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
    • zlatiah@lemmy.worldOP
      20·
      2 days ago

      Lemmy.world is not blocked whatsoever. But yeah I bought like half a year of Mullvad VPN before coming here. I think Reddit’s r/chinalife has a megathread on VPNs that are working as of now

      Edit: I think the “Great China Firewall” is a comprehensive IP block that some government employees are adding one-by-one. Obviously stuff like Google/Facebook are blocked, but lots of other Western world sites are either not blocked or overlooked

      • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
        7·
        2 days ago

        Do you get paranoid/scared if you try to go to a website and find out it’s blocked? Does that get automatically reported or something?

        I guess in general, how “watched” do you feel?

        • zlatiah@lemmy.worldOP
          9·
          2 days ago

          I’m still using a VPN (Mullvad nontheless, I think it is as private as it gets) to browse Lemmy even though it is not blocked; I’ve literally set up a selfhosted Matrix instance so I don’t have to video chat with my parents a year or so ago; there are surveillance cameras everywhere and a lot of things scan my facial data. So… I guess the answer is “very”