I’ve been wanting to write this for a while.

I’m a 31-year-old single Indian woman currently living and working in China, and honestly, my heart is filled with so much gratitude for this country.

I don't think I have ever felt this peaceful and genuinely happy in a place so far away from home.

Before coming here, I had heard all kinds of perceptions about China. Some of them made me wonder what it would actually be like as a brown-skinned foreign woman. And yes, I have experienced a few uncomfortable moments because of my appearance or simply because I am foreign. I don't want to pretend those things don't happen.

But they have been so much smaller compared with the kindness I have experienced.

What has stayed with me far more is how patient people have been with me.

My Mandarin has improved significantly over the past few months. I've been studying and practicing diligently, but I am still very much learning. And when I stand in a supermarket completely unable to explain what I want, or struggle with something in a public place, people have generally been incredibly patient with me. Sometimes we communicate through gestures, translation apps, smiles, or just somehow figure it out together.

And those tiny interactions have meant so much to me.

I've experienced strangers helping me, people going out of their way to make things easier, colleagues welcoming me, and ordinary everyday moments that have made this enormous country feel strangely familiar.

And then there is the country itself.

The mountains.

The coastline.

The parks.

The cities glowing at night.

The incredible public transportation.

The food.

The little neighbourhoods tucked between huge modern buildings.

The convenience of everyday life.

The feeling that there is always somewhere new to explore.

There is something incredibly beautiful about waking up in a place that once felt completely foreign and slowly watching it become your life.

I came here from India expecting to miss home terribly.

But surprisingly, I haven't felt that way.

Maybe home isn't always a single geographical place. Sometimes it is the people who make you feel welcome. Sometimes it is the stranger who patiently helps you when you can't find the right words. Sometimes it's sitting somewhere beautiful after a long day and suddenly thinking,

“I am actually really happy here.”

I'm not trying to make a statement, and I'm certainly not saying China is perfect. I'm simply sharing my personal experience as one Indian woman living here.

China has given me a chapter of my life that I didn't know I needed.

I feel grateful to be here.

Grateful to be learning.

Grateful to be teaching.

Grateful for the people I've met.

And grateful for the opportunity to experience this beautiful country with my own eyes rather than through someone else's perception.

谢谢，中国。🇨🇳❤️

I genuinely hope I continue discovering this country, its people, its languages, its food and its little everyday stories for a long, long time.

I want to buy a car from China, specifically an hybrid BYD. I live in Africa so a friend of mine can ship the car from Ganzhou. Is Guazi suitable for that ? Or is there any better reliable and/or affordable service/way to buy it ?

Thank you

What were some significant events? Do you remember? Im curious from all the Chinese people if they remembered events in the 80’s and if they can share.

me and my gf are long distance and she’s going to be in china for school for a while and i’m in the US she’ll either be using a chromebook or getting a dell laptop and i’m on xbox i’m trying to figure out the best way for us to still do stuff together while she’s over there especially watching movies together like if i screen share netflix or youtube to her can she actually see and hear everything on her end or does netflix just give her a black screen i know discord is blocked over there so i’m wondering if zoom works better for screen sharing or if there’s another app that works better also what vpns actually work in china right now because i don’t want to pay for one that barely works or stops working once she gets there and it would be nice if it worked on both her phone and laptop and could let her use stuff like discord youtube instagram etc for gaming i’m on xbox and she’ll be on pc so i’m also looking for games we can play together that actually work with xbox and pc crossplay and preferably stuff we can play for a long time together not just quick games basically i’m just trying to figure out everything we can use to talk watch movies play games and hang out while she’s in china and what stuff i should set up or download before she leaves if anyone has done long distance between the US and china or has a gf/bf over there i’d really appreciate any advice or things i might be missing

Hi everyone, I’m planning a trip to Shanghai soon and I wanted to ask about paying with cash.

I know Alipay and WeChat Pay are widely used in China, but can I still rely on cash (RMB) for most things like restaurants, convenience stores, shopping, taxis, etc

Any advice for a first-time visitor would be appreciated

I have been to China several times. During many of the trips, I noticed children going to the bathroom on the sidewalk or even inside buildings on the floor. I most recently saw this behavior on a trip two years ago. Some of the children have special pants with a hole in them just to help them poop wherever.

How common is this behavior? It must be somewhat common because I’ve seen it a few times. Is this behavior becoming increasingly uncommon?

I've seen a bunch of these getting pretty popular these days, but when I really examine some of the videos there's some really fishy stuff to say the least.

I saw one particularly egregious one which I don't know if I'm allowed to link, but it was just super dubious. It was a girl who lived alone in the mountains and worked a menial labor job to get by. In that video, she's talking about how she has to do this job to get by but doesn't want to stay there forever, but with the implication that she'll likely have to live there regardless for the foreseeable future. She also left a comment saying she recorded the video herself on her phone, despite SHOWING HER PHONE in one scene.

But the next video is where things get really weird. Just a week later, she posts a video stating that she's leaving the village to move to the city and find work. Completely out of the blue, which is extremely bizarre seeing as that's something that would've been mentioned in earlier videos. In that video, there's a part where she's getting a ride from a village guy to a station or something. But there's several staged shots where the camera is set up on the roadside and recording them going past (these staged shots of the subject passing by is super common among a bunch of these vlogs). This would mean she would've likely paid the guy to drive past and then drive back to collect the camera, because why would he do that for free? Then, during the subsequent bus ride she very obviously has a cameraperson recording her. In one part she's showing herself going through security, and she's being recorded by someone already past the checkpoint. She claims to be poor and not have any friends, so who is this person recording her? I'm sure she's not just asking random people to record her, especially since they'd probably be busy and find it weird. So what's going on here?

