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It's so interesting to read this perspective since it drives home "the grass is always greener.." for me. I've lived a pretty charmed life in the US for the pa

It's so interesting to read this perspective since it drives home "the grass is always greener.." for me. I've lived a pretty charmed life in the US for the past few years (like the majority of HN, I imagine) but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty great for me. I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. But reading this makes me think this is part of "the human condition" - the more time we spend in a bubble in a place, the more we either become blind to it's shortcomings or become overly rosy about a foreign place that would solve all our problems. As a sidenote, the author says he does not like his kids playing "war" in Chinese playgrounds - I wonder how he will feel about the active shooter drills that are now part of every kids life in the US. Note: I'm not Chinese.

FpUser 4y ago
>"I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return." Fuck that. Our freedoms are already getting screwed by various acts of governments. Personal freedom is the most valuable thing for me.
nonethewiser 4y ago
You should move to China and buy one of those affordable houses in the city center.
askonomm 4y ago
This hits home for me a lot. I've lived in Spain, Argentina and Finland, all in hoping to fill whatever gap I thought it would, whether that would be life quality, weather, culture or whatever. But after the honeymoon period, the cracks started to show at every place. I'm now back in my home country, Estonia, which I (now) think is the best for me - but that creeping feeling of something better being somewhere out there is hard to shake, and still with me, even as I try to not think about that.
- precompute 3y ago
  That's very interesting, what made you leave those countries? Argentina likely has money issues, but the other two come very "highly recommended" (high quality of life, law & order, etc), especially Finland.
  - askonomm 3y ago
    Argentina has big economical issues indeed, and the resulting inconveniences were what drove me away eventually, and yet out of everywhere I've been, Argentina has had by far the friendliest people I've ever met, and the easiest people to make friends with. Spain (the government and regulations around renting places) was unfriendly to newcomers as its a very socialist country and not very welcoming to digital nomads. Everything there is built in a way to expect a local bank account, local job, etc. From the moment of trying to get a local ID card it was clear that you were not really wanted there. Processes made purposely difficult and requirements differ from police station to police station. Beautiful country, but given that I do not intend to stop working remotely as a contractor it made basic things there very difficult. Spain is quite corrupt however so if you have money you _can_ get around these issues via some lawyer agencies who get you through the door in a matter of days of what otherwise can be a half-year wait in queue, but I just found the system fighting me too much. Finland is great though, everything runs efficiently, most of everything can be done online, just like in Estonia, but much like Estonia, very difficult to make friends and the culture in general is quite closed and people keep to themselves a lot. Most people I know here have had the same friends since highschool. So when it came down to Finland or Estonia, I just chose the one I already had friends at.
- chasil 4y ago
  There is no place, and no time, where people are better than what you see before you right now. Sometimes, the political system is better. People? There is nothing new under the sun.
  - atleastoptimal 3y ago
    Different conditions make otherwise equivalent people act different and pursue different goals.
kurthr 4y ago
I'd encourage you to study Mandarin for a year or so and look into what the non-influencer set is saying about China. My first trip to China was in 1999 and my last in 2019. That was a time of amazing freedom and growth. Beijing went from bicycles to cars to subways and everything was growing. It's not like that now, youth unemployment is very high, foreigners are not welcome, and you really can't imagine the political and economic situation you're walking into. One simply does not publicly discuss problems there without considering the consequences. Columbine was 1999. I think he'll be more surprised by the level of political division and general impoliteness there is in the US.
- tiny_ta 4y ago
  Thank you for your balanced view! I will definitely learn the language and visit the place a few times before I consider moving anywhere :)
- scrubs 3y ago
  I'd encourage everyone to read: https://globalbrief.ca/2020/06/zeal-and-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy/ https://globalbrief.ca/2020/06/zeal-and-chinas-wolf-warrior-... This goes way further than most to explain "Chinese characteristics" (my term usage not link's). China is very complex and belies any simple summary. I definitely think it's a vastly smarter state than Russia... who by comparison it must now regard as a baby sitting project.
  - Baeocystin 3y ago
    That was a good read. Thanks for posting it.
Waterluvian 4y ago
> pay that price for a great society in return You’re not just paying in your own freedoms. You’re paying in the freedoms of others, like the Muslims that the Chinese government have decided aren’t compatible with the “great society” that you seek.
- thefounder 4y ago
  There are worse places for muslims than China as far as human rights are concerned. I feel the whole muslim issue in China is just a pretext. Have we forgot about Saudi Arabia or whatever mess is left in Afghanistan?
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    I'm trying to understand the point you're making. Are you making the argument that because there are things that are possibly worse, we should ignore the bad?
    - thefounder 3y ago
