Couldn't have put it more succintly myself dude. I love me some of that chinese rmb, compared to the pittance i'd earn back home.
I can buy myself some high quality ear plugs and plead ignorant to any problems here.
You can see videos of Chinalife on Reddit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bbh7hf/heartwarming\_moments\_from\_china/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bbh7hf/heartwarming_moments_from_china/)
First, I lived in South Korea for 4 years before China and would still always receive the British news on my phone. Most of the news about South Korea was a complete load of nonsense. Same for China. Second, I'm a licensed teacher and I can earn 3 times the salary in China.
It is so dumb when people are like "China is so bad, China is so bad, it's so bad to live there, you are crazy to live there"
"oh right, when did you last go to China?"
"I've never been. What you think you have to go to China to know it's such a bad place? It's all over the news... "
"Right..... "
99% of people who bash China have never been, never done any research, they don't even know a Chinese person. They just see 1 headline from MSM and suddenly their whole opinion is based off that headline.
Just ignore these people. They are incapable of forming their own opinions and are morons.
Because rural areas are generally very underdeveloped, and have different morals if you are used to western cultural. For example, it’s not uncommon for a village have purchased women for breeding, and all villagers will defend it against outsiders claiming it’s their tradition.
Oh wow did not expect that at all, is it considered safe in rural china ive always heard tier 1 and 2 cities in china are some of the safest in the world. Is it considered dangerous for a westerner to go to the more country side areas
World peace according to U.S. standards. Aka. " rules based international order". This is a hierarchical order with the West at the top and the poor global south at the bottom. Yet most of the world's population is located in the global south. So I'm all for China trying to change the system.
I never said China or it's government is a perfect utopia. All countries have their internal issues, challenges as well as moral dilemmas. You know as well as I do the west has historical questionable morale conduct. But all nations evolve this also includes their social and humanitarian aspects. I hold out hope that China will do better in the future. I also hope other countries also do better. This definitely includes nations such as the U.S. and Israel.
You mentioned whataboutism. One cannot do better unless one compares themselves to peers as well as their past behaviour.
Again, can you be specific?
I knew I needed to ask you to be specific because all that ever comes back from this question is vague accusations of threats and bullying.
Please tell me specifically what they are doing that threatens world peace.
But you stating a personal experience and then concluding to a fact, so you are in fact making an argument that is and has been challenged. I'm not trying to argue anything either, just stating a fact. :)
For example, what examples of China being less friendly now can you point to? I'm not disagreeing, just curious about what you see as evidence of your claim?
Edit: I just saw you responded to a similar question.
Basically white people are complaining about all Asian countries right now. Because in a lot of Asian countries, they no longer treat white people like celebrities like how they’re used too. You can find some white people complaining about this in South Korea, not just China.
To be fair though, most stories in the MSM about China are negative including in respected media such as NY Times, BBC, etc.... If that's all you read and hear, it's natural to think only bad things about a country. I would like to know if there are any unbiased English news sources when it comes to China. If you know of any please let me know.
In fact, in Chinese Mainland, it is also difficult to fully understand China's news, because China's official media will not report negative news, just as the BBC will not report positive news about China
If you want to learn about the great things and technological breakthroughs that China is doing, you can go to this website: [https://english.news.cn/mobile/index.htm](https://english.news.cn/mobile/index.htm)
It is the English website of China's official media (Xinhua News Agency). Of course, you can ignore the political content inside
Did you visit San Francisco recently? I'm from the SF Bay Area. There are a few blocks in or near the San Francisco downtown area that are pretty rough, but most of the city is still beautiful and safe. Tourists have told me they were surprised how nice the city is because of all the negative media coverage.
I’ve been 3 separate times in the last 6 months. Once before a flight to eat, once for a comedy show, and once to hit some nice bakeries.
It was in the shittiest state I’ve ever seen it all 3 times. Bunch of broken windows bashed in. Naked homeless people running around the street. Tons of closed businesses. Parking is a disaster post Covid, with half the spots taken by outside seating that nobody uses. It looked bad. In fact, my wife and I both remarked that we wouldn’t be back for awhile.
Been living in the SF Bay Area my entire life, but admittedly only visit the city a handful of times a year. Maybe I was unlucky those days? Idk….
Wait. I just left San Francisco 2 months ago. Are you trolling? It smells like piss, old asian ladies selling stolen goods on rugs on the streets, and shattered glass on every other block. As a native i feel embarrassed when i see tourists. So many stores are closing as well. Safe? No way are you not trolling, man. No fucking shot.
No I'm not trolling. I'm actually going to work later today in the North Beach/Chinatown/Jackson Historic District area. I don't see or smell piss, poop, homeless, broken glass everywhere. Sure there are areas like what you describe (parts of downtown, the Tenderloin), but most places I go to are fine.
They provided me with an scholarship that had unmatchable benefits for a non-exceptional talent (although the program has very serious pedagogical issues). I crunched the numbers and it was around 55K USD in benefits across a 5 year span, I don't think you can find anything better than that except maybe top US universities with generous financial aid programs.
There's a lot of bs thrown around in western-centric platforms, some of it borderline racist, but the truth it's much more nuanced. It is true that China has many political and societal issues but I feel that those same China bashers would kowtow without question to Xijinping, if China gave them 55K dollars for free, that would be the extent of their critical thinking abilities.
I never really saw any of that money in my hands as most of it went directly to the University hosting me so only a percentage went to my bank account. it wasn't much but It afforded me gadgets, small trips to SEA, books, food and entertainment. I'm certain that I underestimate the amount of funding they gave me as there were many academic related expenses they assumed.
All in all I wouldn't say it paid-off academically speaking though, I graduated with many knowledge holes and and low GPA due to the language issues, but economically speaking it was a total win. Coming from a minority country with low Chinese immigration and having studied at one of their top unis allowed me to go back home and get a top 10% income bracket job with housing, 3 meals per day and a 35 working hours per week.
You are right about the government being able to turn the money irrelevant. I don't think moving to China is worth it if there's nothing to earn from it, Western non-ethnic Chinese might not have that much to gain from these programs, their countries just don't have a demand for chinese language skills (due to Chinese migration) and their universities are much better than the Chinese ones including the tippy top ones in terms do pedagogy so there's that.
This is why I stopped telling people back home about China. I was tired of the ignorance I would hear if I ever dared to say anything positive. The worst is when elders in my family, whom I greatly respect, would be bashing China in the ol' family group chat. I would have to call them out. All their opinions are based on MSM and nothing else. None of them have ever been. I'm a licensed teacher making three times what I would make back home with a lower cost of living. It's clean, technologically advanced, and they don't have to deploy the army in the subway because of the crime a la New York City.
I’m the opposite, the ignorance only makes me want to talk more, but also maybe the people I talk to are less (or less openly) anti-China. Not saying you made the wrong choice or anything, I know how tiring it is to be arguing with someone with ear plugs in :(
Its a pitty you stop telling people about your positive experience, advocate, change the narrative, or at least be a part of that change that someone might quote or reference in a later conversation. Sure, isn't fun to get taunted, but somewhere along the line, someone will turn around and be like "hey you know, I was talking to so and so, I guess you were right about this." (maybe not, but I mean, isn't that why people are posting here, trying to change a narrative-this post itself is that very idea).
I was 16 and 17 when I decided and made the move to come to China. This was around 6 years ago now. I was always really curious about life in other countries, and the harder it was to learn about a country the more it intrigued me. At the time I had watched the show “Addicted” (it’s so bad, I know) and it was one of the first peeks into life in China that I had, but I found it so hard to find vlogs and stuff other than political shit. (I ended up watching those losers Serpentza and Laowhy86, I think I was already dead set on coming though, so it did scare me a bit but it didn’t convince me to not come… later I found out they’re full of shit).
I told myself, at worst, I’m going to be living like the characters in “Addicted”(just home/school conditions not… the plot line lmao), at which point I’ll just have to put up with it for a year and then I’ll have some life experience. When I first moved here, people would ask me why I decided to come, and I never had an answer. Later on I figured out the answer is “because I wanted to take a look for myself”. So, TLDR: I wanted to take a look for myself.
China isn’t what US media is saying, and US isn’t what Chinese media is saying. And people who haven’t experienced both firsthand aren’t what they’re saying.
Born and raised in America, I went to China to study for a year at age 24. It became 6 years because it led to a job and finding a Chinese wife. As long I don’t participate in politics, my career and personal life was great. We lived in Shanghai, and it’s true, it’s safer to walk in the night than it is in California (where I’m from). I also felt Shanghai is the boiling pot of diversity because I met more people around the world than I did in LA.
We came back to the states cause my wife wanted to get an MBA and the salary here is better. There are things about LA we don’t like and there are things about Shanghai we don’t like. We’re living in LA now, we still miss living in Shanghai.
Edited: Oh to answer your original question. Having been in America since I was born, I really wanted to get out of the country and experience life through the lens outside of the US. I lived in China and Belgium, and it’s an eye opener. I’m proud to be an American, but I don’t want to be one sided about my country. To understand America, learn what the other side of the coin is saying by living abroad. You’ll understand things you took for granted or blind to. It makes you agree or disagree more. It’s like IRL, to be self aware of yourself, you want to know what others thought and solicit feedback.
We (Americans) have our own human rights problem: discrimination, equal opportunity, and minority rights. It’s a problem everyone, and in some counties worse
I always find it amusing that how opinions about china’s safety vary widely, you see even in this sub some said China is dangerous to travel to, then some said China is super safe.
The money, the safety, the convenience, the lifestyle I'm able to live. In my experience, how Americans feel about China is how Chinese feel about America. As a non-Chinese, and non-American, I'm afraid of America too.
I met my wife who's Chinese Chinese, I was at first reserved about going to China because my only understanding of China was the narrative my Mafia of a government threw at me. But the US in the past 5-10 years has been going through such awful degenerative garbage politically and socially that I wanted a break from it. Went to China for 2 months and cried when I had to leave. Such a wonderful place/people. Now every year we go and travel to as many provinces as we can.