A lot of people in the comment section were sending her money, and she always gave them nice replies. But surprise surprise, she never responds to the people pointing that out.

Does anyone know more about these? It's very odd how people who paint themselves as dirt poor can manage to do all this. I don't doubt that there are many people living lonely, impoverished lives, but I'm just wondering if these vloggers are really part of them.

After finishing school (at 18 years old) I would love to learn Kung Fu in an Authentic School in China for 6 months.
Studying mandarin and learning about the chinese cultur, while training every day is mandatory for me.

Training / living alongside chinese students in a smaller school in the mountains would be the ideal scenario.

Does anyohne has experience or recommendations for my plan?
Thank you so much! :)

Hey everyone! I’m from Europe and I'm planning to apply to Chinese universities as an international student. I have a regionally accredited US high school diploma online from Excel High School and I have pretty good SAT score and I passed HSK 5.
Has anyone successfully used an online US high school diploma to get accepted into Chinese universities? I’m wondering if they even accept these type of diplomas? Will it be a bottleneck for me? I have already emailed quite a few universities but haven’t heard back from any yet.

I’m genuinely curious about this. China has obviously accomplished something remarkable economically over the last 40 years. But at the same time, China has a fairly high level of income inequality.

The World Bank puts China’s official income-based Gini coefficient at 46.5 in 2024.

What’s interesting to me is that this seems quite different from the experience of many of the European countries that previously had socialist economies. For example, research on the former German Democratic Republic found that income distribution there was far less unequal than in West Germany. One study puts the Gini for East Germany at about 0.185 in 1990.

More broadly, the IMF notes that Gini coefficients in socialist Eastern European economies in the late 1980s were generally around 23–24, substantially below those of Western market economies at the time.

Obviously, I’m not arguing that the GDR or other communist countries were better places to live. They had plenty of serious economic and political problems, and low measured income inequality doesn’t tell you everything about living standards or access to goods.

But it does make me wonder: How does China have such high inequality and claim to be socialist? There are many capitalist countries that have much lower income inequality.

I was interested in doing a circuit trek or base camp trek in December in the Himalayas. I am a very fit hiker, but have not spent significant periods trekking in that high altitude , most of my experience comes from doing long and heavy days in the lower 48 United States . I’m not interested in doing something that technical as I lack experience and ability . I just want something not touristy and very scenic . It would be cool to see an 8k meter peak but if there are prettier treks then I’d rather do that. Something ideally less than 3 weeks. Currently thinking Annapurna base camp trek or Manaslu circuit trek, or Kanchenjunga circuit. These seem great but I bet there are some other spectacular ones out there that just aren’t as well known since there isn’t an 8k meter peak tied to the name. Also the region as a whole interests me , so if there’s something outside of Nepal like in Pakistan india or China that’d be great too, I’m trying to be as open minded here . If anyone has any recs please let me know . I’m pretty good with elevation but then again I haven’t done an extended hike at 12k plus elevation, let alone during winter. Any recs would be great. I’m new to the region so any advice would be nice as well. Thank you !!!!

China’s revised National Defense Mobilization Law adds expropriation powers and expands planning obligations, while leaving broad terms such as threats to “development interests” undefined.

I lived in China for years, speak Chinese fluently, and traveled to almost every part of the country. One thing that always surprises me about China TikTok is how people visit Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, etc., and come away thinking, “China is the future.”

Many aspects of those cities are very impressive. But they also represent a very specific part of China.

I already know people will say, “Don’t all countries have uneven development?” Of course they do. Regional inequality exists everywhere, and China isn’t uniquely unequal..

But the differences within China are enormous. In 2023, HDI was 0.912 in Beijing and 0.901 in Shanghai, compared with 0.731 in Gansu, 0.727 in Qinghai, and just 0.656 in Tibet. China’s overall figure was 0.797. Lots of farmers make 1000-2000 RMB per month. A few years ago, Li Keqiang said something along the lines of 600 million people live on 1000 RMB per month.

And this isn’t just about statistics. You can go from one of the most modern cities in the world to rural areas where people still live in very basic housing and use pit toilets. Even in the most developed areas, some aspects of things are very undeveloped. For example, you can take one of the best subways in the world in Shanghai, but you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet or drink tap water.

The point of this post is that the people making these videos and acting like China is the most developed place on Earth are presenting a very incomplete picture. They’re seeing the most developed parts of China and assuming they represent the country as a whole, when they clearly don’t understand the enormous differences in living conditions across the country. China has some of the most advanced cities in the world, alongside regions that are still far less developed. The gap between its showcase cities and its poorest areas is so large that treating the former as representative of the entire country gives you a very distorted picture.

Edit: People saying other countries have developed and undeveloped areas are completely missing the point of the post. I am pointing out that there is a unique phenomenon about China on social media where tourists go to the most advanced cities and attribute conditions in those cities to all of China. You don’t see this happening with other countries.

Second Edit: To be clear, I’m not criticizing tourists for visiting China’s biggest cities. Of course tourists visit the major attractions in every country. My point is about what happens afterward: I’ve noticed a lot of China content where someone visits a few highly developed cities, sees the incredible infrastructure and technology, and then extrapolates that experience to China as a whole. The issue isn’t where they traveled; it’s the sweeping conclusions they make from that experience.

The recent online debate between exiled PRC elites; Desmond Shum & Bo GuaGua surfaced interesting subtexts;

“One of the most revealing things about China’s red aristocracy is that they inherit enormous privilege without inheriting genuine institutional protection.”

Since married into KMT royalty, Bo GuaGua is at least doing this with their tacit support. Their wager is a CCP x KMT double royal family upon rehabilitation, like a post cultural revolution Bo XiLai. Who failed to defend his own father as his son is defending him now; how’s that karma?