      I'm just saying that it's a pretext. Like China would start saying the world should stop trading with the U.S until the U.S fixes the mess it did in Iraq(i.e war reparations).
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Last week my six year old tried to justify his bad behaviour because his little brother did something worse. I didn’t buy it, and I don’t here either.
    - thefounder 3y ago
      Well, if you would keep signaling your six year old and ignore the "deeds" of his little brother I would say you are biased and have something against your six years old. Also what made you punish the bad behaviour all of a sudden? It's not like China was a beacon of human rights until "now". I don't think SA is really a little brother either. They still behead people in public squares. The whole "human rights" issue in China is really just a pretext and use of U.S soft power to isolate China. But "everyone" know that at stake is really the economic and millitary rivality. The U.S couldn't really care less about the muslims in China. Just look how much it cares about women in Afghanistan. Let's stop pretending we are little children. China is starting to influence our way of life and we should push against that but I just hate the B.S pretexts. It feels like propaganda and we hate propaganda, don't we?
The_Colonel 4y ago
> I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. Does China provide that? Honest question, I don't know much about it. I visited Beijing once, and it ranks on the bottom of the cities I'd like to live in. Of course, it's just my personal impression and Beijing is obviously not representative of the whole China.
freitzkriesler2 4y ago
I've lived in China and I can tell you, you will NOT like China especially for the reasons you've stated. China has a ton of problems that aren't readily apparent unless you are feet on the ground. The majority of the culture of china is, "dog eat dog" in that you will be scammed and taken advantage of unless you speak fluent Mandarin. You will run into problems with excessive Chinese bureaucracy both with the government and services you need. The only way to break through is with a bribe. Things we take for granted like food and product safety are secondary. In the first month, I got incredibly sick for a food born parasite (this was from a good grocery store too nonetheless). Don't ever eat from street vendors (google gutter oil). You also run the risk of getting physically attacked when relations with America are rough. I heard stories of a guy that got jumped by a group of chinese men after Trump was elected. He didn't even vote for him and the police did not care. China is the type of place you visit, make a bunch of money, and get out. In all honesty, you'd be happier living in a 2nd or 3rd tier Benelux or Dach town.
- auggierose 4y ago
  What is a Dach town?
  - kosmos1337 4y ago
    DACH stands for Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
  - dEnigma 4y ago
    A town in Germany (D for "Deutschland"), Austria (A) or Switzerland (CH). Seems that term isn't common in English. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-A-CH https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-A-CH https://www.statista.com/topics/4623/dach-countries/#dossierContents__outerWrapper https://www.statista.com/topics/4623/dach-countries/#dossier...
- tiny_ta 4y ago
  Thank you for sharing your experience - I appreciate that a lot of my views around China (and even DACH where I've also considered moving to) may be too rosy. I will definitely visit any place a few times before I move there!
908B64B197 4y ago
> but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty great for me. I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. Hope you are white. If so, I'm certain you'll have a great experience. You'll be shown the modernity and good side of living under the regime, and probably made to believe they are the rightful holders of the "Mandate of Heaven". Make sure to stay in Han dominated areas, and don't document of film anything that could make the regime lose face. > Note: I'm not Chinese. Why are you explicitly spelling it out? So we don't immediately assume this is propaganda? Don't worry. If they like you enough, you'll even get paid for comments like these!
majormajor 4y ago
In 2014 I worked with a company in Beijing for a few weeks. The local engineers all had pretty long and packed subway commutes from various outer developments, so my first guess would be that "affordable housing in the city center" is long gone for most major cities. The surface-level infrastructure was interesting, it felt like Los Angeles - much more than it did Manhattan or SF aboveground - just blown up 3-to-5x. Wider streets with more lanes of cars, big mega apartment complexes just all four times taller than the common 5-story ones, etc.
- livueta 4y ago
  +1, at least anecdotally, at least in T1 cities: I spent a few months in Shanghai for work in 2018 and all of my local colleagues had messed up housing situations of one flavor or another. One guy lived alone in a shoebox but when he had a free weekend, he'd take the train ~2h out to a smaller city where his family lived in a decent house. There were also a lot of complaints about apartment quality even/especially in new construction. The drive from central-ish Shanghai (Wujiaochang) to PVG was mindblowing because of the scale and frequency of the apartment megablocks ringing the city: identical enormous tower after identical enormous tower, lining the wide (but at the time oddly empty) thoroughfares. Felt like an alt opening scene to a Judge Dredd movie.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    With the folks I was working with it wasn't "messed up" in any way, it just was hardly any more relatively affordable give local wages than most big cities in the US. Some fun/awkward differences though. For instance, I had imagined it would be easy to find a laundromat - I didn't want to pay the hotel prices for cleaning. Ended up almost accidentally offending the people I was asking - "why would we need to go somewhere to do our laundry, we have laundry machines, we aren't poor" - while since a lot of US cities are older in the dense parts of town, laundry machines in-unit were less common even for sometimes pretty pricey places. One of my big takeaways is that development is a lot easier and cheaper than redevelopment. Building a ton of new housing? Put in today's amenities! It might be crappy quality even in "luxury" new construction (whether here or there) but it's gonna be a lot easier than retrofitting into a bunch of units from 50 years ago. Want a QR-code/app-based payment system to take off? It's gonna be easier if you're one of the first widespread options to replace cash (like in China at the time) vs if you're competing with ubiquitous credit/debit cards in the US. Really illustrative of how things are path-dependent - and why I'm bearish on "super apps" replacing what we already have here.
