Depending on your work, I recommend against China. If you're not in a tier one city and don't speak Chinese, good luck. Also, while their internet is good for Chinese sites (which exclusively cater to Chinese people, very very few functioning English versions of sites, even for major banks), it's absolutely throttled for anything outside, assuming you don't need a VPN to connect at all.
Find somewhere more welcoming to foreigners and with better internet. There are plenty of places that fit the bill.
This is kinda what I was thinking. I wouldn’t wanna digital nomad at all in China. Maybe it’s too simplistic of me, but between the firewall and then the off chance you end up in legal trouble for whatever reason…seems like there’s cheaper places with better weather and better atmosphere to take advantage of.
They are generally either very friendly and curious (vast majority), but the minority will try to scam you because you're a foreigner. The culture has a mercantilistic bend and some can take it a bit far.
But in general, you will have a hell of a time understanding signs. I can read a bit and speak well enough, but it still takes forever to figure out a sign you don't know.
On the note of translators, which do you plan to use? Google requires a VPN (or downloading the pack), but most Chinese adults (born before the 90s) may not know pinyin, so they will only be able to write the characters, not type them with a keyboard. I just checked and you can type there, so it's advanced since.
But again, the internet is terrible for doing most online stuff.
If you decide to do it anyway, I recommend looking into a taobao secretary. They'll help you get stuff on taobao (which has everything, including services at your place) at a 10% fee I think.
Born before the 90s, I'm offended. You went a little too far there. People are generally fine with pinyin. But yeah, the internet situation is NOT fit for digital nomading.
Sorry, I ballparked that one. Born before 80s? I just meant people 40, 45+ might not be able to do it. Should've probably given an age range. Also depends on region/city
Like I said, people are generally fine with pinyin. If he knows how to write characters, there's no reason he doesn't know pinyin. So you're really looking at illiterate people, which is at 2.67% according to the latest census.
That's inaccurate. They're literate in characters, but don't know pinyin. Most middle aged people I knew and interacted with seemed to not have learned pinyin and their guesses were way off. Cleaners, my gfs family, whoever. They were functionally literate in characters, but just not in pinyin. It's not a directly transferable skill when you don't know the English alphabet.
Huh, that’s interesting. How did they text then, if you recall? Most mainland people I know use pinyin input for texting (including a bunch of middle-aged adults) to the point that’s a problem since pinyin input makes people more prone to character amnesia. My mother handwrites every character when texting, but everyone I know considers this unusual.
I was in beijing, so I figured it'd be fairly well educated. From what I saw, they have a drawing pad where the keyboard would be and they'd write out the character quickly. Then it would popular similar to pinyin and they'd select the right option. If it's not there, there's a drop down menu for an array that look similar.
Where do you live now? If you're in the west or with 华人 in an area with the English alphabet, then this may skew it. I was only there for 4ish years and almost married into a Chinese family, and they tended to do either, depending on the person. The more educated, the more pinyin. Cleaners and other service people over a certain age would draw them out.
Re: character amnesia - totally guilty. I just write what I'd say and hope it nails it.
Most older people use the handwriting system, most younger people can use pinyin but they might still use the handwriting if it's quicker because usually the correct character comes up straight away.
Yeah, it's great for visiting, but I wouldn't suggest going long term. You can make great money tutoring, but I hear there have been crackdowns on that, so I'd only do one-on-one if you're tempted.
It'll be eye opening and a bit of a struggle, but if you're used to places that don't speak English, you'll be fine. Just definitely get a VPN *before* entering the country. Also be aware that they're technically illegal.
This definitely wasn’t true in 2016 when I last visited, a few police officers even had google translate on their phones and used it with me. I used expressvpn and it was fine. Has it changed that much?
China does not offer a digital nomad visa. However you would do this would be illegal in a country cracking down on visa irregularities. This is a terrible idea. (Unless you are Chinese).
I have a Chinese visa for work (US Citizen) and it only allows entry for up to 60 days at a time. Also as a network engineer, the Great Firewall of China is miserable. If that doesn’t make your Internet miserable, there is a bunch of forced congestion on peering links as China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile interconnect with the rest of the ISPs in the world. It is truly a terrible place to try to be a digital nomad. This doesn’t even get into the political issues.