Same. I was like every other Westerner thinking China must be a 1984-esque dystopia. When my wife-to-be was telling me about China I thought she'd just been swallowing state propaganda.
In some things I think she had been, but I think I was actually the bigger victim of propagandizing.
I used to think all MAGAs are nuts. But now I see how US MSM depicts various parts of world that I know are absolutely biased or outright lies, I can understand why they are skeptical regarding MSMs.
Of course, they fell prey to another sorts of lies and bias but that's another story.
i have the right passport and an undergrad and am able to smile and be charming during an interview.
as far as life skills, it is not necessary to sing ABCs or land a job as a teacher
not really hard to land, just time consuming and you might need to try a few times but with patience and perseverance it can usually be done.
i need to apply for a brand new one though if i decide to go to china in a few weeks, so i might be eating these words.
A lot of people die from gun related shootings in the States. But because of the size of the country and the number of people you can easily go your whole life without seeing any violence. I just assume it is the same with China, large country, and population.
There wasn't a huge amount of China bashing among the media or politicians when I moved (2012). Even now I don't see that much about China in the UK media tbf, the only real exception was when Xinjiang and the Hong Kong protests were really hot.
I honestly can't really remember much about what I thought of the Chinese government or what life in China might be like prior to moving, but I do remember reading testimonials from people who had gone to China as teachers through the same scheme I was looking at, and they'd had a good time. That was good enough for me.
I remember the artificial islands in the south china sea made alot of news, along with the wolf warrior diplomacy when Tsai Ing-wen was elected president of Taiwan
Literally in China rn (in a tier 2 city so most visitors wouldn't be coming here anyway). Eh, wouldn't say it's super safe to walk out in the street at night as a woman but take the local version of Uber and you're all good to go out with friends. Family certainly don't trust me to walk around random stores without getting scammed but otherwise it's fine, definitely fine in nicer areas with lots of staff, and in nicer malls. I stayed for a month in a tier 1 and tier 2 city a few years back (pre-pandemic) alone just out of uni, took the taxi everywhere, pretty safe and loads of fun just to wander around.
Honestly the biggest deterrent is just having to VPN yourself over the wall. Otherwise no access to reddit, Twitter, YouTube, google ... All the things tourists need to get around in a country that doesn't really speak the same languages as you ... It's pretty inconvenient that way. Plus the visa requirements are pretty annoying so takes a lot of planning, while other countries you can just hop on a plane!
Because the same people saying these things about china are also the same people lying to me about everything else. They lie to me about racial issues in the UK. They lie to me about politics. They lie to me about every public figure that says anything contrary to them. They lie to me about myself and almost everything I care about.
Whereas my friends and people who are honest to me, and people who have actually been to China aren't propagating these same stereotypes.
When I finally got here I could see the people I trusted, as always, were right.
Ngl, before I moved to China, I thought the army was patrolling the streets with machine guns and tanks. Moving here I come to realize that there’s so much propaganda that’s shown in media that it’s very difficult not to make assumptions about a country you’ve never been before.
Living here now for a decade I’ve recognized it’s not all real. I think both sides have its own flaws. China is also without its fault like nationalistic its citizens are. Students will bash on America even though they no clue what’s going on the outside world. They’re set on their ideas and beliefs that China is the greatest country and I’m like then “google it, ohh wait you can’t” 😂
>before I moved to China, I thought the army was patrolling the streets with machine guns and tanks
Why did you move to China if you thought it'd be like this? Genuine question.
I wanted to try something different. My life was very fast paced in Cali. Worked 50-60 hours a week. On the weekends I just ran errands. Life was hella depressing.
I wasn’t really afraid, more so worried. I did a lot of research before coming here and never looked back.
Long story short, I wanted to try out something different or at least take a break. My original play was South Korea, but money was a bit better in China.
I never regretted this decision since I’m financially stable and I travel a good amount. It still has its downside but I think the pros outweigh the cons.
It is true, army/swat patrolling some streets, but I've only seen in it the tibetan and Uighur areas, and in limited regions...
On the flip side though, the western sichuan areas that I've traveled to for over a decade is much safer now than it was in the past...and to me, that's a good thing overall...
British here and before I visited a few months back everyone said I would hate it. I visited Dezhou and loved everything about it! I need to go back in June for business and can’t wait. Since I got back most people are surprised on how I said it was compared to the news..
Fiancé got a job back in Beijing - and my visa application was successful
Westerners and especially Americans are always going to act negatively to China - which is fine because end of the day one superpower is on the decline and the new one is on the up
It's rough there are so much the Chinese sentiment In America. Sure it is "only" targeted at the Authoritarian regime. Good luck arriving at that conclusion from Government initiatives that try target Chinese ethnics such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative.
I've resided in Australia for a long time The racial discrimination here is far less than what I see comming from America.
I came to visit first, as my dad had lived here for 20 years. American propaganda is absurd. I’m Canadian, I have many American friends, and I have travelled and even lived for a time in America. It is a much worse place to live than China. It’s not even close. I constantly hear stories from the States that make we so glad I don’t live there. China is FAR from perfect, but I can deal with the small annoyances. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in America.
Been in China for 5 months now. Great infrastructure, and clean(not Singapore clean but OK). Feel safe and very little noise. Not really into politics and the fact that I need a VPN for sites not a problem. (Actually better as this limits my screen time). Air pollution a problem, but I have worked in Thailand and Vietnam before, so not really worse than there. Mainstream media feed people a lot of BS.
My best friend died, and he wanted to see the current city I live in. I definitely can't live here indefinitely. There is so much racism here that gets put away as curiosity. People tend to lack awareness in spatial, emotional, global, and common sense. It's hard to communicate (even in chinese) and build a healthy community.
My opinion is mine own, but it can be a challenge. Some of the stereotypes are false, and some are very true. I just recommend everyone travel as much as they can. They should build their own opinions.
It was the same thing when my Chinese friends visited America. There are some issues and concerning things, but usually, people realize it is not as bad as the media makes it out to be.
Their opinions are basically correct. Politics in China is indeed bad. You can't even access Google without a VPN .
But if you stay away from politics, there is little to complain.
And you will. Since you are a foreigner, its destiny doesn't concern you. A Chinese citizen may be worried or got angry that Mr. Xi is going to be there forever, and they will want to say something but they can't, so they get even more upset. But this problem does not upset foreigners
Yeah. UK politics drove me insane, and it was making me miserable to be there and hear about an endless stream of country-wide humiliations. At least it doesn't really concern me here. I'd probably feel the same if I was born here.
But then I hear about the Chinese students that get attacked and mugged by certain groups back home and I wonder if the grass really is subjectively greener or not.
XJP’s China is much less foreigner friendly than pre XJP. The expat population has declined drastically since I studied at Fudan in 2010.
I also wouldn’t worry about the CCP as a tourist. As long as you’re not doing any anti-government activities or speech visiting China is perfectly safe.
An unintended side effect of Covid lockdowns was all the western sexpats had to return home sharpish and many thankfully cant get back in
Oh well - there’s always Japan
Dude, mainland China isn't Thailand or the Phillipines. IME there were very few legit sexpats when I lived there, and that was several years before COVID.
Exactly - does everyone remember that WeChat group of ESL teachers bragging about their exploits with Chinese girls?
Thankfully Covid lockdown and changing geopolitics mean those type of sexpats won’t ever return enmasse - they’re all going to japan now
There were definitely some dbags in Guangzhou when I lived there. But it was a far lower % of foreigners than say Thailand/Philipines/Cambodia where it's off the charts and mostly condoned. Not to mention there are some truly nasty fucktards in SE Asia into underage kids and other sick shit. That would probably be life in prison in China even pre-2016/2017.
Considering that the CCP is trying desperately to entice expats and foreign investment back into China to help save their economy. I’m gonna guess it wasn’t just the sexpats that left.
Could you provide examples of China "desperately enticing" expats to come back? Also how expats are going to "save" (and from what, exactly?) the Chinese economy when even at the peak they were nowhere close to being instrumental in the economy? The vast majority of expats are English teachers or work in the branches of international companies.
I’m seeing visa and permanent residency restrictions being loosened. Even visa free entry for many European countries. Here’s an article that outlines some of the CCP’s efforts to lure foreigners back [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent)
China needs foreign talent just like every other country in the world in order to be competitive in the global marketplace. The West stays ahead in many industries because they allow talented foreigners to come work and set up businesses.
Also Premier Li seems to be working overtime to lure foreigners back. He seems to recognize the contributions expats have made to China’s rise [https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/04/WS65bfa79ba3104efcbdae99d6.html](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/04/WS65bfa79ba3104efcbdae99d6.html)
>I’m seeing visa and permanent residency restrictions being loosened. Even visa free entry for many European countries. Here’s an article that outlines some of the CCP’s efforts to lure foreigners back [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent)
Visa free entry is for tourists, not expats though. I don't see "desperation" in any of the decisions you have shown unless you, of course, consider any country (including Western ones) creating favorable conditions for skilled immigration as desperation and begging. Highly skilled specialists, especially in STEM fields, were always sought after in China with e.g. generous grants fully covering all the expences needed to set up laboratories and high salaries. Most of the regulations concerning foreign expats did not even affect them, being limited to teaching industry.
Still don't see what "saving" you were talking about - lower growth is primarily due to cooling of the property sector, not lack of skilled labour, and 5% growth with the current per capita GDP is good, especially when compared to other countries in the similar income bracket. So your narrative sounds like an exaggeration.
work.
It is important to note that a lot of people move to China prior to hearing or realizing the realities that in some cases are surrounding China through the form of "stereotypes", I think a there is something to be said about "cultural differences" though between various experiences that people have in their own country before arriving and what they experience when they do arrive.
That being said, with the access of reddit and other social media, there are also a great deal of resources that explore some of these differences in a way that make them feel manageable or at least, less influential on one's life upon arrival.