lr4444lr 4y ago
I dunno, man. Net migration numbers don't lie.
jzb 4y ago
Serious question, if you have to sacrifice personal freedom, what does the great society look like you are willing to sacrifice it for? What freedoms are you willing to give up for what societal benefit? I’m genuinely curious because every person defines personal freedom differently. And great society is very subjective.
- thefounder 4y ago
  Some are selling their freedom quite cheap. It's really nothing new/hard to imagine.
- tiny_ta 3y ago
  I appreciate your question because I have spent a lot of time in the past thinking about this :) > I’m genuinely curious because every person defines personal freedom differently. And great society is very subjective. I couldn't agree more! I believe that all of us have to give up some personal freedom if we want to live in a functional society. I may want to blast music from my rooftop at 3AM but I must curb that urge out of respect for the society I live in. How much of this personal freedom we are willing to give up is different for different people. On this spectrum, I think I lie towards giving up more if it gives me a comfortable society in return. I am willing to mask up if it means that fewer people in my vicinity may "possibly" get sick less. I am okay with video cameras and facial recognition in public places if it means less crime in my neighborhood. I am willing to pay more taxes if it means public infrastructure can be improved and schools can get better teachers. I might be wrong though, because these things can clearly be taken to an extreme.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Are you really giving up personal freedom if you’re consciously deciding not to do something out of consideration for others? Usually it becomes a problem because you are infringing on someone else’s personal freedom. So it’s still about maximizing personal freedom in that case.
    - tiny_ta 3y ago
another_story 3y ago
Ahh yes, China, with its brutal Darwinian rush hour on the metro. The experience of needing to shove aside a 70 year old women with her grocery trolley who doesn't understand you need to wait until people get off before you get on. That affordable downtown housing which is on par with costs in Manhattan, where you'll hear someone renovating until 9pm every night and smell the sewage gas wafting from bathroom drains because what's a u-trap and inadequate underlying infrastructure. Agreement between citizens that if they can cheat the laowai, or any mark really, or cut someone's line then they will. Try living there for a bit. It's nice enough if you don't mind seeing the sun a few weeks a year through the smog. China is actually fun to live in, but it's not a good place to live if you value your health, physical or mental. At least not the cities.
- winrid 3y ago
  The bathroom drain thing is so true. I documented that in a bunch of cities all the way from Xinjiang to Beijing. I don't get why they don't install u-traps. There were a couple of my hotels that had them, but most did not. This includes someone's home I stayed in. When I asked a local about it they got very angry, like I was insulting them. The need to save face in China is real. But I get it, "who is this American who thinks they can tell us how to do things?" I didn't find the smog to be bad everywhere, though. Beijing was pretty bad in the morning/early afternoon. But from what I remember Chengdu was nice smog/weather wise.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  They sell fake pregnancy pillows in China to put in your belly to get people to give you a seat on the metro. Of course that doesn't really work as soon as people knew about it.
duxup 3y ago
There's a wonderful skit from Portlandia about a couple who visit Spain and come back and everything is now a reflection of what they saw there. They can't help but talk about it... constantly. I think it's hard to really "know" a place, and frankly your experience anywhere will vary. Granted sometimes people just need a change.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  > a reflection of what they saw there Travellers become unhappy both at home and abroad ...
nazka 3y ago
I don’t understand. Why not Europe? There are so many great countries/cities in Europe for exactly what you are looking for! And much more. You will avoid all the negative points from China that someone listed on another comment. While improving your life beyond work. 1-3 hours to so many wide destinations from Paris to London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Jerusalem… All while beyond guns you will have same to more freedom. Less crime. On the health side unless you need the best surgeon in the field, you will find overall better healthcare across all level. Education is great to on part with the best (for kids with countries like Norway or Sweden it’s definitely the best. Others are catching up). And I can go on and on with cost of living compare to major US cities, the variety of cultures, landscapes, way of life etc… all packed in a US size continent. I think if Americans are easy to the idea to leave the US and sacrifice some things, they will find a wide range of interesting opportunities.
- tiny_ta 3y ago