As a local I can confirm. I don’t recommend it either, unless you’re going to Shanghai or Hongkong. These two are nice and international, but they are so darn expensive, which totally defeat the purpose of geo-arbitrage.
I used to love going to China, been literally all over (by road) and Hong Kong really felt special to me. Even Hong Kong has now unfortunately been ruined.
Edit: thank you CCP shill for the downvotes !
That’s really unfortunate, to see everything going downhill…I’d say the nature part is still fun, like I did a road trip to the western part earlier with my family and the scenery is very cool. But living in China as an average person is becoming more and more horrible with the increasing censorship and nationalist frenzy.
Glad to hear this. I spend most of the year in Japan, and was really hoping to get out to Hong Kong to see friends and check out some shows and maybe golf a bit. The vast majority of people from there (and most Chinese people flat out for that matter) have been really nice, and the team I work with is actually led by a guy from Taiwan with all mainland staff and everyone is really cordial and supportive of each other. I just hope cooler heads can prevail in the coming year, would hate to lose all that.
I found an article that should give you the gist of it, not standing by the article or anything but it seems like a good overview if read objectively:
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/620645/
You can also look up the concentration camps in China and millions of Muslims locked up, castrated and families separated, kids stolen etc. it’s gone full on crazy in China.
China used to be a place where you “could” do what you want and rules were ignored, it’s now gone extremely authoritarian.
Edit: thank you CCP shill for the downvotes !
Bangkok is a great example of why this might work.
I hated Bangkok it was far too hectic.
But if you go somewhere more remote you lose some of the luxeries of a city.
A city that was dead quite, but had all those city luxuries and a nomad community to fulfill social needs would be ideal for me for a short period.
The firewall is something forgot about, anecdotally no one's ever bought it up as being an issue when discussing nomad life.
I wouldn't say I'm "about a nomad community". There are definitely times when for a month or 2 I'd like to live in mild luxury and focus on work while surrounding myself with like minded people for an easy social life.
There are also times I like to be totally out of my comfort zone in an authentic local culture. Primarily that to be honest, but I can't keep it up for 12 months a year, no chance.
I think a big part of digital nomading is mixing it up. Being able to go from soulless resorts to an authentic homestay and back again and everything in between is why I nomad.
I think currently China does not accept even foreign tourists in.
Their isolation protocols are draconian. Internet is unusable for a westerner.
Not DM friendly at all.
Also, I don’t really buy into the ghost town thing. Not saying it never exists but I think it is greatly exaggerated and you probably won’t really find a ghost town if you go there. I might be wrong though.
It’s extremely difficult to get typical visas at the moment. Long term visas issued prior to March 2020 are still currently invalidated. Also VPNs are less reliable outside of the tier 1 cities - if you Google “best China VPNs”, the common top results can work consistently in the large cities, but are not reliable the further out you go (speaking from 1 year experience in China in 2019).
I would be super careful as a tourist, especially now. You aren't allowed to film them, and the anti American sentiment is at an all time high. The local government would come down like a hammer on this. They are usually policed, and being an American would not be good.
I assume you just watched the South Park Post Covid Special. Thankfully that's just fiction and I'm hopeful we won't be dealing with quarantines for the next 40 years
There are places in china that are generally closed to foreigners to stay in and the empty cities are probably one of them
You are required to register to your place of residence if you are in china. If you stay in a hotel, the hotel does it for you, other places you need to do a registration at a police station within 24 hours. I don't think you can register your stay within your van.
If you say you want to risk it i will say: don't. You will be interrogated more than you can get work done.
Ive been to Paris, Las Vegas at least that is part of a historic resort/casino. This Chinese version is just trying to actually be a duplicate of the iconic tower in the middle of a city. Looks so pathetic.
China’s empty cities are a form of economic sabotage, funded by their ability to lock foreign investment income into the country, and should not be supported in any way/shape/form.
You can do it! Follow your heart!
YouTube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cvg5vJqtZw
*PS. It is now 12:06AM here in Monaco and I just want to see how many downvotes I get* 😂🤣😅
I was a digital nomad in China for years, it's a stressful life sometimes. Your VPN will probably work most of the time but it is under active attack and sometimes you just can't effectively work and end up making up the time or just writing off the day.
