used was tiyan, or “learn through experience.”) Some of those experiences were a bit too foreign: The Fellini film series didn’t go over well, so Costa replaced it on some trips with Chinese movies such as House of Flying Daggers. Others weren’t foreign enough: The Atlantica used to have a spa but removed it because it was so unpopular in China. “You have to find time to do the spa,” Bok said, and most Chinese cruises are short. Plus, for a culture that has been getting rubdowns for millennia, there is nothing novel or exotic about a spa.

Not everyone I spoke with favored the cram-it-all-in style of travel. Young guests, especially, said the shore excursions were too much, too fast. Zhu Hai Bin, a 34-year-old man with a stylish topknot, said he felt rushed for no reason. “If you go to a customer-oriented country like Japan, you want the experience to be customer-oriented,” he said. He’d have preferred to wander around with his wife, apart from a tour group. Next time, he said, he’d skip the cruise and “travel freely.”

Cruise director Giovanni Azzaro dances with a passenger while the captain and hotel director raise a glass.

The last night of the cruise, I slipped into the theater for the Blue Velvet burlesque show. It was packed. No one had been talking about going, but suddenly everyone was there. During a rendition of Crazy in Love featuring female police strippers and a white man rapping, I noticed two couples from our tour group in front of me, cuddling. As a group of dancers shed their white fedoras and long coats to a song whose dominant lyric was “Spank me,” I saw Li and his grandniece looking patiently engaged, as if absorbing a TED Talk. At the curtain call, the audience was, as before, almost silent. “It was a clash of civilizations,” said Wu, the luxury industry expert, after the show. Then again, that was the point.

By the time we woke up the next morning, the ship was approaching Shanghai. We had a couple of hours before disembarking, but the onboard activities were shut down, so passengers draped themselves over whatever seats were available, forcing passersby to navigate around mountains of shopping bags. Despite the gripes about the lack of Chinese food and the rushed shore excursions and the insufficient economic stratification, most people seemed pleased. I felt exhausted. Between the gorging and spectating and duty-freeing and remaining vigilant for international incidents, the last six days had been anything but relaxing. It made me want to take another cruise just to recover. But I wasn’t the target audience. Most people I asked said they would consider cruising again.

Two couples from Nanjing take a selfie on deck.

I wanted to have one last conversation with Li. When I knocked on the door to his cabin, he invited me in. He poured white tea, which he drank from his new thermos, and offered me a cigarette, a high-end brand from Wuhan called Yellow Crane Tower. (If Li was going to smoke despite cancer, he certainly didn’t care about Costa’s in-room ban.) When I asked about the burlesque, he said he was used to that kind of thing. “I’ve been to the Moulin Rouge,” he said. “It’s very classy. Much better than Chinese smut.”

Li talked about his childhood. Growing up in rural Shaanxi province, he said, “my family had no food.” He remembered eating tree bark and grinding up corncobs so his family could eat the powder. Despite the extreme deprivation, he was a loyal Communist. “Everyone worshipped Mao like a god,” he said. In 1969 he met a student of Liang Sicheng, who’s known as the father of modern Chinese architecture, and became his apprentice. Ignoring the prevailing Cultural Revolution ethos of “Destroy the old world, establish a new world,” Li soon became fascinated with traditional Chinese architecture. He later established a design firm dedicated to constructing old-style buildings, which flourished. He now makes millions of dollars a year, he said.

I asked how he reconciled his early faith in Mao with his penchant for VIP vacations. “There must be class divisions,” he said. “If there’s no stratification, there’s no motivation to work hard.” What about the notion that everyone should be equal? “That’s just an idea,” he said. “Communism is a great idea, just like the religions in your country: Catholicism, the Virgin Mary, heaven. What is heaven? Have you been?”

In recent years, President Xi Jinping has talked about “the Chinese dream.” Li said he sees a connection with cruising. “What’s the Chinese dream? It’s to get what you deserve through hard work,” he said. “What’s the reward you deserve? Enjoyment.” At this point, he was just trying to enjoy himself. He lit another Yellow Crane Tower. “Worrying does no good. If you’re afraid of death, you can’t live.”

His grandniece, Lin, had been quiet the entire trip. When I asked her later what she thought of the experience, she sent back an effusive note. “It was so romantic,” she wrote. “The boat felt like an exotic country, a place of rare calm. … Participating in the activities, no one knowing anyone else but still having fun. …  Or occasionally sitting alone in the cafe, listening to music. It was a pleasure. I hope I can go again.”