History Main / DiggingToChina

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Petit}}'' episode "Quiero ser un niño chino"[[labelnote:*]]Roughly meaning "I want to be a Chinese boy".[[/labelnote]] is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, Petit tries to be a Chinese boy after he learns that Chinese kids do get to play while he has to go to sleep. He and his friends try various things to achieve the goal, and one of Petit's ideas was this.

* In ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'', Mon-El, recently freed from [[FateWorseThanDeath the Phantom Zone]], goes through the earth to get from East Coast North America to Japan. Supergirl questions this and Mon-El explained that this was the first time in 1,000 years he had a physical form, and actually wanted to feel the rock he was plowing through.

* Franchise/{{Superman}}, [[http://www.superdickery.com/superman-digs-a-hole-to-china/ evidently.]]

-->'''Homer:''' Hello? China? ... Little help?

-->'''Official:''' Those inscrutable Americans! What are they up to?\\

** In TheMovie, when the Simpsons' house collapses, Chief Wiggum says they're China's problem now.

* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', the dub version, Jessie of Team Rocket instructs the others to dig to China, though whether [[FictionalEarth China exists in the Pokemon world is vague]].

** In "Norm Unleashed", Agent P uses a secret entrance that, instead of taking him to his lair, takes him all the way through the earth to Shanghai where he receives his instructions from Major Monogram, who was only there because he wanted the best noodles in China. Even when he gets there, Monogram informs him he doesn't know with Doof is up to because his phone doesn't have international coverage.

** In another episode, Agent P uses a secret entrance that, instead of taking him to his lair, takes him all the way through the earth to Shanghai where he receives his instructions from Major Monogram.

** In the treasury ''Pearls Falls Fast'', Stephan Pastis shares a one-panel comic strip he made as a kid, featuring two kids digging a deep hole. One is saying, "I think we're there, I see a fortune cookie."

UK writers are more likely to end up in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} and vice versa, Russian writers are more likely to end up in UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}} or a random Pacific island, and Japanese writers more likely in UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}. Other destinations are possible, as long as the target is far enough way. The tunnel is usually dead straight and under the RuleOfCool goes anywhere the plot desires. Wherever they end up, it will usually be ''conspicuously'' foreign with as many stereotyped visual cues on display as possible. In China, they often say that if you dig hard enough you will end up in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates.

Notably, this trope ''does'' actually have a grain of truth in it: China is one of the few major population centers in the world that includes multiple points on land directly on the opposite side of the Earth from ''other'' points on land (most points on land are directly opposite points under the ocean). None of those points are in the United States, however: most of them are in the Patagonia region of South America, which encompasses most of UsefulNotes/{{Chile}} and UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}}.

* The ''WesternAnimation/TwoStupidDogs'' episode "Cat" had Little Dog dig into the earth in an attempt to get past a cat that Big Dog is too sleepy to scare right away. He ends up digging all the way to China, where he gets frightened by a Chinese cat.

* The islands of New Britain and New Ireland in UsefulNotes/PapuaNewGuinea were so named because they were (erroneously) thought to be the antipodes of the British Isles (in reality, their antipodes are the Atlantic Ocean).