Going to the Celestial Kingdom, either for one day or the rest of your life?

China looks modern. It has robots that can run faster than Usain Bolt and jump higher than any human. It has frontier artificial intelligence. Its factories are “dark” because everything is automated.

The country, with many badges of the 21st century, looks modern, but it is not a modern society. In many respects, it’s still stuck in the patterns of eras millennia old. That can be charming—but sometimes it’s not.

Here are my Top Five tips if you’re headed there—some learned the hard way.

Tip No. 1

For God’s sake, don’t use drugs.

Shanghai is not Amsterdam. The Chinese give foreigners death sentences for drug trafficking.

Consider the case of Robert Schellenberg. In 2018, a Chinese court handed down a 15-year prison term to the Canadian for smuggling lots of methamphetamine. In the following year, a Chinese court ordered a retrial and, after a one-day hearing that Amnesty International labeled “a flagrant violation of international law,” Schellenberg received a death sentence.

The sentence was upped because Canada, honoring an arrest warrant issued by the U.S., detained Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver airport.

Think Schellenberg deserved at least some time behind bars? A few days after Meng’s detention, China took away two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, for no reason other than Beijing decided three prisoners would be better than one. The “two Michaels” were held for 1,019 days.

Ottawa considered all three the victims of “hostage diplomacy.”

This February, China’s Supreme People’s Court, the country’s highest tribunal, overturned Schellenberg’s death sentence and ordered a retrial.

Why the reprieve? Prime Minister Mark Carney the month before went to Beijing and acted like a supplicant.

China’s notion of justice is intensely political and in many ways is medieval.

Tip No. 2

Keep your mouth zipped.

Grumbling is illegal in China. The country’s most beloved entrepreneur, Jack Ma, was whisked off the streets and detained for months after he criticized, at an October 2020 financial conference in Shanghai, the lending practices of China’s banks. He said they had a “pawnshop mentality.”

Xi Jinping, who has made himself a dictator, was so offended by the mild criticism—Ma’s words echoed many public comments of state officials—that he cancelled at the last minute what was going to be the world’s largest initial public offering, that of Ma’s Ant Group.

As a practical matter, just about any criticism can land you in jail because there is no free speech and no rule of law. Your freedom—and perhaps more—is at the mercy of just about every petty official.

And the same thing is quickly becoming true of Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party of China, which runs a totalitarian state in the mainland, is making sure that Hong Kong is no different than the rest of China.

There are no style points in China for clever statements. The regime definitely lacks a sense of humor.

Tip No. 3

Never ever do anything embarrassing when you’re in China.

You will be filmed, in your hotel room or wherever. There are over 700 million surveillance cameras in China, perhaps more. Every cell phone—all 1.87 billion of them—monitors everything.

Only Santa knows more than the Chinese regime about whether you have been naughty or nice.

And expect to be honey trapped, even if your first name is not Eric and last name is not Swalwell.

When I was living in Hong Kong, the Asia regional head of one of the largest banks in the world got caught with a lovely girl in his hotel room in China. China’s regime then successfully angled to have him replaced at his bank by a secret Communist Party member.

The Chinese for centuries are masters of compromising foreigners. Don’t allow yourself to become the next in a very long line of victims.

Tip No. 4

Learn to eat just about everything.

I remember going to a restaurant in Hangzhou that sold wine flavored with cobra. I could tell because the establishment proudly displayed the dead snake in a large bottle of clear alcohol.

Got the chills? In Shanghai, they will sell you bull’s penis in soup. The remedy works—but I will not tell you how I know.

Around China, you will be expected to eat small shrimp that are still swimming in your bowl. Chewing is akin to murder.

Go ahead and try all offered to you. The only thing I recommend you not eat is the brain of a monkey killed at your table. Apart from a dozen of other objections, you can get strange diseases.

Tip No. 5

If you get sick and need to go to the hospital, bring lots of cash.

Hospitals are perhaps the most corrupt institutions in an extremely corrupt society, and if you want treatment you will often have to give a “red packet”—cash—to your doctor.

If you don’t tip your medical practitioner, he or she just might extract and sell your kidney or even more vital body part. China is the world’s leader in organ harvesting.

Yes, many Chinese hospitals murder for profit. China is the only country in the world where you can get a needed organ within hours.

Evacuation insurance is also handy, especially if you have to leave China in a hurry. Leaving China in a hurry is always a good idea.

Gordon G. Chang survived five years in Shanghai and has seen more than one person should. He is the author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.