  Europe is definitely on my list! Some things like economic conditions in the likes of UK and Germany give me pause, but I would love to live in all these different places and experience life there. Such a short life and so many places to be (and such tedious immigration forms)!
dirtyid 3y ago
>dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens ... >China fits the bill All those things may exist but sheer concentration of population = QoL / "dynamism" still gets very uncomfortable and cut throat. PRC pace = good cities with livable QoL mix rapidly develop until they're not. Hence you get expat commends like Chongqing reminds me of Shanghai in 2000s. On the otherhand, plenty of big cities at varying degrees of development to bounce around, but that's a very different life style.
slowmotiony 3y ago
"As a sidenote, the author says he does not like his kids playing "war" in Chinese playgrounds - I wonder how he will feel about the active shooter drills that are now part of every kids life in the US. Note: I'm not Chinese." Well obviously, since if you were Chinese you'd know that kids in China are doing drills to protect themselves against psychos with knives who attack schools. Like actual grownups with machetes randomly killing children. Those attacks are happening all the time by the way.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hayst4ck 3y ago
Taiwan is everything that is good about Chinese culture, with very little of what is bad. The drawback of Taiwan is that there isn't nearly the level of "white monkey" opportunities and you aren't as exotic. China is also more extreme. You will have more extreme positive experiences and more extreme negative experiences.
henry2023 3y ago
You should try Munich or Berlin instead
xyzelement 3y ago
Looks like you got a lot of replies so good comment from that point of view. Provocative. There's a simple way to navigate what you are talking about - look at actual immigrants. People vote with their feet and there's still a ton of Chinese and everyone else trying to come to the US, hardly a trickle going the other way. Living in the US is amazing. Most of the problems that you are aware of aren't actually impacting you or anyone you know (like, school shootings are clearly top of mind for you but have you met anyone who met anyone affected by one? Probably not.)
coupdejarnac 3y ago
You might consider Vietnam. There's going to be a lot of growth and opportunities there for a while.
- JCharante 3y ago
  While there’s going to be a lot of growth a lot of the same things can be said about Vietnam. Foreigners will never win an argument against locals, some locals will die on a hill defending the 150-200 AQI for 5 months out of the year. I don’t mean this as advice to avoid Vietnam, but just that 1/2 the bad things said about China apply to most Asian countries.
  - coupdejarnac 3y ago
    I think Vietnam probably captures the atmosphere of China 20 years ago. Plus, Vietnamese people tend to be much friendlier and have better English literacy. I lived in Beijing and Shanghai during the good pre-Xi times, and I'm dying to go live in VN for a while.
  - catothedev 3y ago
    In many major Chinese cities you literally cannot see the sun bc of air pollution. No major city in VN is this bad. Will it get worse? Maybe but I wouldn't necessarily expect it. VN people actually do get quite concerned about the quality of their food and, if air pollution started to become a visible problem, in places like HCMC, I doubt people (govt officials included) would be OK with that. The drive for money is hard but not quite as no-holds-barred as PRC.
def_true_false 3y ago
Agreement among citizens is easy: just pick a country that doesn't use FPTP as the main voting system.
physicles 3y ago
Here's my opinion on how China scores against your criteria: - Dense cities: Yes. I grew up in the suburbs and love the density here and how walkable everything is. - Affordable housing: A good place in a popular location in Beijing or Shanghai is about $2k USD a month. You can get that down to $1k if you have roommates. - Great public infrastructure: public transit, yes, but I rarely need to take that anymore. Public parks aren't great. You can't drink the tap water. - Modicum of agreement: political discussion is so thoroughly suppressed that we all engage in self-censorship. I guess that could be called "agreement", but when I think of agreement I think of a place like New Zealand. Here are the great things you're maybe not seeing: - There's a bit of friction in everything in daily life, and that somehow makes life more enjoyable for some kinds of people (including myself). I think a big reason for that is that most people here don't speak English. - It's incredibly easy to make friends. - Most people you meet are interesting: either they're an expat and they moved here because they didn't want to coast through life, or they're a local and they're curious about people from other cultures. - Some jobs pay incredibly well. For example if you're a teacher (not a "teacher"), China is a big step up. Here are the not-so-good things you're maybe not thinking about: - Air pollution is still a thing. In some cities, half the days you'd like to go outside for a run, you shouldn't because the air is too bad. - Things like national parks are more crowded, less natural, and less tastefully done here than in any other developed country. - As a foreigner you can only stay at maybe half the hotels and guest houses around the country. The others will simply not allow you to stay. - As an American you'll deal with special attention from the government. - Going to a hospital where nobody speaks your native language is one of the most stressful experiences you will have.
roca 3y ago
It's not a great society for Uyghurs, or Christians, or Falun Gong, or anyone who want to speak their mind. It's not just accepting limitations on your personal freedom, it's being comfortable with the oppression of everyone around you.
catothedev 3y ago
If you want dense/affordable/good-public-transportation and you like east asia, I'd recommend Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Kaosiung. You can live in those places with far less political, language, thought-police concerns than mainland China.