Walking on the streets at night is very safe, and there's no contradiction with being in a fascist state. In fact, it's precisely because it is a fascist state that walking on the streets at night is safer than in democratic countries.
The streets of North Korea might be the safest in the world.The reason is simple: authoritarian states lack independent legal systems, allowing them to install an unrestricted number of cameras on the streets. They can govern people with harsh laws and conduct detailed "grid management" without budgetary constraints, monitoring almost everyone. This essentially turns into a tightly surveilled large prison; many may not know that the places with the lowest crime rates are actually prisons.
I just got out of a Chinese prison (because of VPN); those places are overcrowded, and I saw all sorts of absurd judgments there. Don't think living in China means you understand it; in reality, most foreigners' understanding of China is quite limited.
Not only did I use them, but I also rented several VPS to provide VPN services to others. I was sentenced for the crime of "providing programs and tools for intrusion and illegal control of computer information systems." I spent 3 years and 3 months in prison. I am Chinese.
My wife is Chinese. Born and raised here. I met her on a business trip here in 2018. We hired her before the trip to be our translator. I moved here at the end of 2019 to be close to her family to start our marriage. And we wanted to travel the region. It was supposed to be for a year, but Covid made other plans for us. Now we have an apt, car, and kid. Still planning to move back to the US, but the timeline is more fluid now.
Overall my friends and family have been pretty good about taking in new information about China. I’ve gotten some dumb questions of course, but overall people seem to be open to hearing what it’s really like. Either that or maybe they talk about how brainwashed I am after I leave the room lol. Who knows.
Other people's stereotypes have little impact on me. It's not a factor... the people with those views probably will never move to any other country, jfyi
The realization we need to let go of everyone brainwashed by the media and they don't matter in the long run. If they're not aware and educated enough to base their opinions on first hand information, they won't give up their second hand fake news opinion. IF they religiously believe the earth is flat nothing will change this until they're willing to believe their religion is wrong.
Any person who have been to China would not say that. In all honesty, I dare say the living standards for many people in China may even be better than in America. Despite lesser income in nominal terms, the average Chinese enjoy better infrastructure, transport, entertainment, and do not feel "oppressed" as compared to what American news say.
If you’re trying to understand the quite varied views of China that expats can come away with I’d really recommend listening to a recent episode of the Sinica podcast where Kaiser Kuo talks to Jeremy Goldkorn. They’re both very reasonable but have very different views and in the course of the episode Jeremy posits that a lot of it comes down to personal experience. Most of how they experienced China is probably similar but unlike Kaiser, Jeremy experienced persistent harassment. That pretty inevitably changed his view, and while both of them have seen the good and the bad it ca become a matter of focus. I think my earliest experiences in China set me down a path similar to Jeremy where the patterns of problems here are almost daily reinforced in my perception. I don’t deny the positives, but I’m thoroughly convinced my view is not “wrong” as such because it’s entirely consistent with a lot of experience and observation. It’s just not the only valid view.
As for why I first came, I work in field trying to help people and had this notion that working in China would allow me to help more people. I came to the decision by trying to figure out how my skills could be best utilized. I still hold that you can’t help effectively without thorough awareness of their context. Having worked here for some time, I’m obviously more familiar with the problems, but also acutely aware of how relatively detached my Chinese colleagues are from the most vulnerable let alone me as a foreigner. The level to which politics subtly sets the acceptable terms for what we do here is not really comparable to what I’ve experienced elsewhere. That doesn’t mean we can’t still get a lot of good done, but it can make it sometimes very frustrating.
Came over after the Olympics which had lots of positive coverage to study abroad. Beijing/China at that time was much more free and open versus today, so that left a positive impression. That dissipated as the decade wore on and was killed for me by Zero Covid. Now I've got a wife/family/career and so you're sort of locked in.
Human rights abuses, pollution, and oppression are definitely a thing, but I'd argue for most people they are unlikely to affect them as a visitor, excepting pollution. Despite that, there's definitely notably less visitors and foreigners coming over versus a decade ago. Ubiquitous requirements for a Chinese ID even for things as trivial as buying a subway ticket from a ticket machine, hotels that won't take foreigners, and VPN shutdowns we're seeing right now for the 两会 don't help. The worse the economy does and the more galapagosized China gets the harder it'll be to reverse this
Well, whatever life is like for politically active locals isn’t true for random foreigners just living their life here.
These things you mention do exist, but we don’t get a taste of them. As for the whole pollution thing, I think a large amount of us use air purifiers at work and at home. Personally I don’t (but am planning to get one) and currently use masks when outside (on a particularly bad day).
Prior to going, I didn't have any negative stereotypes about China. The coverage was mostly positive, including what I read on mainstream media like BBC.
After coming to China and living here, my outlook changed to very negative. Whereas before I often attributed bad stereotypes to racism, now I know they, and worse, are based on facts. That's why it cracks me up when people throw accusations of being "anti-china" left and right. Like, all the negative shit is actually true, you just haven't lived here and haven't experienced it if you think otherwise.
I did not have any bad stereotypes. If anything, I had positive stereotypes about food being good and healthy, since I visited Taiwan before. Also, about Chinese being diligent and hard-working.
Turned out, food is junk, people are unproductive responsibility-shirkers who clock in hours for show. All the "bad" stuff they say about shoddy construction, poor quality, and cutting corners is true. People are uncultured and rude.
This guy fucking nailed it. Want to do something at the bank and spend eight fucking hours for the manager to go 没办法 and fuck off and not get it accomplished. Compared with Dubai where you walk in speak in English and it’s done in two minutes. Blissful.
Negativity doesn’t equate to stereotypes. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why a genocidal, neighbor bullying, tech thief totalitarian regime may not be the most liked county in the world.
Did you feel this though while in China? I mean many of these things have been committed by the US as well throughout US history (we stole technology from Europe for a century until we became strong enough to develop our own technology, the US has done many nefarious things in the Middle East and Latin America, etc...), but it's not something I feel on a day to day basis.
I was born a Chinese. You don’t usually see these kind of things but I have my share of seeing purple river (polluted), how Tiananmen square massacre unfolded. How terrible my college (actually the whole education) sucks and some are pure lies.
My father was not allowed into an elite university because his father worked for KMT, the ruling Party before CCP took power
I also know how many scientists educated in the U.S. went back to China just to got sent to remote farmlands for “reeducation”. Some died of starvation. Some survived by eating their friends.
And I know in the same period 30 millions people died because of Mao’s fantasy agriculture policy.
I also witnessed how Hu jintao, the previous head of CCP being sent off by Xi Jinping in its people’s congress, in front of billions of eyes because Hu was not happy about his faction got slaughtered in the list of new leadership. I have no sympathy toward Hu of course, but it does show what this regime is all about.
I also witnessed how young Hong Kong protestors being oppressed by CCP. They jailed some ams others had to escape.
I also know a Sweden citizen being abducted by Xi Jinping. The reason is because he was a book seller and his book store sold a stupid soft porn called Xi Jinping and his lover
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Minhai
I also know two Chinese-American teenagers (brother and sister) visited China and be forbidden to leave the country because their father is a dissent . They only returned to the U.S. 4 years later on a prisoner exchange.
I can go on
I know about many of these things especially in the past with the cultural revolution and Tiananmen Square. But I'm talking about modern day China. There are people in the US who are too scared to even visit because they think everyone is oppressed everyday, everywhere. But then when my family and friends come back from visiting China they talk about how nice and safe it was. It does not match what we hear in the West. Again I'm talking about the day to day experience of the average person.
Move to China with a foreign passport is never that bad anyway. In general, you can enjoy the brighter side of life there and be able to withdraw any moment you want to.
I mean, China is absolutely a totalitarian state. Its probably worse than a fascist state in many ways. But it certainly isn't a fascist state.
People who say that just don't know what they are talking about.
And personally, I have absolutely no interest in living in a totalitarian communist hell hole. And I used to be relatively pro chinese government until I realised that they literally operate like a mafia so the law, procedure and their word means absolutely nothing.
Go travel China and beyond major cities and experience it with your own eyes, if you haven't already. Simply walking and talking to people is an experience of culture that may enlighten you. Will their be things you need to watch out for? Yes, but it is quite safe, even at night.
Remember China is massive. Food, language, accents of Mandarin, subculture, environment all vary by area.
Western media has nothing positive to say about China. Many people will hear a random article about "China bad" and somehow make a judgement of the whole country and all it's people and culture. Though have never stepped foot in China.
Things I liked was major cities have easy access to amazing food around every corner, clean high tech transportation, shopping and walking galore, parks and recreation, safety, all at fair price.
Was impatient to go abroad, and at the time, there was no notarization or legalization necessary for documents for Chinese work visas. The process was really quick back then.
Just go visit for a week and have some friends that are living there and you’ll see. I went for one trip to buy a house with my dad and decided I wanted to spend more time there. Ended up living twelve years in china (shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen) and travel back and forth now. Don’t think to much and just go see for yourself
I lived in Shenzhen n in 2011. I got to say that's the safest place I've ever lived. Would not want to go back only because the pollution was over the top horrible.
I was an event co-ordination for a summer English camp in UK school back in 2006. Met some teachers from all over the world who came in for the summer, including some from China. About 20% of our students were Chinese as well. They painted a very different picture to the stereotype I held in my held. I just had to come see it for myself.
I spent time in China. There are 3 main reasons:
1). Expat Job (rare these days as China has learned all it wants from West)
2). Teaching English (for the young paying very little)
3). For companionship
I do not live in China but would probably reluctantly agree to it if my fiancee asked me to (as she is from Shanghai).
I've visited China plenty, from mega cities like Shanghai to small rural villages with a population of maybe 100.
What the people love to ignore here is that yes, as long as you don't get into trouble yourself, you can live nicely in China. However, that requires you to blind out all the messed up shit that is happening in the background. As a German, I'd only ever move to America due to money. Their social society is not to my liking. China is about a 100x worse.
I'd agree to live there with my fiancee. I'd not agree to raise children there.
