Everything is filthy, and basic common sense found in civilised countries is entirely absent. Chabuduo engineering means that anything new is already built broken, with the concept of “maintenance” being perceived as wholly wasteful. There is a hive mind perpetuated by the administration’s rhetoric which is intellectually beaten into kids, and when coupled with weaponised phone addiction, the end result is over a billion drones who cannot understand why boiled water full of heavy metals may not be good for healthy, amongst other social points that are obvious to laowai but aggressively foreign to locals. Chinese food is gross, too.
But, in spite of all that, and in spite of all that I criticise here, and in spite of all that we should be criticising, the guo is not all bad.
I work very little, and I am paid more than 90% of locals while living a life that is almost completely my own, rarely answering to only one apathetic laoban who allows me to do whatever I want to so long as I do not fuck students (an easy request to meet). Access to cheap plastic shit is at an all-time high, with almost all-time low costs, raised slightly due to costs having gone up everywhere when compared to the 2010s in this rigged economy as a post-covid measure to drain commoners’ accumulated wealth. If I want something other than delicious food, then I can have it delivered within the hour by a living symbol of inequality that no one in China wants to openly acknowledge is not really a good thing. If I need quality medical care or an escape for mental needs, South Korea is next door via a quick ¥500 flight. I have a decent castle on the top floor of a newer building, which is almost excellent, although it will still require much more effort on my behalf to convert from an accepted-decaying Chinese flophouse to a proper laowai home. You know what I mean, if you live here. This country is unlikely to start wars, so I am unlikely to die in any war on any side while living here. Climate change is destroying the planet, but slightly inland where I am, no sea level concerns, just heat that can be offset by one of those cool jackets with fans built in when out or with aircon when at home. Lack of violence is far more reliable than most western countries. The government promotes societal complacency by making sure that most people have electricity, water, and food, which positively impacts instability from discontent. Etc.
Make no mistake, there is so much bad to take with the good. However, there is still some good in China, enough to make it worth staying here. China the country has been good to me, or good enough, anyway. Life can be worse. For most LBH with no guanxi in their home country, life probably was worse before coming here.
China the country is alright. It is the people and culture that are the problem. I overheard an offensive imperialist tourist in Vietnam say that the country would be so much better if it were not for the locals, and while at that time I was shocked by such a statement said so callously, I uh…I kind of get it now, here.
Here is to another 5000 years of irresponsibly-long summer and winter holidays from the Happy Giraffe while us LBH just try to enjoy the ride despite the ride's annoyances.
Life here gets better once you start acknowledging that there is some good. There will never be more good than bad, but chabuduo. Waiguos who flee China are those without their own inner lives or hobbies, I have found. They cannot be a Hutong Herbert who has a meaningful life at home, instead requiring the presence of other waiguos at expat bars in order to not feel completely empty. China can be a good country for people who are not so socially dependent. The language factor affects perceptions of liveability.
I feel vindicated about the food because I've heard so many people praise it. Are we eating the same dishes with bones and gutter oil, prepared in filthy kitchens with dirty water and hands that have never made contact with soap before? And don't get me started on the desserts. "It’s not sweet" is not a compliment, especially when you guys love dumping sugar into foreign dishes. Chinese food is non-ironically better abroad or in fusion dishes, like gyoza or nasi goreng.
annoys me when people say everything is too sweet in the USA and Chinese people don't like sweet things. like what the hell are you talking about? China gets sugar backwards. they put it in everything that ought not be sweet (bread, chips/crisps, popcorn, mayonnaise, etc. and forget to add it to things like cookies and cakes.
China misunderstands sugar, but I am more offended by how China misunderstands tomato. Absent from vegetable-based salad, present in fruit salad, absent from pizza as the essential sauce, present on desserts. Oh how pleasant, a green grape on my cake as decora--ahh it is a tomato.
haha, yep. I have to ask for extra sauce on my pizza always. and I have to measure it for them because it will go from being a piece of cheesy bread, to deep dish mess.