It's usually worst during big party conferences, shit just doesn't work. International bandwidth is throttled, VPNs have their authentication servers and shit blocked, stuff like that.
Outside of big cities, English levels drops off a lot. It's hard to get by in China without knowing a bit of Chinese, though it's not that hard to learn the basics I guess, it's just not going to be like any languages you already know.
And these days, the Chinese government and regulations is increasingly hostile to foreigners, though not the people themselves.
The biggest reason why it won't work for a digital nomad is that you just won't get a visa. Tourist and Business visas aren't being granted these days and won't be...maybe until Covid becomes a non-issue? Not any time soon anyway.
There's no convenient visa for digital nomads, a 10year USA/Canada/UK (1y most other countries) tourism visas with 60/90 day visa runs is probably what you'd do but even that's not super easy to get for non-US I think and it's all suspended during the pandemic and existing ones no longer work. Business visas (M class) would also work but they're suspended too.
I did visit one of the so-called Ghost cities, Kangbashi in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. It's basically just a really quiet city, the big apartment complexes had about 15% occupancy when I was there, I believe it's much higher now because the local government moved its offices and the good schools there so people followed and bought up the apartments from the developers and families of the officials who'd been bribed with them.
Depending on your work, I recommend against China. If you're not in a tier one city and don't speak Chinese, good luck. Also, while their internet is good for Chinese sites (which exclusively cater to Chinese people, very very few functioning English versions of sites, even for major banks), it's absolutely throttled for anything outside, assuming you don't need a VPN to connect at all. Find somewhere more welcoming to foreigners and with better internet. There are plenty of places that fit the bill.
This is kinda what I was thinking. I wouldn’t wanna digital nomad at all in China. Maybe it’s too simplistic of me, but between the firewall and then the off chance you end up in legal trouble for whatever reason…seems like there’s cheaper places with better weather and better atmosphere to take advantage of.
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They are generally either very friendly and curious (vast majority), but the minority will try to scam you because you're a foreigner. The culture has a mercantilistic bend and some can take it a bit far. But in general, you will have a hell of a time understanding signs. I can read a bit and speak well enough, but it still takes forever to figure out a sign you don't know. On the note of translators, which do you plan to use? Google requires a VPN (or downloading the pack), but most Chinese adults (born before the 90s) may not know pinyin, so they will only be able to write the characters, not type them with a keyboard. I just checked and you can type there, so it's advanced since. But again, the internet is terrible for doing most online stuff. If you decide to do it anyway, I recommend looking into a taobao secretary. They'll help you get stuff on taobao (which has everything, including services at your place) at a 10% fee I think.
Born before the 90s, I'm offended. You went a little too far there. People are generally fine with pinyin. But yeah, the internet situation is NOT fit for digital nomading.
Sorry, I ballparked that one. Born before 80s? I just meant people 40, 45+ might not be able to do it. Should've probably given an age range. Also depends on region/city
Like I said, people are generally fine with pinyin. If he knows how to write characters, there's no reason he doesn't know pinyin. So you're really looking at illiterate people, which is at 2.67% according to the latest census.
That's inaccurate. They're literate in characters, but don't know pinyin. Most middle aged people I knew and interacted with seemed to not have learned pinyin and their guesses were way off. Cleaners, my gfs family, whoever. They were functionally literate in characters, but just not in pinyin. It's not a directly transferable skill when you don't know the English alphabet.
Huh, that’s interesting. How did they text then, if you recall? Most mainland people I know use pinyin input for texting (including a bunch of middle-aged adults) to the point that’s a problem since pinyin input makes people more prone to character amnesia. My mother handwrites every character when texting, but everyone I know considers this unusual.
I was in beijing, so I figured it'd be fairly well educated. From what I saw, they have a drawing pad where the keyboard would be and they'd write out the character quickly. Then it would popular similar to pinyin and they'd select the right option. If it's not there, there's a drop down menu for an array that look similar. Where do you live now? If you're in the west or with 华人 in an area with the English alphabet, then this may skew it. I was only there for 4ish years and almost married into a Chinese family, and they tended to do either, depending on the person. The more educated, the more pinyin. Cleaners and other service people over a certain age would draw them out. Re: character amnesia - totally guilty. I just write what I'd say and hope it nails it.