FpUser 4y ago

>"I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return." Fuck that. Our freedoms are already getting screwed by various acts of governments. Personal freedom is the most valuable thing for me.

nonethewiser 4y ago

You should move to China and buy one of those affordable houses in the city center.

askonomm 4y ago

This hits home for me a lot. I've lived in Spain, Argentina and Finland, all in hoping to fill whatever gap I thought it would, whether that would be life quality, weather, culture or whatever. But after the honeymoon period, the cracks started to show at every place. I'm now back in my home country, Estonia, which I (now) think is the best for me - but that creeping feeling of something better being somewhere out there is hard to shake, and still with me, even as I try to not think about that.

precompute 3y ago
That's very interesting, what made you leave those countries? Argentina likely has money issues, but the other two come very "highly recommended" (high quality of life, law & order, etc), especially Finland.
- askonomm 3y ago
  Argentina has big economical issues indeed, and the resulting inconveniences were what drove me away eventually, and yet out of everywhere I've been, Argentina has had by far the friendliest people I've ever met, and the easiest people to make friends with. Spain (the government and regulations around renting places) was unfriendly to newcomers as its a very socialist country and not very welcoming to digital nomads. Everything there is built in a way to expect a local bank account, local job, etc. From the moment of trying to get a local ID card it was clear that you were not really wanted there. Processes made purposely difficult and requirements differ from police station to police station. Beautiful country, but given that I do not intend to stop working remotely as a contractor it made basic things there very difficult. Spain is quite corrupt however so if you have money you _can_ get around these issues via some lawyer agencies who get you through the door in a matter of days of what otherwise can be a half-year wait in queue, but I just found the system fighting me too much. Finland is great though, everything runs efficiently, most of everything can be done online, just like in Estonia, but much like Estonia, very difficult to make friends and the culture in general is quite closed and people keep to themselves a lot. Most people I know here have had the same friends since highschool. So when it came down to Finland or Estonia, I just chose the one I already had friends at.
chasil 4y ago
There is no place, and no time, where people are better than what you see before you right now. Sometimes, the political system is better. People? There is nothing new under the sun.
- atleastoptimal 3y ago
  Different conditions make otherwise equivalent people act different and pursue different goals.

kurthr 4y ago

I'd encourage you to study Mandarin for a year or so and look into what the non-influencer set is saying about China. My first trip to China was in 1999 and my last in 2019. That was a time of amazing freedom and growth. Beijing went from bicycles to cars to subways and everything was growing. It's not like that now, youth unemployment is very high, foreigners are not welcome, and you really can't imagine the political and economic situation you're walking into. One simply does not publicly discuss problems there without considering the consequences. Columbine was 1999. I think he'll be more surprised by the level of political division and general impoliteness there is in the US.

tiny_ta 4y ago
Thank you for your balanced view! I will definitely learn the language and visit the place a few times before I consider moving anywhere :)
scrubs 3y ago
I'd encourage everyone to read: https://globalbrief.ca/2020/06/zeal-and-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy/ https://globalbrief.ca/2020/06/zeal-and-chinas-wolf-warrior-... This goes way further than most to explain "Chinese characteristics" (my term usage not link's). China is very complex and belies any simple summary. I definitely think it's a vastly smarter state than Russia... who by comparison it must now regard as a baby sitting project.
- Baeocystin 3y ago
  That was a good read. Thanks for posting it.