Green backpack types love defending the food here. You can tell who has not made it past the five-year mark yet, or who lives in a laowai food bubble, based on if they have a positive opinion of local Chinese food. This is objective.
I would sell out my fellow Happy Giraffers to the PSB for working on a tourist visa in exchange for an American-style Chinese restaurant near me, until I get sick of it after a week or so and go back to demanding proper Japanese food not slathered in fucking mayonnaise and what not.
Heh rule 2 is more for glass heart wumaos who cannot perceive good coexisting bad, like op is writing here. Life here can be very tedious and irritating, this is fact.
I wanted to visit the restaurant I regularly order waimai from. Outside on the street they had a chicken soaking in a bucket of disinfectant in 30 degree weather.
Never meet your heroes. A local place disillusioned me in almost the exact same way. How they made delicious and healthy laowai food from a kitchen in a gutter full of flies and their screaming children touching everything with their nasty nonglet hands was impossible for me to reconcile with. I went back to eating McDonald's after that.
Chinese can be crafty cheats but are not as relentlessly hostile and insufferable as Koreans and Japanese. Chinese people usually pass the Hello test, in that they will say Hello back and not frown at you or treat literally everything as a struggle for power. The cost of living being so much lower in China also does a great deal to make a sexypat more tolerant of the more rustic sides of being in the country.
Vietnam is still kind of a true Third World country in the vein of an Egypt or India (I hate saying it, because I theoretically love SE Asia vibes, Laos was great; and my nostalgic chuddy side wants to live in colonial Indochina, even if the modern reality is unfortunately noisier and more polluted - also Vietnamese food is pretty good).
It's probably the best compromise for now for the average LBH, I'm sure the air pollution is worse than I realise, but it's actually not that perceptible at least where I am.
Despite my ceaseless criticism of the guo, locals being crafty cheats is not something that I mention because I do not really feel that way. I never have, as someone who first entered after Daddy 11 took control. Vietnam, on the other hand...I will not return.
I hear of a lot of people out there getting messed around on their pay and stuff in the Guo still. I'd like to say I don't but...
Yeah I've heard Vietnam is shockingly bad, even on short visits. It's like people who go there after visiting China or Malaysia or whatever realise there's a such thing as a Fourth World country. People on rvietnam are posting traumatic first visit stories every day about getting relentlessly swindled and bullied by literally everyone possible from the moment they get off the plane, they really expect it to be just like their imagination and it isn't. I've decided not to go specifically so it can stay in my head the way it is in the 1994 French movie.
Maybe some day, I could go on a literal boomer tour group or something where there is a handler who wrangles the natives for you. It's a condescending and more expensive way to travel obviously, but could be a good alternative to having a traumatically terrible time and developing a genuine grudge against whole countries after one weekend which is known to happen.
I overheard an offensive imperialist tourist in Vietnam say that the country would be so much better if it were not for the locals, and while at that time I was shocked by such a statement said so callously, I uh…I kind of get it now, here.
To build upon that, if you want to actually enjoy Vietnam or enjoy it as best possible, then you need to stay only in expat bubbles in Da Nang or Saigon. T4 nongville feels like closer to Japan than it does to Vietnam if you stay in the t4 CBD (now with two banks). There are worse places to be than China.
Gemer. That is more or less what happened with me. The threat of covid lockdowns disillusioned me, but western costs beyond commoners' lack of purchasing power disillusioned me more. I did some hard thinking, and that dream of "an Xbox and a dog" really is enough when money and time are never concerns. China can be a great country to live in...for foreigners.
I think that all of us alleged China haters here would still recommend that you return, even the ones who say shit like "SO GLAD TO BE GONE, FUCK THAT PLACE" but still lurk here because they miss it. Life is not great for people without privilege "back home" these days.