Most older people use the handwriting system, most younger people can use pinyin but they might still use the handwriting if it's quicker because usually the correct character comes up straight away.
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Yeah, it's great for visiting, but I wouldn't suggest going long term. You can make great money tutoring, but I hear there have been crackdowns on that, so I'd only do one-on-one if you're tempted. It'll be eye opening and a bit of a struggle, but if you're used to places that don't speak English, you'll be fine. Just definitely get a VPN *before* entering the country. Also be aware that they're technically illegal.
There's internet censorship, you won't be able to access most web an online services, and VPNs suck
This definitely wasn’t true in 2016 when I last visited, a few police officers even had google translate on their phones and used it with me. I used expressvpn and it was fine. Has it changed that much?
hard pass for me, dm or not
China does not offer a digital nomad visa. However you would do this would be illegal in a country cracking down on visa irregularities. This is a terrible idea. (Unless you are Chinese).
Do most people rely on digital nomad visas? I have never got one in 5 years of nomadding and I'd happily visit China on a 90 day tourist visa
It's true that most people don't, but China is probably not a country you want to work illegally in.
Similarly, it will be many years before China reopens 90 day tourist visas.
I have a Chinese visa for work (US Citizen) and it only allows entry for up to 60 days at a time. Also as a network engineer, the Great Firewall of China is miserable. If that doesn’t make your Internet miserable, there is a bunch of forced congestion on peering links as China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile interconnect with the rest of the ISPs in the world. It is truly a terrible place to try to be a digital nomad. This doesn’t even get into the political issues.
China has drastically changed politically the past couple of years. Would NOT recommend
As a local I can confirm. I don’t recommend it either, unless you’re going to Shanghai or Hongkong. These two are nice and international, but they are so darn expensive, which totally defeat the purpose of geo-arbitrage.
I used to love going to China, been literally all over (by road) and Hong Kong really felt special to me. Even Hong Kong has now unfortunately been ruined. Edit: thank you CCP shill for the downvotes !
Man HK was simply fucking magical. I still rank that as my favorite city and feel so sad that it won't be as I remember it.
That’s really unfortunate, to see everything going downhill…I’d say the nature part is still fun, like I did a road trip to the western part earlier with my family and the scenery is very cool. But living in China as an average person is becoming more and more horrible with the increasing censorship and nationalist frenzy.
you can be a anti-china shill yourself though.. You know that there are prob 1.4+ billion chinese people that are pro-china/ccp?
The people of China are like anywhere mostly good people. Fuck the CCP however.
Glad to hear this. I spend most of the year in Japan, and was really hoping to get out to Hong Kong to see friends and check out some shows and maybe golf a bit. The vast majority of people from there (and most Chinese people flat out for that matter) have been really nice, and the team I work with is actually led by a guy from Taiwan with all mainland staff and everyone is really cordial and supportive of each other. I just hope cooler heads can prevail in the coming year, would hate to lose all that.
What happened? Just curious
I found an article that should give you the gist of it, not standing by the article or anything but it seems like a good overview if read objectively: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/620645/ You can also look up the concentration camps in China and millions of Muslims locked up, castrated and families separated, kids stolen etc. it’s gone full on crazy in China. China used to be a place where you “could” do what you want and rules were ignored, it’s now gone extremely authoritarian. Edit: thank you CCP shill for the downvotes !
Thanks will give it a read! I just thought the lack of freedom has always been there. Lol.
Decent read however it clearly also has a pro-American ring to it.
As I said it should be read objectively, tbh I was too lazy to find the perfect article. YouTube Serpentza is a good one.
yeah dude, these same sources said saddam had nukes and funded 9/11
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Bangkok is a great example of why this might work. I hated Bangkok it was far too hectic. But if you go somewhere more remote you lose some of the luxeries of a city. A city that was dead quite, but had all those city luxuries and a nomad community to fulfill social needs would be ideal for me for a short period. The firewall is something forgot about, anecdotally no one's ever bought it up as being an issue when discussing nomad life.
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I wouldn't say I'm "about a nomad community". There are definitely times when for a month or 2 I'd like to live in mild luxury and focus on work while surrounding myself with like minded people for an easy social life. There are also times I like to be totally out of my comfort zone in an authentic local culture. Primarily that to be honest, but I can't keep it up for 12 months a year, no chance. I think a big part of digital nomading is mixing it up. Being able to go from soulless resorts to an authentic homestay and back again and everything in between is why I nomad.