Waterluvian 4y ago

> pay that price for a great society in return You’re not just paying in your own freedoms. You’re paying in the freedoms of others, like the Muslims that the Chinese government have decided aren’t compatible with the “great society” that you seek.

thefounder 4y ago
There are worse places for muslims than China as far as human rights are concerned. I feel the whole muslim issue in China is just a pretext. Have we forgot about Saudi Arabia or whatever mess is left in Afghanistan?
- claytongulick 3y ago
  I'm trying to understand the point you're making. Are you making the argument that because there are things that are possibly worse, we should ignore the bad?
  - thefounder 3y ago
    I'm just saying that it's a pretext. Like China would start saying the world should stop trading with the U.S until the U.S fixes the mess it did in Iraq(i.e war reparations).
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Last week my six year old tried to justify his bad behaviour because his little brother did something worse. I didn’t buy it, and I don’t here either.
  - thefounder 3y ago
    Well, if you would keep signaling your six year old and ignore the "deeds" of his little brother I would say you are biased and have something against your six years old. Also what made you punish the bad behaviour all of a sudden? It's not like China was a beacon of human rights until "now". I don't think SA is really a little brother either. They still behead people in public squares. The whole "human rights" issue in China is really just a pretext and use of U.S soft power to isolate China. But "everyone" know that at stake is really the economic and millitary rivality. The U.S couldn't really care less about the muslims in China. Just look how much it cares about women in Afghanistan. Let's stop pretending we are little children. China is starting to influence our way of life and we should push against that but I just hate the B.S pretexts. It feels like propaganda and we hate propaganda, don't we?

The_Colonel 4y ago

> I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. Does China provide that? Honest question, I don't know much about it. I visited Beijing once, and it ranks on the bottom of the cities I'd like to live in. Of course, it's just my personal impression and Beijing is obviously not representative of the whole China.

freitzkriesler2 4y ago

I've lived in China and I can tell you, you will NOT like China especially for the reasons you've stated. China has a ton of problems that aren't readily apparent unless you are feet on the ground. The majority of the culture of china is, "dog eat dog" in that you will be scammed and taken advantage of unless you speak fluent Mandarin. You will run into problems with excessive Chinese bureaucracy both with the government and services you need. The only way to break through is with a bribe. Things we take for granted like food and product safety are secondary. In the first month, I got incredibly sick for a food born parasite (this was from a good grocery store too nonetheless). Don't ever eat from street vendors (google gutter oil). You also run the risk of getting physically attacked when relations with America are rough. I heard stories of a guy that got jumped by a group of chinese men after Trump was elected. He didn't even vote for him and the police did not care. China is the type of place you visit, make a bunch of money, and get out. In all honesty, you'd be happier living in a 2nd or 3rd tier Benelux or Dach town.

auggierose 4y ago
What is a Dach town?
- kosmos1337 4y ago
  DACH stands for Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
- dEnigma 4y ago
  A town in Germany (D for "Deutschland"), Austria (A) or Switzerland (CH). Seems that term isn't common in English. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-A-CH https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-A-CH https://www.statista.com/topics/4623/dach-countries/#dossierContents__outerWrapper https://www.statista.com/topics/4623/dach-countries/#dossier...
tiny_ta 4y ago
Thank you for sharing your experience - I appreciate that a lot of my views around China (and even DACH where I've also considered moving to) may be too rosy. I will definitely visit any place a few times before I move there!

908B64B197 4y ago

> but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty great for me. I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. Hope you are white. If so, I'm certain you'll have a great experience. You'll be shown the modernity and good side of living under the regime, and probably made to believe they are the rightful holders of the "Mandate of Heaven". Make sure to stay in Han dominated areas, and don't document of film anything that could make the regime lose face. > Note: I'm not Chinese. Why are you explicitly spelling it out? So we don't immediately assume this is propaganda? Don't worry. If they like you enough, you'll even get paid for comments like these!

majormajor 4y ago

In 2014 I worked with a company in Beijing for a few weeks. The local engineers all had pretty long and packed subway commutes from various outer developments, so my first guess would be that "affordable housing in the city center" is long gone for most major cities. The surface-level infrastructure was interesting, it felt like Los Angeles - much more than it did Manhattan or SF aboveground - just blown up 3-to-5x. Wider streets with more lanes of cars, big mega apartment complexes just all four times taller than the common 5-story ones, etc.