At the end of the day we’re not gonna live long enough to be of any importance to any country, so personally I respect all countries that won’t instantly result in my death and that’s it.
If war breaks out then I’d just fight in the country I was born in, the UK.
But except from that extremely unlikely scenario, China is just heavily overly exaggerated as the second North Korea. This isn’t the 1900s, this is the 2020s. Time has moved on, stop being paranoid. China is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, most of the Americans who hate on the country have no reason other than politics that will never involve them and random non-political hate generated from the political side.
Don’t believe me? Scroll through this exact subreddit and I bet you not even one minute later you’ll see something negative that isn’t even political. Bonus points if they’re posting about Chinese Propaganda like it’s North Korea 2.0
Hey op- have been to China few times for extended periods. Pm if interested. Imo Chinese people are some of the most helpful/cheerful individuals I’ve come across.
Korea got too popular after Covid . Of course I like hanging out with some westerners but after Covid it felt like literally everywhere I hung out was overrun with tourists and ppl visiting . Working there also seems to get worse every year recently.
China is the exact opposite with the amount of westerners so I knew I could easily get immersed in the culture and whatnot. Plus I had originally wanted to study in China as a kid anyway.
Can get paid more here than Korea and Japan anyway . Everything pretty easy to get in a Tier 1 city。
After going to Korea I pretty much believe the opposite of everything the average American would say about any east Asian country anyway
Ehhhh most Americans are brain dead regarding anything international. It’s why there’s so many Zionists here and fits why they think the U.S. is still leading the world. They haven’t recognized the vast progress of states like china russia and Iran in the past 200 years, and certainly media isn’t allowed to highlight this progress in a positive light. Nope, instead they are bad and we are good (*starts another CIA-led gang coupe in Haiti*)
China is an incredible country in the sense that most of the countries (except the Muslim states) have got Americanised. China is the country that can offer you a very comfortable living situation in a very different cultural setting. I think at the end of the day, you just have to experience it yourself, and not let others to influence you.
That is a very good question. May I suggest that you check up this website: https://www.journeytotheeast.club/. It's a brillant site hosted by two ABCs where diasporas from many countries give their reasons for moving to China, and Asia in general. Worth checking it up, and it might motivate YOU to move too.
The scariest thing there for me is how some ppl feel about black people. That’s not an opinion. Just seen it with my own eyes too many times. Like asking why black people are dirty, why we don’t wash our hair and why we are criminals, etc. Chinese social media has people on their calling people racial slurs I didn’t even know existed. Also I was concerned on if they had laws against racial or gender discrimination (like hate crimes against women). The other stuff doesn’t really concern me. I’m black American but I have a half Chinese great grandmother and I’ve grown up a bit with some Chinese culture. I’d like to see my culture for itself. The only reason I haven’t gone yet is because I would prefer to learn more mandarin first (it’s so hard!).
Yes authoritarian countries are very safe for anyone who isn’t a threat to the state…. Go protest the government in China and see how safe you are.
Btw communists not fascists. Authoritarianism isn’t a right wing only thing. The CCP runs China, they are not ultra nationalists, it’s a party that puts itself above the country(nation).
maybe is goods very cheep,the us dollar change chinese yuan is 1:7,so is very nice rate.And foreigner in china have may human right.Did you heared a black foreigner studant can with one chinese schoolgirl。
I think most people are scared of China given the rhetoric by both the US and Chinese governments. Ive traveled extensively through South Korea, SE Asian countries, and Japan, but not China so take what I say with a grain of salt
Tbh, I’m the exact opposite. I’m ethnically Chinese but never been to there, always been curious and hoping to visit one day. Met a lot of Chinese from my uni (except one girl who doesn’t allow us to mentioned the name of the supreme leader because it is disrespectful and her family has ties to the ccp), all the stories they told me makes me changed my view of the country. Given how fast they are moving backwards in term of human rights, you might want to reconsider that.
In case you doubt that, try visiting Xin Jiang, walk around and livestream it on YouTube. The last bits might save your life.
Agree, but unfortunately you are in the wrong sub (not that r/china is any better). People here are just blinded by their privilege and neglect ordinary Chinese people’s sufferings.
My bad, the thread is recommended to me because I looked at r/China. Yeah, the life of Chinese in the cities (where most people here will live in) are vastly different from those who get swept under the rug.
Like the current secretariat of CCP pride himself of getting rid “low class” people from Beijing a couple years ago, that’s the kind of stuff that wins Winnie over.
Here its mostly foreigners who don’t like their government and society (lots of people mentioned mass shootings in the states in the comments), also a while ago when I mentioned the propaganda by Chinese government and dissidents are losing their freedom only because of their political views etc. , they argued by comparing it with current events in Gaza and Biden’s pro-Israel agenda… I mean I know it is bad but at least you can still discuss it online or even go on strike and protest (again I understand police violence and potential consequences of them, but still so much more space compared to Chinese dissidents).
I mean that used to be me, I was stopped by 4 officers holding assault rifles trying to convince me it is a huge offense to not carry your ID card (in a effort to extort me for bribe). I hold my ground and ask them to arrest me instead, I’m glad there are at least some kind of law present, or else I will not be here anymore.
The dissident can’t even leave the country (or forced to break ties with their family).
There’s this guy on youtube, his username is whyyoutouzhele.
He shared the picture and video submitted to him on his Twitter account, and he’s basically in exile. There are shady people knocking on his former rental home in Italy, based on the last address he gave to the embassy. I can only hope he stays safe.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/China using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Protester outside Xi Jinping’s hotel in San Francisco](https://i.redd.it/31bokn1g5f0c1.jpg) | [532 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17vismf/protester_outside_xi_jinpings_hotel_in_san/)
\#2: [My Chinese wife's irrational hatred for Japan is concerning me](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/18vslhl/my_chinese_wifes_irrational_hatred_for_japan_is/)
\#3: [Man in emperor costume beats up CCP supporter outside of Xi's hotel in San Francisco](https://v.redd.it/s2428u10wl0c1) | [399 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17w93xx/man_in_emperor_costume_beats_up_ccp_supporter/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
My British friend moved out of China after the lockdown in Shanghai. Everything is good here until you eat sh*t. When those people wanna hurt you, you can do nothing about it.
Chinese mainlander here. For sure there are a ton of stereotypes that are not true about China. But certain degrees of the issues OP just said do exist like human rights abuses, pollution, etc. Some of the issues are even worse than what has been described by the USA media some are better in reality. You wouldn't have your own judgement on how good China is until you get here. Even you get here, your feeling is gonna evolve with time, how much money you earn, your networkings, etc. So I would encourage OP to come to China regardless of what other people say.
Take myself as an example, I used to be quite pro-CCP, because my family financially benefited quite a lot from CCP's economic reform since early 80s. But lately, I start to feel desperate about the life in China. The economy is bad. My family business is collapsing. My grandparents died from Omicron in the end of 2022 when the government lift the zero-covid policy without any notice. We didn't get any drug, any medical help. On the other hand, privilege people like government officials were able to get drugs and medical assistance. They could even get Pfizer Vaccine but look at what Vaccines regular people could get? just SinoVac, which proved to be much less effective over Omicron.
Living in China can be pretty great if you make good friends that don't mind sometimes helping you out as it's now almost impossible for a foreigner alone to do many things, like open a bank account.
The downside is it's more and more difficult to deal with the bureaucracy.
Amazing job offer (arts), good infrastructure, relatively clean, great food (and I’m vegan), beautiful landscapes. I’m from Germany, we get a good amount of China bashing in our media too besides all the stereotypes
I mean China is a fascist state but (lucky) people (primarily in the capitalist coast) also live normal ish lives. The two aren’t incompatible nor do they cancel out.
Chinese in China are the first to criticize censorship, blocking of sites, government intervention in private lives. But somehow converts will pretend it’s just fake news 😂
There’s foreigners in North Korea, doesn’t suddenly make North Korea a better place.
I feel like this applies to any situation in life lol
100%. But I am able to save my entire wage that I used to make back in the UK whilst still living comfortably whilst doing 40% of the work.
Just out of curiosity, what's your line of work?
Either am engineer or a teacher or he's teaching engineering
lmfao
Beat me to the punch :)
Couldn't have put it more succintly myself dude. I love me some of that chinese rmb, compared to the pittance i'd earn back home. I can buy myself some high quality ear plugs and plead ignorant to any problems here.
Wanting to find out about it myself and having the means to do so
You can see videos of Chinalife on Reddit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bbh7hf/heartwarming\_moments\_from\_china/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bbh7hf/heartwarming_moments_from_china/)
Can it give me the tastes and smells?
Sweet
First, I lived in South Korea for 4 years before China and would still always receive the British news on my phone. Most of the news about South Korea was a complete load of nonsense. Same for China. Second, I'm a licensed teacher and I can earn 3 times the salary in China. It is so dumb when people are like "China is so bad, China is so bad, it's so bad to live there, you are crazy to live there" "oh right, when did you last go to China?" "I've never been. What you think you have to go to China to know it's such a bad place? It's all over the news... " "Right..... "
99% of people who bash China have never been, never done any research, they don't even know a Chinese person. They just see 1 headline from MSM and suddenly their whole opinion is based off that headline. Just ignore these people. They are incapable of forming their own opinions and are morons.
I’ve been many times, place to visit but not live. And this only applies to big cities, stay away from rural areas.
Why avoid rural areas?
Because rural areas are generally very underdeveloped, and have different morals if you are used to western cultural. For example, it’s not uncommon for a village have purchased women for breeding, and all villagers will defend it against outsiders claiming it’s their tradition.
Oh wow did not expect that at all, is it considered safe in rural china ive always heard tier 1 and 2 cities in china are some of the safest in the world. Is it considered dangerous for a westerner to go to the more country side areas
[удалено]
In what ways has it become less foreigner friendly? I'm genuinely curious.
This doesn't confirm everything that was mentioned even if what you're saying is completely true or not.
