Questioning social norms by traveling: an insight of Chinese Backpackers inside and outside China

The current study aims at exposing how Chinese backpackers question the social norms of the Chinese society by traveling inside and outside China. Existential authenticity is applied to explain how travel experiences could impact backpackers’ ways of living and thinking when they are traveling and have returned home. To understand the processes, two distinct and complementary quantitative and qualitative protocols were carried out in Nepal and in Yunnan, China, in 2018. A longitudinal design was used to approach backpackers when they are traveling and then when they are back to their everyday life. Quantitative and qualitative analysis based on collected data (data collection is still under way) suggest that young Chinese backpackers travel to experience a new range of social and body norms and transgress the Chinese ones. They express that travelling allows them to live a more authentic life, insisting on the inner values and better knowing themselves through spiritual, drugs, sports experiences or engaging in diverse social interactions with backpackers or local population. Integrating the community of backpackers with its own rules and norms where they are able to look back at their daily life with a new distanced and critical eye. They become more aware of the norms imposed by the society and its social expectations and therefore are more likely to question it. When they return, the effect of travel can lead to well-being provided by the feeling of being more authentic or, on the opposite to being ill at ease which leads to a shift in life plan, career and sometimes, migration plan