Until recently, Chinese people had (31) reasons not to roam for pleasure. Travelling in ancient China was (32) . As a proverb (33) it, "You can be comfortable at home for a thousand days, (34) step out the door and run right into trouble. " Confucius threw guilt into the mix: "While your (35) are alive, it is better not to travel far away. " (36) , ancient Buddhist monks visited India, and Zheng He, a fifteenth-century eunuch, famously (37) the emperor’s fleet as far as Africa, to "set eyes on barbarian regions". Over the centuries, Chinese (38) settled around the world, but tourism had been considered as politically forbidden until the late seventies of the last century when most Chinese gained (39) to go abroad for anything other than work or study. First, they were permitted to visit relatives in Hong Kong, and, (40) , to tour Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. In 1997, the government (41) the way for travellers to venture to other countries in a "planned, organized, and controlled manner. " (China doles out approvals with an eye to geopolitics. Vanuatu became an approved destination in 2005, after it agreed not to give diplomatic (42) to Taiwan. ) Eighty percent of first-time Chinese travellers went in groups, and they soon earned a reputation as (43) , if occasionally overwhelming, guests. At a Malaysian casino hotel in 2005, some three hundred Chinese visitors were (44) special meal coupons bearing cartoon pig faces. The hotel said that the illustrations were (45) to differentiate Chinese guests from Muslims, who don’t eat pork, but the (46) Chinese tourists staged a sit-in, singing the national anthem. Most countries begin to send large numbers of tourists overseas only when the average citizen has a (47) income of five thousand dollars. But China— (48) urban residents are at barely half that level—has made travel affordable by booking tickets in bulk and bargaining mercilessly for hotels in distant suburbs. Last year, more than fifty-seven million Chinese people went abroad, (49) China third worldwide in international tourism. The World Tourism Organization predicts that before the end of the decade China will (50) that.