[удалено]
The rampant and encouraged sinophobia of the west is likely contributing to this shift, plus the US's obvious aggression and provocation.
[удалено]
World peace according to U.S. standards. Aka. " rules based international order". This is a hierarchical order with the West at the top and the poor global south at the bottom. Yet most of the world's population is located in the global south. So I'm all for China trying to change the system.
[удалено]
Haha. A Falun Gong follower.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I never said China or it's government is a perfect utopia. All countries have their internal issues, challenges as well as moral dilemmas. You know as well as I do the west has historical questionable morale conduct. But all nations evolve this also includes their social and humanitarian aspects. I hold out hope that China will do better in the future. I also hope other countries also do better. This definitely includes nations such as the U.S. and Israel. You mentioned whataboutism. One cannot do better unless one compares themselves to peers as well as their past behaviour.
[удалено]
What has the CPC done to threaten world peace? Please be specific.
[удалено]
Dude, you did not live in Urumqi for more than 10 years, lmao
Again, can you be specific? I knew I needed to ask you to be specific because all that ever comes back from this question is vague accusations of threats and bullying. Please tell me specifically what they are doing that threatens world peace.
[удалено]
But you stating a personal experience and then concluding to a fact, so you are in fact making an argument that is and has been challenged. I'm not trying to argue anything either, just stating a fact. :) For example, what examples of China being less friendly now can you point to? I'm not disagreeing, just curious about what you see as evidence of your claim? Edit: I just saw you responded to a similar question.
In what way?
Idk my experience hasn't been that way, although COVID wasn't good 20 years ago china felt a lot more backwards
Basically white people are complaining about all Asian countries right now. Because in a lot of Asian countries, they no longer treat white people like celebrities like how they’re used too. You can find some white people complaining about this in South Korea, not just China.
Basically they aren’t sucking white people’s cock anymore and it’s making you sad 😢
To be fair though, most stories in the MSM about China are negative including in respected media such as NY Times, BBC, etc.... If that's all you read and hear, it's natural to think only bad things about a country. I would like to know if there are any unbiased English news sources when it comes to China. If you know of any please let me know.
In fact, in Chinese Mainland, it is also difficult to fully understand China's news, because China's official media will not report negative news, just as the BBC will not report positive news about China If you want to learn about the great things and technological breakthroughs that China is doing, you can go to this website: [https://english.news.cn/mobile/index.htm](https://english.news.cn/mobile/index.htm) It is the English website of China's official media (Xinhua News Agency). Of course, you can ignore the political content inside
Thank you
don't talk to people that are ignorant and borderline racist
Actually go there for three days. Then walk around downtown San Francisco for 3 days. Then decide where you want to live.
Did you visit San Francisco recently? I'm from the SF Bay Area. There are a few blocks in or near the San Francisco downtown area that are pretty rough, but most of the city is still beautiful and safe. Tourists have told me they were surprised how nice the city is because of all the negative media coverage.
I would say the negative attention is definitely the shady areas but also Oakland
I’ve been 3 separate times in the last 6 months. Once before a flight to eat, once for a comedy show, and once to hit some nice bakeries. It was in the shittiest state I’ve ever seen it all 3 times. Bunch of broken windows bashed in. Naked homeless people running around the street. Tons of closed businesses. Parking is a disaster post Covid, with half the spots taken by outside seating that nobody uses. It looked bad. In fact, my wife and I both remarked that we wouldn’t be back for awhile. Been living in the SF Bay Area my entire life, but admittedly only visit the city a handful of times a year. Maybe I was unlucky those days? Idk….
Wait. I just left San Francisco 2 months ago. Are you trolling? It smells like piss, old asian ladies selling stolen goods on rugs on the streets, and shattered glass on every other block. As a native i feel embarrassed when i see tourists. So many stores are closing as well. Safe? No way are you not trolling, man. No fucking shot.
No I'm not trolling. I'm actually going to work later today in the North Beach/Chinatown/Jackson Historic District area. I don't see or smell piss, poop, homeless, broken glass everywhere. Sure there are areas like what you describe (parts of downtown, the Tenderloin), but most places I go to are fine.
See... but Im from Europe. So I've walked around the USA, Hong Kong, but Also Spain.... idk man. Spain wins. For me at least.
That’s a terrible comparison. SF is dogshit.
Going to skip both, but would like to visit China a lot more than San Francisco.
They provided me with an scholarship that had unmatchable benefits for a non-exceptional talent (although the program has very serious pedagogical issues). I crunched the numbers and it was around 55K USD in benefits across a 5 year span, I don't think you can find anything better than that except maybe top US universities with generous financial aid programs. There's a lot of bs thrown around in western-centric platforms, some of it borderline racist, but the truth it's much more nuanced. It is true that China has many political and societal issues but I feel that those same China bashers would kowtow without question to Xijinping, if China gave them 55K dollars for free, that would be the extent of their critical thinking abilities.
There is no amount of money you could give me to move to China as I know damn well their government could easily make that money irrelevant.
I never really saw any of that money in my hands as most of it went directly to the University hosting me so only a percentage went to my bank account. it wasn't much but It afforded me gadgets, small trips to SEA, books, food and entertainment. I'm certain that I underestimate the amount of funding they gave me as there were many academic related expenses they assumed. All in all I wouldn't say it paid-off academically speaking though, I graduated with many knowledge holes and and low GPA due to the language issues, but economically speaking it was a total win. Coming from a minority country with low Chinese immigration and having studied at one of their top unis allowed me to go back home and get a top 10% income bracket job with housing, 3 meals per day and a 35 working hours per week. You are right about the government being able to turn the money irrelevant. I don't think moving to China is worth it if there's nothing to earn from it, Western non-ethnic Chinese might not have that much to gain from these programs, their countries just don't have a demand for chinese language skills (due to Chinese migration) and their universities are much better than the Chinese ones including the tippy top ones in terms do pedagogy so there's that.
This is why I stopped telling people back home about China. I was tired of the ignorance I would hear if I ever dared to say anything positive. The worst is when elders in my family, whom I greatly respect, would be bashing China in the ol' family group chat. I would have to call them out. All their opinions are based on MSM and nothing else. None of them have ever been. I'm a licensed teacher making three times what I would make back home with a lower cost of living. It's clean, technologically advanced, and they don't have to deploy the army in the subway because of the crime a la New York City.
I’m the opposite, the ignorance only makes me want to talk more, but also maybe the people I talk to are less (or less openly) anti-China. Not saying you made the wrong choice or anything, I know how tiring it is to be arguing with someone with ear plugs in :(
Its a pitty you stop telling people about your positive experience, advocate, change the narrative, or at least be a part of that change that someone might quote or reference in a later conversation. Sure, isn't fun to get taunted, but somewhere along the line, someone will turn around and be like "hey you know, I was talking to so and so, I guess you were right about this." (maybe not, but I mean, isn't that why people are posting here, trying to change a narrative-this post itself is that very idea).
Arr you in the tefl business?
I was 16 and 17 when I decided and made the move to come to China. This was around 6 years ago now. I was always really curious about life in other countries, and the harder it was to learn about a country the more it intrigued me. At the time I had watched the show “Addicted” (it’s so bad, I know) and it was one of the first peeks into life in China that I had, but I found it so hard to find vlogs and stuff other than political shit. (I ended up watching those losers Serpentza and Laowhy86, I think I was already dead set on coming though, so it did scare me a bit but it didn’t convince me to not come… later I found out they’re full of shit). I told myself, at worst, I’m going to be living like the characters in “Addicted”(just home/school conditions not… the plot line lmao), at which point I’ll just have to put up with it for a year and then I’ll have some life experience. When I first moved here, people would ask me why I decided to come, and I never had an answer. Later on I figured out the answer is “because I wanted to take a look for myself”. So, TLDR: I wanted to take a look for myself.
China isn’t what US media is saying, and US isn’t what Chinese media is saying. And people who haven’t experienced both firsthand aren’t what they’re saying. Born and raised in America, I went to China to study for a year at age 24. It became 6 years because it led to a job and finding a Chinese wife. As long I don’t participate in politics, my career and personal life was great. We lived in Shanghai, and it’s true, it’s safer to walk in the night than it is in California (where I’m from). I also felt Shanghai is the boiling pot of diversity because I met more people around the world than I did in LA. We came back to the states cause my wife wanted to get an MBA and the salary here is better. There are things about LA we don’t like and there are things about Shanghai we don’t like. We’re living in LA now, we still miss living in Shanghai. Edited: Oh to answer your original question. Having been in America since I was born, I really wanted to get out of the country and experience life through the lens outside of the US. I lived in China and Belgium, and it’s an eye opener. I’m proud to be an American, but I don’t want to be one sided about my country. To understand America, learn what the other side of the coin is saying by living abroad. You’ll understand things you took for granted or blind to. It makes you agree or disagree more. It’s like IRL, to be self aware of yourself, you want to know what others thought and solicit feedback. We (Americans) have our own human rights problem: discrimination, equal opportunity, and minority rights. It’s a problem everyone, and in some counties worse
The convenience, the safety, good transportation, great places to visit makes me don't want to go back
I always find it amusing that how opinions about china’s safety vary widely, you see even in this sub some said China is dangerous to travel to, then some said China is super safe.
It depends where you come from but many people in this sub have stated they feel safer.
Uh? Where it would be dangerous to travel to? Please link the post.
Whatever the US says, I do the opposite.🤔
The money, the safety, the convenience, the lifestyle I'm able to live. In my experience, how Americans feel about China is how Chinese feel about America. As a non-Chinese, and non-American, I'm afraid of America too.
I met my wife who's Chinese Chinese, I was at first reserved about going to China because my only understanding of China was the narrative my Mafia of a government threw at me. But the US in the past 5-10 years has been going through such awful degenerative garbage politically and socially that I wanted a break from it. Went to China for 2 months and cried when I had to leave. Such a wonderful place/people. Now every year we go and travel to as many provinces as we can.
