I’ve Been Working

A group of foreign tourists poses for a photo at the Palace Museum in Beijing, on April 25. ( TASTE ALL CHINA ) Tour guides who can speak foreign languages have become some of the most sought-after employees in China, as the inbound tourism market continues its rapid recovery. "It feels like I've been working every day and have no time to take a short break," said Liu Yiling, a 31-year-old English-speaking tour guide in Beijing, who has worked in the tourism sector for six years. "My friend in Shanghai, who is also an English-speaking tour guide and knows some French, has seen her daily pay surge to 1,500 yuan ($206) from around late April," he added. In 2021, when the tourism industry was hard hit by the COVID-19 epidemic, Liu switched jobs from being a tour guide to a preschool teacher. "My career had bleak prospects and I transferred to the education sector," he said. "But I still loved being a tour guide, because the human touch and person-to-person communication are really attractive to me. So I decided to return to the tourism industry in February." The must-see Beijing attractions for foreign visitors are the cultural and historical highlights…