livueta 4y ago
+1, at least anecdotally, at least in T1 cities: I spent a few months in Shanghai for work in 2018 and all of my local colleagues had messed up housing situations of one flavor or another. One guy lived alone in a shoebox but when he had a free weekend, he'd take the train ~2h out to a smaller city where his family lived in a decent house. There were also a lot of complaints about apartment quality even/especially in new construction. The drive from central-ish Shanghai (Wujiaochang) to PVG was mindblowing because of the scale and frequency of the apartment megablocks ringing the city: identical enormous tower after identical enormous tower, lining the wide (but at the time oddly empty) thoroughfares. Felt like an alt opening scene to a Judge Dredd movie.
- majormajor 4y ago
  With the folks I was working with it wasn't "messed up" in any way, it just was hardly any more relatively affordable give local wages than most big cities in the US. Some fun/awkward differences though. For instance, I had imagined it would be easy to find a laundromat - I didn't want to pay the hotel prices for cleaning. Ended up almost accidentally offending the people I was asking - "why would we need to go somewhere to do our laundry, we have laundry machines, we aren't poor" - while since a lot of US cities are older in the dense parts of town, laundry machines in-unit were less common even for sometimes pretty pricey places. One of my big takeaways is that development is a lot easier and cheaper than redevelopment. Building a ton of new housing? Put in today's amenities! It might be crappy quality even in "luxury" new construction (whether here or there) but it's gonna be a lot easier than retrofitting into a bunch of units from 50 years ago. Want a QR-code/app-based payment system to take off? It's gonna be easier if you're one of the first widespread options to replace cash (like in China at the time) vs if you're competing with ubiquitous credit/debit cards in the US. Really illustrative of how things are path-dependent - and why I'm bearish on "super apps" replacing what we already have here.

lr4444lr 4y ago

I dunno, man. Net migration numbers don't lie.

jzb 4y ago

Serious question, if you have to sacrifice personal freedom, what does the great society look like you are willing to sacrifice it for? What freedoms are you willing to give up for what societal benefit? I’m genuinely curious because every person defines personal freedom differently. And great society is very subjective.

thefounder 4y ago
Some are selling their freedom quite cheap. It's really nothing new/hard to imagine.
tiny_ta 3y ago
I appreciate your question because I have spent a lot of time in the past thinking about this :) > I’m genuinely curious because every person defines personal freedom differently. And great society is very subjective. I couldn't agree more! I believe that all of us have to give up some personal freedom if we want to live in a functional society. I may want to blast music from my rooftop at 3AM but I must curb that urge out of respect for the society I live in. How much of this personal freedom we are willing to give up is different for different people. On this spectrum, I think I lie towards giving up more if it gives me a comfortable society in return. I am willing to mask up if it means that fewer people in my vicinity may "possibly" get sick less. I am okay with video cameras and facial recognition in public places if it means less crime in my neighborhood. I am willing to pay more taxes if it means public infrastructure can be improved and schools can get better teachers. I might be wrong though, because these things can clearly be taken to an extreme.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Are you really giving up personal freedom if you’re consciously deciding not to do something out of consideration for others? Usually it becomes a problem because you are infringing on someone else’s personal freedom. So it’s still about maximizing personal freedom in that case.
  - tiny_ta 3y ago

another_story 3y ago

Ahh yes, China, with its brutal Darwinian rush hour on the metro. The experience of needing to shove aside a 70 year old women with her grocery trolley who doesn't understand you need to wait until people get off before you get on. That affordable downtown housing which is on par with costs in Manhattan, where you'll hear someone renovating until 9pm every night and smell the sewage gas wafting from bathroom drains because what's a u-trap and inadequate underlying infrastructure. Agreement between citizens that if they can cheat the laowai, or any mark really, or cut someone's line then they will. Try living there for a bit. It's nice enough if you don't mind seeing the sun a few weeks a year through the smog. China is actually fun to live in, but it's not a good place to live if you value your health, physical or mental. At least not the cities.

winrid 3y ago
The bathroom drain thing is so true. I documented that in a bunch of cities all the way from Xinjiang to Beijing. I don't get why they don't install u-traps. There were a couple of my hotels that had them, but most did not. This includes someone's home I stayed in. When I asked a local about it they got very angry, like I was insulting them. The need to save face in China is real. But I get it, "who is this American who thinks they can tell us how to do things?" I didn't find the smog to be bad everywhere, though. Beijing was pretty bad in the morning/early afternoon. But from what I remember Chengdu was nice smog/weather wise.
alwayslikethis 3y ago
They sell fake pregnancy pillows in China to put in your belly to get people to give you a seat on the metro. Of course that doesn't really work as soon as people knew about it.

duxup 3y ago

There's a wonderful skit from Portlandia about a couple who visit Spain and come back and everything is now a reflection of what they saw there. They can't help but talk about it... constantly. I think it's hard to really "know" a place, and frankly your experience anywhere will vary. Granted sometimes people just need a change.