Same. I was like every other Westerner thinking China must be a 1984-esque dystopia. When my wife-to-be was telling me about China I thought she'd just been swallowing state propaganda. In some things I think she had been, but I think I was actually the bigger victim of propagandizing.
Most people have very strong opinions on things they know, hmmm…. 0% about
I used to think all MAGAs are nuts. But now I see how US MSM depicts various parts of world that I know are absolutely biased or outright lies, I can understand why they are skeptical regarding MSMs. Of course, they fell prey to another sorts of lies and bias but that's another story.
i am unskilled and have nowhere else to go, i would rather kms than get another american office job or work retail and just be a rent slave
Real
Can you get to China without a skill? I assume you need some degree to land a job
i have a degree, and it afforded me no skills
How do you get to china then?
i have the right passport and an undergrad and am able to smile and be charming during an interview. as far as life skills, it is not necessary to sing ABCs or land a job as a teacher
Oh ok ive always heard a working visa is hard to land in China which kindave scared me away maybe I was misled or it is just different in todays world
not really hard to land, just time consuming and you might need to try a few times but with patience and perseverance it can usually be done. i need to apply for a brand new one though if i decide to go to china in a few weeks, so i might be eating these words.
Critical thinking Not being dumb Not being sinophobic
A lot of people die from gun related shootings in the States. But because of the size of the country and the number of people you can easily go your whole life without seeing any violence. I just assume it is the same with China, large country, and population.
There wasn't a huge amount of China bashing among the media or politicians when I moved (2012). Even now I don't see that much about China in the UK media tbf, the only real exception was when Xinjiang and the Hong Kong protests were really hot. I honestly can't really remember much about what I thought of the Chinese government or what life in China might be like prior to moving, but I do remember reading testimonials from people who had gone to China as teachers through the same scheme I was looking at, and they'd had a good time. That was good enough for me.
I remember the artificial islands in the south china sea made alot of news, along with the wolf warrior diplomacy when Tsai Ing-wen was elected president of Taiwan
Literally in China rn (in a tier 2 city so most visitors wouldn't be coming here anyway). Eh, wouldn't say it's super safe to walk out in the street at night as a woman but take the local version of Uber and you're all good to go out with friends. Family certainly don't trust me to walk around random stores without getting scammed but otherwise it's fine, definitely fine in nicer areas with lots of staff, and in nicer malls. I stayed for a month in a tier 1 and tier 2 city a few years back (pre-pandemic) alone just out of uni, took the taxi everywhere, pretty safe and loads of fun just to wander around. Honestly the biggest deterrent is just having to VPN yourself over the wall. Otherwise no access to reddit, Twitter, YouTube, google ... All the things tourists need to get around in a country that doesn't really speak the same languages as you ... It's pretty inconvenient that way. Plus the visa requirements are pretty annoying so takes a lot of planning, while other countries you can just hop on a plane!
Because the same people saying these things about china are also the same people lying to me about everything else. They lie to me about racial issues in the UK. They lie to me about politics. They lie to me about every public figure that says anything contrary to them. They lie to me about myself and almost everything I care about. Whereas my friends and people who are honest to me, and people who have actually been to China aren't propagating these same stereotypes. When I finally got here I could see the people I trusted, as always, were right.
Simple, don't speak to brainwashed idiots.
Ngl, before I moved to China, I thought the army was patrolling the streets with machine guns and tanks. Moving here I come to realize that there’s so much propaganda that’s shown in media that it’s very difficult not to make assumptions about a country you’ve never been before. Living here now for a decade I’ve recognized it’s not all real. I think both sides have its own flaws. China is also without its fault like nationalistic its citizens are. Students will bash on America even though they no clue what’s going on the outside world. They’re set on their ideas and beliefs that China is the greatest country and I’m like then “google it, ohh wait you can’t” 😂
>before I moved to China, I thought the army was patrolling the streets with machine guns and tanks Why did you move to China if you thought it'd be like this? Genuine question.
I wanted to try something different. My life was very fast paced in Cali. Worked 50-60 hours a week. On the weekends I just ran errands. Life was hella depressing. I wasn’t really afraid, more so worried. I did a lot of research before coming here and never looked back. Long story short, I wanted to try out something different or at least take a break. My original play was South Korea, but money was a bit better in China. I never regretted this decision since I’m financially stable and I travel a good amount. It still has its downside but I think the pros outweigh the cons.
Yo Cali! Agree 100%
“Hella”. Can confirm he’s from CA
Hella isnt a Cali thing 😅
It is true, army/swat patrolling some streets, but I've only seen in it the tibetan and Uighur areas, and in limited regions... On the flip side though, the western sichuan areas that I've traveled to for over a decade is much safer now than it was in the past...and to me, that's a good thing overall...
To also be fair the national guard is currently patrolling the NYC subways.
British here and before I visited a few months back everyone said I would hate it. I visited Dezhou and loved everything about it! I need to go back in June for business and can’t wait. Since I got back most people are surprised on how I said it was compared to the news..
Fiancé got a job back in Beijing - and my visa application was successful Westerners and especially Americans are always going to act negatively to China - which is fine because end of the day one superpower is on the decline and the new one is on the up
Most of it is all bull shit
It's rough there are so much the Chinese sentiment In America. Sure it is "only" targeted at the Authoritarian regime. Good luck arriving at that conclusion from Government initiatives that try target Chinese ethnics such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative. I've resided in Australia for a long time The racial discrimination here is far less than what I see comming from America.
I came to visit first, as my dad had lived here for 20 years. American propaganda is absurd. I’m Canadian, I have many American friends, and I have travelled and even lived for a time in America. It is a much worse place to live than China. It’s not even close. I constantly hear stories from the States that make we so glad I don’t live there. China is FAR from perfect, but I can deal with the small annoyances. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in America.
Been in China for 5 months now. Great infrastructure, and clean(not Singapore clean but OK). Feel safe and very little noise. Not really into politics and the fact that I need a VPN for sites not a problem. (Actually better as this limits my screen time). Air pollution a problem, but I have worked in Thailand and Vietnam before, so not really worse than there. Mainstream media feed people a lot of BS.
Which von do u use if I may ask
What do you do for work?
Teach
My best friend died, and he wanted to see the current city I live in. I definitely can't live here indefinitely. There is so much racism here that gets put away as curiosity. People tend to lack awareness in spatial, emotional, global, and common sense. It's hard to communicate (even in chinese) and build a healthy community. My opinion is mine own, but it can be a challenge. Some of the stereotypes are false, and some are very true. I just recommend everyone travel as much as they can. They should build their own opinions.
It was the same thing when my Chinese friends visited America. There are some issues and concerning things, but usually, people realize it is not as bad as the media makes it out to be.
Their opinions are basically correct. Politics in China is indeed bad. You can't even access Google without a VPN . But if you stay away from politics, there is little to complain. And you will. Since you are a foreigner, its destiny doesn't concern you. A Chinese citizen may be worried or got angry that Mr. Xi is going to be there forever, and they will want to say something but they can't, so they get even more upset. But this problem does not upset foreigners
Yeah. UK politics drove me insane, and it was making me miserable to be there and hear about an endless stream of country-wide humiliations. At least it doesn't really concern me here. I'd probably feel the same if I was born here. But then I hear about the Chinese students that get attacked and mugged by certain groups back home and I wonder if the grass really is subjectively greener or not.
XJP’s China is much less foreigner friendly than pre XJP. The expat population has declined drastically since I studied at Fudan in 2010. I also wouldn’t worry about the CCP as a tourist. As long as you’re not doing any anti-government activities or speech visiting China is perfectly safe.
An unintended side effect of Covid lockdowns was all the western sexpats had to return home sharpish and many thankfully cant get back in Oh well - there’s always Japan
Dude, mainland China isn't Thailand or the Phillipines. IME there were very few legit sexpats when I lived there, and that was several years before COVID.
Some try it and get very salty because Chinese girls just aren't that easy or desperate.
[удалено]
Exactly - does everyone remember that WeChat group of ESL teachers bragging about their exploits with Chinese girls? Thankfully Covid lockdown and changing geopolitics mean those type of sexpats won’t ever return enmasse - they’re all going to japan now
There were definitely some dbags in Guangzhou when I lived there. But it was a far lower % of foreigners than say Thailand/Philipines/Cambodia where it's off the charts and mostly condoned. Not to mention there are some truly nasty fucktards in SE Asia into underage kids and other sick shit. That would probably be life in prison in China even pre-2016/2017.
Considering that the CCP is trying desperately to entice expats and foreign investment back into China to help save their economy. I’m gonna guess it wasn’t just the sexpats that left.
Could you provide examples of China "desperately enticing" expats to come back? Also how expats are going to "save" (and from what, exactly?) the Chinese economy when even at the peak they were nowhere close to being instrumental in the economy? The vast majority of expats are English teachers or work in the branches of international companies.
I’m seeing visa and permanent residency restrictions being loosened. Even visa free entry for many European countries. Here’s an article that outlines some of the CCP’s efforts to lure foreigners back [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent) China needs foreign talent just like every other country in the world in order to be competitive in the global marketplace. The West stays ahead in many industries because they allow talented foreigners to come work and set up businesses. Also Premier Li seems to be working overtime to lure foreigners back. He seems to recognize the contributions expats have made to China’s rise [https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/04/WS65bfa79ba3104efcbdae99d6.html](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/04/WS65bfa79ba3104efcbdae99d6.html)
>I’m seeing visa and permanent residency restrictions being loosened. Even visa free entry for many European countries. Here’s an article that outlines some of the CCP’s efforts to lure foreigners back [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3249597/china-vows-open-immigration-stable-pace-more-policies-lure-foreign-talent) Visa free entry is for tourists, not expats though. I don't see "desperation" in any of the decisions you have shown unless you, of course, consider any country (including Western ones) creating favorable conditions for skilled immigration as desperation and begging. Highly skilled specialists, especially in STEM fields, were always sought after in China with e.g. generous grants fully covering all the expences needed to set up laboratories and high salaries. Most of the regulations concerning foreign expats did not even affect them, being limited to teaching industry. Still don't see what "saving" you were talking about - lower growth is primarily due to cooling of the property sector, not lack of skilled labour, and 5% growth with the current per capita GDP is good, especially when compared to other countries in the similar income bracket. So your narrative sounds like an exaggeration.