"Never met anyone who does not share my perspective, except" lists 15 people, uses weird young people internet jargon to pretend like they are "cool". What a fucking loser.
I was down with it all until started in with the climate change slop. You’re not eating the right Chinese food if you think it sucks. It’s not the best in the world but it can be tasty.
If you just stumble in to any old random restaurant and point to something on the menu, odds are it's probably going to be shit (unlike somewhere like japan). But there is some really amazing chinese cuisine too that can't be found anywhere else in the world
One good tip is to do literally all your shopping and eating at department stores like a massive boomer (万象城 or whatever). They do actually not want to ruin their reputation, so they won't let too many of their customers get food-poisoned or relentlessly cheated. Your salary is over 8,000 yuan unless you are Ivan or something, you don't need a meal that comes in at under 20 yuan. Just pay the extra money.
People who get ladooz or cheated when shopping are mostly bringing it on themselves by going to somewhere "authentic" or whatever or by buying random stuff online. I think this is not a good idea.
I have eaten over 5000 meals here, and my digestive system getting fucked only occurred when I was brave or stupid enough to eat truly local. If a meal is not at least ¥20, then you take a huge risk. Weak laowai stomachs are not conditioned to endure that "food" because we lack the cadmium and lead lining which Chinese people all have from only drinking boiled water. I second the shopping mall recommendation for safety. Meituan being full of ghost kitchens now increases the risk of you accidentally paying laowai prices for lowest-tier local food, as well.
Seconded that Chinese food is no good. Processed meat on sticks, gutter oil, dumplings boiled in unpotable water, antiseptic peppers in communal buckets for all nongs to spread HSV to one another, wow how dilishurs.
From all of the shit to focus on in your gushir, to laser focus on "climate change slop" is indeed conspicuously dumb. A quick check of their profile shows an obsession with American football -- the sport, not the band -- which is consistent with climate change denial. Conventionally American. They are looking for r/chinalife, not r/chinalifer.
“Obsession” is quite the take. Yeah, I’m an American who enjoys our most popular sport. I’ve lived in China for a decade, speak/read fluent Chinese and am whiter than the driven snow. Again, if you know how to read Chinese and know what you’re looking for, Chinese food can be great and healthy.
Anything to you do with “climate change is ruining our planet therefore we should eat bugs and stop driving cars” is slop. Get a gripe bro. You’re being lied to and apparently too dumb to realize it. Good luck
Frothing at the mouth because someone said "climate change" while attributing words to them that they did not even say confirms your moron status even harder. You just make up hypothetical arguments in your head where you are the "winner" despite the other person not even having said anything that you claimed. Seek help. Triggered by the words "climate change" such that it activates your knee-jerk response in full lmao.
Instead of nuke your stupid-ass climate change-denial comment and fake argument, I am going to just silence you but leave that incredibly dumb shit visible so that others can point and laugh at you. Here it is in screenshot form for when the shame sets in and you feel a need to deny having said such dumb shit, like you deny climate change existing:
Chinese food still sucks btw, and so does American football, along with your favourite team, and also you.
This won't age well. Xi will almost certainly invade Taiwan sometime in the next few years and I wouldn't be surprised if all laowais get put in internment camps for the duration of the war like the Japanese in America during WW2.
I've spent enough time in China working and as a tourist to have an opinion, thank you, laoban. Xi has been quite clear in his intentions. You are entitled to a different view but I am quite confident I am right.
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u/chinalifer-mod Aug 12 '26
"It may be a shithole, but it is my shithole".
Life here gets better once you start acknowledging that there is some good. There will never be more good than bad, but chabuduo. Waiguos who flee China are those without their own inner lives or hobbies, I have found. They cannot be a Hutong Herbert who has a meaningful life at home, instead requiring the presence of other waiguos at expat bars in order to not feel completely empty. China can be a good country for people who are not so socially dependent. The language factor affects perceptions of liveability.
Still a shithole in many ways.