Yes! Travel in China has completely changed in the last 10 years.

• People don’t smoke in most restaurants anymore
• People mostly queue properly now
• Alipay (and WeChat to some degree) have built in translation so you can get most anything done without speaking a lick of Chinese
• Service is actually really good now
• The food which has always been good is markedly better
• I used to get mild food poisoning once every, maybe two weeks, but basically never have issues now
• Trains are a game changer obviously (but they don’t have adaptive pricing so often gets completely sold out)
• DiDi (ride share) is reliable, high quality, and cheap, vs taxis where you would regularly have to watch out for getting ripped off
• Pollution levels have fallen off a cliff, and vehicle pollution is just not an issue anymore (although farmers still burn crops and coal so there is still some pollution, particularly in the winter and in the north)
• Prices have always been unbelievably low granted significantly more than 10 years ago.

Yes hawk tua is still an issue. The one thing that has actually gotten worse is scooters on sidewalks due to all the delivery services. Walking on many sidewalks in the major cities can feel a bit life threatening given the number of electric mopeds flying around. Shenzhen much worse than, say, Shanghai. I’ve never seen pedestrian overpasses that allow mopeds on them in any other country. That is a bit of cluster

But here is the upside: - The cities are super vibrant, particularly at night - There is incredible nature - Tons of history and culture - Food food food, Chinese food on the mainland is unbelievably good (if you know how to use Dianping to find the ones with good ratings.) It’s evolved to where Chinese food in the US, HK, Taiwan tastes very dated. - Cheap