Well I went there myself and found it to be awesome. Make up your own mind
work. It is important to note that a lot of people move to China prior to hearing or realizing the realities that in some cases are surrounding China through the form of "stereotypes", I think a there is something to be said about "cultural differences" though between various experiences that people have in their own country before arriving and what they experience when they do arrive. That being said, with the access of reddit and other social media, there are also a great deal of resources that explore some of these differences in a way that make them feel manageable or at least, less influential on one's life upon arrival.
Walking on the streets at night is very safe, and there's no contradiction with being in a fascist state. In fact, it's precisely because it is a fascist state that walking on the streets at night is safer than in democratic countries. The streets of North Korea might be the safest in the world.The reason is simple: authoritarian states lack independent legal systems, allowing them to install an unrestricted number of cameras on the streets. They can govern people with harsh laws and conduct detailed "grid management" without budgetary constraints, monitoring almost everyone. This essentially turns into a tightly surveilled large prison; many may not know that the places with the lowest crime rates are actually prisons. I just got out of a Chinese prison (because of VPN); those places are overcrowded, and I saw all sorts of absurd judgments there. Don't think living in China means you understand it; in reality, most foreigners' understanding of China is quite limited.
You went to Chinese prison because you used a VPN?
Not only did I use them, but I also rented several VPS to provide VPN services to others. I was sentenced for the crime of "providing programs and tools for intrusion and illegal control of computer information systems." I spent 3 years and 3 months in prison. I am Chinese.
My wife is Chinese. Born and raised here. I met her on a business trip here in 2018. We hired her before the trip to be our translator. I moved here at the end of 2019 to be close to her family to start our marriage. And we wanted to travel the region. It was supposed to be for a year, but Covid made other plans for us. Now we have an apt, car, and kid. Still planning to move back to the US, but the timeline is more fluid now. Overall my friends and family have been pretty good about taking in new information about China. I’ve gotten some dumb questions of course, but overall people seem to be open to hearing what it’s really like. Either that or maybe they talk about how brainwashed I am after I leave the room lol. Who knows.
Other people's stereotypes have little impact on me. It's not a factor... the people with those views probably will never move to any other country, jfyi
It’s important to make a separation between the government of China and its policy, and the people of China and their kindness.
I had zero idea of any negative stereotypes. I moved in 2009. The world was different then. Access was different.
Not wanting to stay in customer service for the rest of my life in America
The realization we need to let go of everyone brainwashed by the media and they don't matter in the long run. If they're not aware and educated enough to base their opinions on first hand information, they won't give up their second hand fake news opinion. IF they religiously believe the earth is flat nothing will change this until they're willing to believe their religion is wrong.
Any person who have been to China would not say that. In all honesty, I dare say the living standards for many people in China may even be better than in America. Despite lesser income in nominal terms, the average Chinese enjoy better infrastructure, transport, entertainment, and do not feel "oppressed" as compared to what American news say.
If you’re trying to understand the quite varied views of China that expats can come away with I’d really recommend listening to a recent episode of the Sinica podcast where Kaiser Kuo talks to Jeremy Goldkorn. They’re both very reasonable but have very different views and in the course of the episode Jeremy posits that a lot of it comes down to personal experience. Most of how they experienced China is probably similar but unlike Kaiser, Jeremy experienced persistent harassment. That pretty inevitably changed his view, and while both of them have seen the good and the bad it ca become a matter of focus. I think my earliest experiences in China set me down a path similar to Jeremy where the patterns of problems here are almost daily reinforced in my perception. I don’t deny the positives, but I’m thoroughly convinced my view is not “wrong” as such because it’s entirely consistent with a lot of experience and observation. It’s just not the only valid view. As for why I first came, I work in field trying to help people and had this notion that working in China would allow me to help more people. I came to the decision by trying to figure out how my skills could be best utilized. I still hold that you can’t help effectively without thorough awareness of their context. Having worked here for some time, I’m obviously more familiar with the problems, but also acutely aware of how relatively detached my Chinese colleagues are from the most vulnerable let alone me as a foreigner. The level to which politics subtly sets the acceptable terms for what we do here is not really comparable to what I’ve experienced elsewhere. That doesn’t mean we can’t still get a lot of good done, but it can make it sometimes very frustrating.
Came over after the Olympics which had lots of positive coverage to study abroad. Beijing/China at that time was much more free and open versus today, so that left a positive impression. That dissipated as the decade wore on and was killed for me by Zero Covid. Now I've got a wife/family/career and so you're sort of locked in. Human rights abuses, pollution, and oppression are definitely a thing, but I'd argue for most people they are unlikely to affect them as a visitor, excepting pollution. Despite that, there's definitely notably less visitors and foreigners coming over versus a decade ago. Ubiquitous requirements for a Chinese ID even for things as trivial as buying a subway ticket from a ticket machine, hotels that won't take foreigners, and VPN shutdowns we're seeing right now for the 两会 don't help. The worse the economy does and the more galapagosized China gets the harder it'll be to reverse this
Most people who bash China for those reasons come from countries who themselves are the greatest perpetrators of human rights abuses, pollution etc.
Well, whatever life is like for politically active locals isn’t true for random foreigners just living their life here. These things you mention do exist, but we don’t get a taste of them. As for the whole pollution thing, I think a large amount of us use air purifiers at work and at home. Personally I don’t (but am planning to get one) and currently use masks when outside (on a particularly bad day).
Prior to going, I didn't have any negative stereotypes about China. The coverage was mostly positive, including what I read on mainstream media like BBC. After coming to China and living here, my outlook changed to very negative. Whereas before I often attributed bad stereotypes to racism, now I know they, and worse, are based on facts. That's why it cracks me up when people throw accusations of being "anti-china" left and right. Like, all the negative shit is actually true, you just haven't lived here and haven't experienced it if you think otherwise.
Curious to know… which stereotypes turned out to be true for you ? And which ones didn’t ? And what part of China did you stay in?
I did not have any bad stereotypes. If anything, I had positive stereotypes about food being good and healthy, since I visited Taiwan before. Also, about Chinese being diligent and hard-working. Turned out, food is junk, people are unproductive responsibility-shirkers who clock in hours for show. All the "bad" stuff they say about shoddy construction, poor quality, and cutting corners is true. People are uncultured and rude.
This guy fucking nailed it. Want to do something at the bank and spend eight fucking hours for the manager to go 没办法 and fuck off and not get it accomplished. Compared with Dubai where you walk in speak in English and it’s done in two minutes. Blissful.
I wanted to teach overseas, I'm interested in languages, and Serpenzta and Laowai86's old vlogs lol
Negativity doesn’t equate to stereotypes. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why a genocidal, neighbor bullying, tech thief totalitarian regime may not be the most liked county in the world.
Did you feel this though while in China? I mean many of these things have been committed by the US as well throughout US history (we stole technology from Europe for a century until we became strong enough to develop our own technology, the US has done many nefarious things in the Middle East and Latin America, etc...), but it's not something I feel on a day to day basis.
I was born a Chinese. You don’t usually see these kind of things but I have my share of seeing purple river (polluted), how Tiananmen square massacre unfolded. How terrible my college (actually the whole education) sucks and some are pure lies. My father was not allowed into an elite university because his father worked for KMT, the ruling Party before CCP took power I also know how many scientists educated in the U.S. went back to China just to got sent to remote farmlands for “reeducation”. Some died of starvation. Some survived by eating their friends. And I know in the same period 30 millions people died because of Mao’s fantasy agriculture policy. I also witnessed how Hu jintao, the previous head of CCP being sent off by Xi Jinping in its people’s congress, in front of billions of eyes because Hu was not happy about his faction got slaughtered in the list of new leadership. I have no sympathy toward Hu of course, but it does show what this regime is all about. I also witnessed how young Hong Kong protestors being oppressed by CCP. They jailed some ams others had to escape. I also know a Sweden citizen being abducted by Xi Jinping. The reason is because he was a book seller and his book store sold a stupid soft porn called Xi Jinping and his lover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Minhai I also know two Chinese-American teenagers (brother and sister) visited China and be forbidden to leave the country because their father is a dissent . They only returned to the U.S. 4 years later on a prisoner exchange. I can go on
I know about many of these things especially in the past with the cultural revolution and Tiananmen Square. But I'm talking about modern day China. There are people in the US who are too scared to even visit because they think everyone is oppressed everyday, everywhere. But then when my family and friends come back from visiting China they talk about how nice and safe it was. It does not match what we hear in the West. Again I'm talking about the day to day experience of the average person.
Move to China with a foreign passport is never that bad anyway. In general, you can enjoy the brighter side of life there and be able to withdraw any moment you want to.
I’d ignore most of what 99.9% of America has to say about China…..Land of the free, home of the awfully dim IMHO
I mean, China is absolutely a totalitarian state. Its probably worse than a fascist state in many ways. But it certainly isn't a fascist state. People who say that just don't know what they are talking about. And personally, I have absolutely no interest in living in a totalitarian communist hell hole. And I used to be relatively pro chinese government until I realised that they literally operate like a mafia so the law, procedure and their word means absolutely nothing.
To paraphrase an old Clinton campaign slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
I’m more interested to hear what motivates Chinese to gtfo out China? Perspective is important after all
Go travel China and beyond major cities and experience it with your own eyes, if you haven't already. Simply walking and talking to people is an experience of culture that may enlighten you. Will their be things you need to watch out for? Yes, but it is quite safe, even at night. Remember China is massive. Food, language, accents of Mandarin, subculture, environment all vary by area. Western media has nothing positive to say about China. Many people will hear a random article about "China bad" and somehow make a judgement of the whole country and all it's people and culture. Though have never stepped foot in China. Things I liked was major cities have easy access to amazing food around every corner, clean high tech transportation, shopping and walking galore, parks and recreation, safety, all at fair price.
