Hi everyone and hope you’re all well. I’m Chinese and I’ve spent the past 30 years of my life in China. During this time, I’ve witnessed incredible changes that have taken place in the country. Having also traveled to many other countries, I’ve noticed that there can be a disconnect between the international media’s portrayal of China and the actual experiences of people living here.
In this post, I invite all of you to ask anything about China—whether it’s about daily life, culture, societal changes, challenges, or the negitive/positive transformations I’ve seen. I’m just an ordinary citizen, but I’m here to share my observations and experiences in the most honest and unbiased way possible.
Feel free to leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll do my best to provide insights into the real China as I’ve come to know it.
My wife will be staying in central Beijing for 5 days. What apps is she going to want to have in order to get around and communicate with us back home? Normally when we travel, we’d use Google Maps to get around, and Line or Signal to communicate. She’s planning on getting a SIM for her phone to have Internet access. Also, I’ve heard people use Google Maps through a VPN and it helps alongside the Chinese maps. Are VPNs legal for tourists to use for this purpose?
Hi! getting a Chinese SIM card is a wise decision as roaming can be quite expensive. I’m sorry that both Line and Google Map require a VPN. However, you don’t need to worry. If your wide has a VPN, she can use them. CN takes action only against the public sale of VPNs or their use for illegal activities, but there’s no problem with individuals using VPNs to browse Google or other apps. (Otherwise, what would Chinese developers do, haha!)
I was born and raised in Beijing, and even though I work in Shanghai now, I’m still familiar with Beijing. Feel free to leave msg if you or your wife have any questions. (If she’s planning to visit the Forbidden City, make sure to book tickets online in advance. For navigation, she can use Gaode Map in China, it is developed by Alibaba. For finding good food, she can download DaZhongDianping, which is China’s Yelp.)
Thanks for the great advice and info. She has native level English and Japanese and the Japanese really helps sometimes. Like with 薬, 道路, 産業, 食品, 酒店. We don’t know how to say it, but we get the meaning. I’m American, BTW, not Japanese. We downloaded Baidu Maps and were able to use it pretty well despite no English and pretty bad coverage where we live. I just tried Gaode Map and they have zero coverage here at all, so I can’t test it, but it looks pretty intuitive. I found 大众点评, but haven’t registered yet.
I’m told WeChat is the app to use to communicate between China and Japan, but I suppose if she can use the VPN, we can continue to use Line and Signal.
I will make sure she gets the Forbidden City tickets in advance. Thanks.
haha nice, for you got the name Osaka. I’m really sorry, that;s racist for me to think you as JP. Gaode should have English version and it’s good for China, no worries on that.
If she got a native English level, then totally don;t need to worry about the tour in Beijing. For communications, wechat is the most widely used Chinese chat app and we also do all payments or make orders in restaurant with wechat (your wife will tell you how Chinese are doing that when she get back. LOL.). VPN is ok for individual usage, just feel free for that. sometimes the VPN network may not be that good, and definitely you can reach her by texting messages. Forbidden City tickets here: https://intl.dpm.org.cn/ticket_details.html, need to be prebooked, she can use the passport.
can you ask her what types of food she would like to try? and how many ppl for a table? which areas or district she may stay in Beijing? I can list some recommendations with map locations for restaurants (i’ll post that in real chinese food community) that local ppl go to, so she wont experience those fake ones for foreigners only.
Would it be correct to describe China as a country whose extended goal is Communism, but decided that a mixed economy is better suited to the current times, but plans to eventually eliminate the capitalist elements that have been adopted and continue to pursue Communism?
It’s really a good question. (I’m really impressed you asked that, seems you are an expert for Chinese history/politics). I’m just a normal guy, so I may only answer it from my view.
When we were young at school, we were told that as you described in the post. China decided to do mixed economy to develop and adapt to the world, but our goal is still communism. This is an ideal dream for the previous leaders of China, we all admire them, like Deng XiaoPing (Tough he was tough on some certain aspects). We call it the “Reform and Opening-up” (Since 1978).
Nowadays, people are still arguing whether this idea was good and whether China still has its initial dream to become a communism country, for some ppl in China believe the reform has failed because china has turned to be a total capitalism country inside like the western world.
But from my life experience, with the mixed economy idea, china developed so so fast, when ppl thought that we should put economy to the first instead of the political system during 1980(1978 is the exact year) to 2018. not only economy, but also arts/humanism/technologies.
However, things changed in the recent 5 years, with the covid destroyed the economy and Xi changed the Chinese constitution that he can be president forever (this is a huge thing in china for us, for it changed the whole political atmosphere, we all feel sad), and we don’t know why the current government becomes aggressive and has a lot conflicts with other countries. In this situation, China is not as energetic as it used to be. Many ppl think China has reached a crucial crossroads in its destiny now.
Thanks for the thoughtful and open reply. It sounds like it is at a crossroads. The wealth of the elite of capitalism is very tempting and has a strong pull. Even if they are now fully capitalist, the values of Communism still appear to exist in China. I think when AI and automation become capable of taking a large portion of jobs away, China is poised to react to that better than is the US. To keep money moving through the economy when ??% of people have no job, when Americans are shown the solutions, they’ll scream, “No, that’s socialism!” We’ll see.
yup. Still there are a certain amount of ppl still hold the communism dream, this conflict even appears inside the CCP. Many ppl just regard China as an one political party country, but inside the CCP, there are many divergent factions.
AI also is developing fast in China and you’re correct, nowadays, all Chinese state-owned enterprises and central enterprises are facing the same issues as US. but chinese companies decided not to do layoffs, but reducing the salaries of each individual where everyone still has a job as a response to this impact.
Really thanks for mentioning that, I forgot to say that although the economy has turning to capitalism, many state-owned companies still have an organization and operation as socialism. China describes it as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, that every Chinese student must learn.
reducing the salaries of each individual where everyone still has a job as a response to this impact
I wonder how long they will accept that? Productivity, therefore profits have improved, while their standard of living goes down. Being happy that they still have a job at all will only last a limited time. They’re going to have to read up on their Marx.
yes, are you studying sociology or political science? You quickly got the main point. This approach also makes competition stronger, aiming for better pay or promotions to make sure the living standards don’t go down. In China, some voices are starting to say this. They believe that this no lay-off practice also goes against socialism. In this situation, we shouldn’t compete with your fellow workers, as they’re our comrades. The ones causing everyone to fight against each other and exploit everyone are the capitalists. We should come together and resist.
but traveling in china is still good. won’t worry about it, in Beijing a lot ppl can speak English and a certain amount of ppl can speak some Japanese.
I did not expect to find anyone who could speak Japanese. In Korea, for unfortunate reasons, with older people I could speak Japanese with them if their English was bad. I don’t expect to use Japanese outside of Japan, though, like I said, the kanji can be helpful in China.