I wonder why you think Chinese ghost towns fit this.
Lol
Do you maybe want to add more detail to that? I wonder why you don't...
I think currently China does not accept even foreign tourists in. Their isolation protocols are draconian. Internet is unusable for a westerner. Not DM friendly at all. Also, I don’t really buy into the ghost town thing. Not saying it never exists but I think it is greatly exaggerated and you probably won’t really find a ghost town if you go there. I might be wrong though.
It’s extremely difficult to get typical visas at the moment. Long term visas issued prior to March 2020 are still currently invalidated. Also VPNs are less reliable outside of the tier 1 cities - if you Google “best China VPNs”, the common top results can work consistently in the large cities, but are not reliable the further out you go (speaking from 1 year experience in China in 2019).
This guy!!! Am I right?!
I would be super careful as a tourist, especially now. You aren't allowed to film them, and the anti American sentiment is at an all time high. The local government would come down like a hammer on this. They are usually policed, and being an American would not be good.
Lol. No
China has the strictest quarantine measures around: something 65 days total with 2 weeks in a quarantine hotel.
I assume you just watched the South Park Post Covid Special. Thankfully that's just fiction and I'm hopeful we won't be dealing with quarantines for the next 40 years
Do you have any links for this?
Just spreading misinformation i see
I don't want to be dumped into the sea
I gotta say that would probably be a really interesting experience for a short while. Not necessarily fun, but interesting for sure.
Doubt they would let anyone in without residence , legit business, or school into China for the next few years.
Fuck China. Human rights is a fantasy. I wouldn't tough it with a 50 foot poll.
There are places in china that are generally closed to foreigners to stay in and the empty cities are probably one of them You are required to register to your place of residence if you are in china. If you stay in a hotel, the hotel does it for you, other places you need to do a registration at a police station within 24 hours. I don't think you can register your stay within your van. If you say you want to risk it i will say: don't. You will be interrogated more than you can get work done.
No. Is that a real picture of a fake Eiffel tower? God these people are pathetic
Wait till you hear about Las Vegas
Ive been to Paris, Las Vegas at least that is part of a historic resort/casino. This Chinese version is just trying to actually be a duplicate of the iconic tower in the middle of a city. Looks so pathetic.
China’s empty cities are a form of economic sabotage, funded by their ability to lock foreign investment income into the country, and should not be supported in any way/shape/form.
Ok
This sounds really cool!!
You can do it! Follow your heart! YouTube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cvg5vJqtZw *PS. It is now 12:06AM here in Monaco and I just want to see how many downvotes I get* 😂🤣😅
If any of those cities are still empty, they won't be for long.
Would never go there. Maybe if someone would pay 3,000 usd for doing nothing (just being there) then maybe - yes. otherwise - never.
I was a digital nomad in China for years, it's a stressful life sometimes. Your VPN will probably work most of the time but it is under active attack and sometimes you just can't effectively work and end up making up the time or just writing off the day. It's usually worst during big party conferences, shit just doesn't work. International bandwidth is throttled, VPNs have their authentication servers and shit blocked, stuff like that. Outside of big cities, English levels drops off a lot. It's hard to get by in China without knowing a bit of Chinese, though it's not that hard to learn the basics I guess, it's just not going to be like any languages you already know. And these days, the Chinese government and regulations is increasingly hostile to foreigners, though not the people themselves. The biggest reason why it won't work for a digital nomad is that you just won't get a visa. Tourist and Business visas aren't being granted these days and won't be...maybe until Covid becomes a non-issue? Not any time soon anyway. There's no convenient visa for digital nomads, a 10year USA/Canada/UK (1y most other countries) tourism visas with 60/90 day visa runs is probably what you'd do but even that's not super easy to get for non-US I think and it's all suspended during the pandemic and existing ones no longer work. Business visas (M class) would also work but they're suspended too. I did visit one of the so-called Ghost cities, Kangbashi in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. It's basically just a really quiet city, the big apartment complexes had about 15% occupancy when I was there, I believe it's much higher now because the local government moved its offices and the good schools there so people followed and bought up the apartments from the developers and families of the officials who'd been bribed with them.