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I came back to China after being in the US for 10 years and just want to chat about stuff
(lemmy.world)
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?
In short, I was on F-1 and yeah it was US politics. In long... see below. I guess I don't care about accidentally doxxing myself anymore
This is a casual convo community and I don't want to talk too much politics without a CW so here it is
I was on F-1 the entire time, 2024-2025 on OPT. I submitted my green card application in 2023, but 1) I'm Chinese and Chinese/Indian people have to wait on a waitlist for several years (sometimes decades), and 2) I'm not that talented to apply for the first priority employment-based green card (usually ppl apply for that after a few years of postdoc anyway).
I went to the US in 2015 for school. That was also when Trump became president and US-China relations were... deteriorating, fast; relations didn't improve by much during Biden either. I heard lots of horror stories (many from ppl I personally know, back then I was still high-masking autistic so I actually had acquaintances) about Chinese students going home to visit family and never able to come back... after paying for their tuition and everything. Even those who didn't face issues had to wait 1-2 months for a new entry visa and those visas often only lasted one year. Sooo... because of all of that, the last time I came back to China was in 2016, and from Spring 2017 - Summer 2025 I never left US borders.
Still, I was too illiterate about politics to care, and my parents being both centrist/slightly conservative (the Reagan type) didn't help, so I ended up staying put in the US, even did a PhD here. I was in love with Chicago and wanted to move there, and I ended up taking a job at Northwestern University... I also thought Harris would be president, and I would be somehow set for life
So Trump 2025 fucking ruined my life in every conceivable way possible. On career: Northwestern's uni president was a wimp who tried to bow down to every request the administration made, so no one had funding/money... so it was basically either I quit my position or get fired. Since there was little/no scientific funding it is basically impossible to find a job anywhere else (not even accounting for autism, I had a very rough time securing a position in the first place). On personal life: I am very obviously Asian, and I fear for my life in consideration of US's amazing history of the Chinese Exclusion Act, treatment of Japanese ppl during WW2, xenophobia during height of COVID, ... And that is not mentioning the cost of living increases as ppl in academic research don't make much to begin with. Even on completely unrelated things: I needed an authorization from the Dept of Agriculture for my cats' international health certificate, and even that is delayed because of course it would
So yeah, I don't feel safe in the US anymore, both on the career front and my personal safety. I was already considering going to the EU for a few years while waiting on my green card appli, so why would I stay in the US any longer at this rate... I still find it ironic that despite me being heavily critical of many things in China, there would be a point in my life that China feels like a safer place to be than the US