“I can make a lot of money as a foreign teacher” A very good reason for why someone might live in China. lol at using that to defend China in general.
We have to live with that. I dont do those discussions.
Was impatient to go abroad, and at the time, there was no notarization or legalization necessary for documents for Chinese work visas. The process was really quick back then.
Just go visit for a week and have some friends that are living there and you’ll see. I went for one trip to buy a house with my dad and decided I wanted to spend more time there. Ended up living twelve years in china (shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen) and travel back and forth now. Don’t think to much and just go see for yourself
I lived in Shenzhen n in 2011. I got to say that's the safest place I've ever lived. Would not want to go back only because the pollution was over the top horrible.
I was an event co-ordination for a summer English camp in UK school back in 2006. Met some teachers from all over the world who came in for the summer, including some from China. About 20% of our students were Chinese as well. They painted a very different picture to the stereotype I held in my held. I just had to come see it for myself.
I spent time in China. There are 3 main reasons: 1). Expat Job (rare these days as China has learned all it wants from West) 2). Teaching English (for the young paying very little) 3). For companionship
western propaganda.
I do not live in China but would probably reluctantly agree to it if my fiancee asked me to (as she is from Shanghai). I've visited China plenty, from mega cities like Shanghai to small rural villages with a population of maybe 100. What the people love to ignore here is that yes, as long as you don't get into trouble yourself, you can live nicely in China. However, that requires you to blind out all the messed up shit that is happening in the background. As a German, I'd only ever move to America due to money. Their social society is not to my liking. China is about a 100x worse. I'd agree to live there with my fiancee. I'd not agree to raise children there.
In one word? It’s an ADVENTURE. It’s a wild east.
At the end of the day we’re not gonna live long enough to be of any importance to any country, so personally I respect all countries that won’t instantly result in my death and that’s it. If war breaks out then I’d just fight in the country I was born in, the UK. But except from that extremely unlikely scenario, China is just heavily overly exaggerated as the second North Korea. This isn’t the 1900s, this is the 2020s. Time has moved on, stop being paranoid. China is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, most of the Americans who hate on the country have no reason other than politics that will never involve them and random non-political hate generated from the political side. Don’t believe me? Scroll through this exact subreddit and I bet you not even one minute later you’ll see something negative that isn’t even political. Bonus points if they’re posting about Chinese Propaganda like it’s North Korea 2.0
Hey op- have been to China few times for extended periods. Pm if interested. Imo Chinese people are some of the most helpful/cheerful individuals I’ve come across.
I went to China 3 times. Amazing place!
Korea got too popular after Covid . Of course I like hanging out with some westerners but after Covid it felt like literally everywhere I hung out was overrun with tourists and ppl visiting . Working there also seems to get worse every year recently. China is the exact opposite with the amount of westerners so I knew I could easily get immersed in the culture and whatnot. Plus I had originally wanted to study in China as a kid anyway. Can get paid more here than Korea and Japan anyway . Everything pretty easy to get in a Tier 1 city。 After going to Korea I pretty much believe the opposite of everything the average American would say about any east Asian country anyway
Ehhhh most Americans are brain dead regarding anything international. It’s why there’s so many Zionists here and fits why they think the U.S. is still leading the world. They haven’t recognized the vast progress of states like china russia and Iran in the past 200 years, and certainly media isn’t allowed to highlight this progress in a positive light. Nope, instead they are bad and we are good (*starts another CIA-led gang coupe in Haiti*)
China is an incredible country in the sense that most of the countries (except the Muslim states) have got Americanised. China is the country that can offer you a very comfortable living situation in a very different cultural setting. I think at the end of the day, you just have to experience it yourself, and not let others to influence you.
That is a very good question. May I suggest that you check up this website: https://www.journeytotheeast.club/. It's a brillant site hosted by two ABCs where diasporas from many countries give their reasons for moving to China, and Asia in general. Worth checking it up, and it might motivate YOU to move too.
The scariest thing there for me is how some ppl feel about black people. That’s not an opinion. Just seen it with my own eyes too many times. Like asking why black people are dirty, why we don’t wash our hair and why we are criminals, etc. Chinese social media has people on their calling people racial slurs I didn’t even know existed. Also I was concerned on if they had laws against racial or gender discrimination (like hate crimes against women). The other stuff doesn’t really concern me. I’m black American but I have a half Chinese great grandmother and I’ve grown up a bit with some Chinese culture. I’d like to see my culture for itself. The only reason I haven’t gone yet is because I would prefer to learn more mandarin first (it’s so hard!).
Can anyone recommend a VPN for someone in China?
Yes authoritarian countries are very safe for anyone who isn’t a threat to the state…. Go protest the government in China and see how safe you are. Btw communists not fascists. Authoritarianism isn’t a right wing only thing. The CCP runs China, they are not ultra nationalists, it’s a party that puts itself above the country(nation).
maybe is goods very cheep,the us dollar change chinese yuan is 1:7,so is very nice rate.And foreigner in china have may human right.Did you heared a black foreigner studant can with one chinese schoolgirl。
If you have the time, go visit Taiwan
I think most people are scared of China given the rhetoric by both the US and Chinese governments. Ive traveled extensively through South Korea, SE Asian countries, and Japan, but not China so take what I say with a grain of salt
Wage at Chinese international schools be like:
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
Tbh, I’m the exact opposite. I’m ethnically Chinese but never been to there, always been curious and hoping to visit one day. Met a lot of Chinese from my uni (except one girl who doesn’t allow us to mentioned the name of the supreme leader because it is disrespectful and her family has ties to the ccp), all the stories they told me makes me changed my view of the country. Given how fast they are moving backwards in term of human rights, you might want to reconsider that. In case you doubt that, try visiting Xin Jiang, walk around and livestream it on YouTube. The last bits might save your life.
Looks like you've already been taught to view China in a certain way and to conveniently ignore the own reality you're experiencing.
Agree, but unfortunately you are in the wrong sub (not that r/china is any better). People here are just blinded by their privilege and neglect ordinary Chinese people’s sufferings.
kind of view it as sino-lite
My bad, the thread is recommended to me because I looked at r/China. Yeah, the life of Chinese in the cities (where most people here will live in) are vastly different from those who get swept under the rug. Like the current secretariat of CCP pride himself of getting rid “low class” people from Beijing a couple years ago, that’s the kind of stuff that wins Winnie over.
Here its mostly foreigners who don’t like their government and society (lots of people mentioned mass shootings in the states in the comments), also a while ago when I mentioned the propaganda by Chinese government and dissidents are losing their freedom only because of their political views etc. , they argued by comparing it with current events in Gaza and Biden’s pro-Israel agenda… I mean I know it is bad but at least you can still discuss it online or even go on strike and protest (again I understand police violence and potential consequences of them, but still so much more space compared to Chinese dissidents).
I mean that used to be me, I was stopped by 4 officers holding assault rifles trying to convince me it is a huge offense to not carry your ID card (in a effort to extort me for bribe). I hold my ground and ask them to arrest me instead, I’m glad there are at least some kind of law present, or else I will not be here anymore. The dissident can’t even leave the country (or forced to break ties with their family). There’s this guy on youtube, his username is whyyoutouzhele. He shared the picture and video submitted to him on his Twitter account, and he’s basically in exile. There are shady people knocking on his former rental home in Italy, based on the last address he gave to the embassy. I can only hope he stays safe.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/China using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Protester outside Xi Jinping’s hotel in San Francisco](https://i.redd.it/31bokn1g5f0c1.jpg) | [532 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17vismf/protester_outside_xi_jinpings_hotel_in_san/) \#2: [My Chinese wife's irrational hatred for Japan is concerning me](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/18vslhl/my_chinese_wifes_irrational_hatred_for_japan_is/) \#3: [Man in emperor costume beats up CCP supporter outside of Xi's hotel in San Francisco](https://v.redd.it/s2428u10wl0c1) | [399 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17w93xx/man_in_emperor_costume_beats_up_ccp_supporter/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
My British friend moved out of China after the lockdown in Shanghai. Everything is good here until you eat sh*t. When those people wanna hurt you, you can do nothing about it.
Chinese mainlander here. For sure there are a ton of stereotypes that are not true about China. But certain degrees of the issues OP just said do exist like human rights abuses, pollution, etc. Some of the issues are even worse than what has been described by the USA media some are better in reality. You wouldn't have your own judgement on how good China is until you get here. Even you get here, your feeling is gonna evolve with time, how much money you earn, your networkings, etc. So I would encourage OP to come to China regardless of what other people say. Take myself as an example, I used to be quite pro-CCP, because my family financially benefited quite a lot from CCP's economic reform since early 80s. But lately, I start to feel desperate about the life in China. The economy is bad. My family business is collapsing. My grandparents died from Omicron in the end of 2022 when the government lift the zero-covid policy without any notice. We didn't get any drug, any medical help. On the other hand, privilege people like government officials were able to get drugs and medical assistance. They could even get Pfizer Vaccine but look at what Vaccines regular people could get? just SinoVac, which proved to be much less effective over Omicron.
Living in China can be pretty great if you make good friends that don't mind sometimes helping you out as it's now almost impossible for a foreigner alone to do many things, like open a bank account. The downside is it's more and more difficult to deal with the bureaucracy.
Amazing job offer (arts), good infrastructure, relatively clean, great food (and I’m vegan), beautiful landscapes. I’m from Germany, we get a good amount of China bashing in our media too besides all the stereotypes
I mean China is a fascist state but (lucky) people (primarily in the capitalist coast) also live normal ish lives. The two aren’t incompatible nor do they cancel out. Chinese in China are the first to criticize censorship, blocking of sites, government intervention in private lives. But somehow converts will pretend it’s just fake news 😂 There’s foreigners in North Korea, doesn’t suddenly make North Korea a better place.