Sooo… yeah! I don’t really have IRL friends to chat about this so I figured I’d make this post. Didn’t want this to be super consequential like hosting an AMA or anything since it’s just me going back to where I was born but yeah
A few funny observations and maybe conversation starters:
- Everything I read in the US seems to talk about how China is simultaneously a futuristic paradise and an authoritarian hellscape… both seem fairly overblown. There are a lot of public transit and the food is amazing though
- The rumors are true, in China they really use Wechat for everything. Wechat is used for payment (almost no one uses credit cards or cash), booking tickets, … and all of these are tied to your national ID and your face recognition. It’s a bit terrifying
- There are sooooo many ads everywhere! Heck my parents’ apartment building has an ad billboard right in the elevator, and this is apparently the norm. On the app store the Microsoft Edge browser literally got a 5-star rating and was praised for not running ads… it’s that bad.
- My god the internet is atrocious compared to the US, and having to do half of the stuff I need to with a VPN doesn’t really help. It’s so bad that I was missing my Gentoo days of compiling packages from source…
- I thought there would be a ton of anime stuff, especially since I had the impression that Mihoyo games (the company that developed Genshin Impact, Honkai series, etc) is a topic of national pride… I think I have made a mistake. I have met three cosplayers just walking on the street so far though, so the culture definitely is there
- I like rhythm games and I’m delighted to find out there are maimai DX cabs everywhere, this thing is impossible to find in the US. Haven’t found SDVX or IIDX cabs, or even CHUNITHM cabs though… Also China apparently has their own Pump It Up clone (not DDR, PIU) with four more outer arrows. Imagine the five PIU step keys and four more outside…
- Lemmy.world is somehow not blocked by the Chinese internet firewall. Not that I feel safe browsing Lemmy with the type of posts I make… On that topic, my own little web domain isn’t blocked lmao I can still use SearXNG as usual
Oh boy… first of all sorry to hear that.
I guess by your metric the censorship is pretty harsh here as most of the popular “foreign sites” are not accessible without a VPN/Tor connection/etc. Not having YouTube is indeed quite annoying, I watch a lot of edutainment and silly videos for relaxation… and for the past two weeks I am mostly limited to my copy of modded Skyrim (which doesn’t require internet)… aaand maybe the two gacha games I’m playing if my VPN plays nice (I think I have to drop one of them now, the game server keeps refusing to log me in)
I haven’t been in China long enough to try things out yet, but I think the philosophy seems to be block all foreign sources and create Chinese versions of them. So for locals there are stuff like Bilibili and Youku which in theory would offer similar levels of entertainment/edutainment so… I’m still planning to stay in the EU as a next step, but if that doesn’t pan out then I will try to adapt to Chinese culture a bit more
On the topic of statelessness… I honestly don’t know. I am sure the PRC does not like ppl who openly speak against the government though, so I guess that is no longer an option… maybe, just maybe even Vietman and Thailand would be better places to live, they might also be authoritarian in naming but at least they are not this ridiculous
Btw, do you mind sharing, when you were in the US, what visa you were on or like did you have permanent residency? Did you leave because of the um… US politics recently? Or was it other reasons?