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> a reflection of what they saw there Travellers become unhappy both at home and abroad ...

nazka 3y ago

I don’t understand. Why not Europe? There are so many great countries/cities in Europe for exactly what you are looking for! And much more. You will avoid all the negative points from China that someone listed on another comment. While improving your life beyond work. 1-3 hours to so many wide destinations from Paris to London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Jerusalem… All while beyond guns you will have same to more freedom. Less crime. On the health side unless you need the best surgeon in the field, you will find overall better healthcare across all level. Education is great to on part with the best (for kids with countries like Norway or Sweden it’s definitely the best. Others are catching up). And I can go on and on with cost of living compare to major US cities, the variety of cultures, landscapes, way of life etc… all packed in a US size continent. I think if Americans are easy to the idea to leave the US and sacrifice some things, they will find a wide range of interesting opportunities.

tiny_ta 3y ago
Europe is definitely on my list! Some things like economic conditions in the likes of UK and Germany give me pause, but I would love to live in all these different places and experience life there. Such a short life and so many places to be (and such tedious immigration forms)!

dirtyid 3y ago

>dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens ... >China fits the bill All those things may exist but sheer concentration of population = QoL / "dynamism" still gets very uncomfortable and cut throat. PRC pace = good cities with livable QoL mix rapidly develop until they're not. Hence you get expat commends like Chongqing reminds me of Shanghai in 2000s. On the otherhand, plenty of big cities at varying degrees of development to bounce around, but that's a very different life style.

slowmotiony 3y ago

"As a sidenote, the author says he does not like his kids playing "war" in Chinese playgrounds - I wonder how he will feel about the active shooter drills that are now part of every kids life in the US. Note: I'm not Chinese." Well obviously, since if you were Chinese you'd know that kids in China are doing drills to protect themselves against psychos with knives who attack schools. Like actual grownups with machetes randomly killing children. Those attacks are happening all the time by the way.

deleted 3y ago
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hayst4ck 3y ago

Taiwan is everything that is good about Chinese culture, with very little of what is bad. The drawback of Taiwan is that there isn't nearly the level of "white monkey" opportunities and you aren't as exotic. China is also more extreme. You will have more extreme positive experiences and more extreme negative experiences.

henry2023 3y ago

You should try Munich or Berlin instead

xyzelement 3y ago

Looks like you got a lot of replies so good comment from that point of view. Provocative. There's a simple way to navigate what you are talking about - look at actual immigrants. People vote with their feet and there's still a ton of Chinese and everyone else trying to come to the US, hardly a trickle going the other way. Living in the US is amazing. Most of the problems that you are aware of aren't actually impacting you or anyone you know (like, school shootings are clearly top of mind for you but have you met anyone who met anyone affected by one? Probably not.)

coupdejarnac 3y ago

You might consider Vietnam. There's going to be a lot of growth and opportunities there for a while.

JCharante 3y ago
While there’s going to be a lot of growth a lot of the same things can be said about Vietnam. Foreigners will never win an argument against locals, some locals will die on a hill defending the 150-200 AQI for 5 months out of the year. I don’t mean this as advice to avoid Vietnam, but just that 1/2 the bad things said about China apply to most Asian countries.
- coupdejarnac 3y ago
  I think Vietnam probably captures the atmosphere of China 20 years ago. Plus, Vietnamese people tend to be much friendlier and have better English literacy. I lived in Beijing and Shanghai during the good pre-Xi times, and I'm dying to go live in VN for a while.
- catothedev 3y ago
  In many major Chinese cities you literally cannot see the sun bc of air pollution. No major city in VN is this bad. Will it get worse? Maybe but I wouldn't necessarily expect it. VN people actually do get quite concerned about the quality of their food and, if air pollution started to become a visible problem, in places like HCMC, I doubt people (govt officials included) would be OK with that. The drive for money is hard but not quite as no-holds-barred as PRC.

def_true_false 3y ago

Agreement among citizens is easy: just pick a country that doesn't use FPTP as the main voting system.

physicles 3y ago

Here's my opinion on how China scores against your criteria: - Dense cities: Yes. I grew up in the suburbs and love the density here and how walkable everything is. - Affordable housing: A good place in a popular location in Beijing or Shanghai is about $2k USD a month. You can get that down to $1k if you have roommates. - Great public infrastructure: public transit, yes, but I rarely need to take that anymore. Public parks aren't great. You can't drink the tap water. - Modicum of agreement: political discussion is so thoroughly suppressed that we all engage in self-censorship. I guess that could be called "agreement", but when I think of agreement I think of a place like New Zealand. Here are the great things you're maybe not seeing: - There's a bit of friction in everything in daily life, and that somehow makes life more enjoyable for some kinds of people (including myself). I think a big reason for that is that most people here don't speak English. - It's incredibly easy to make friends. - Most people you meet are interesting: either they're an expat and they moved here because they didn't want to coast through life, or they're a local and they're curious about people from other cultures. - Some jobs pay incredibly well. For example if you're a teacher (not a "teacher"), China is a big step up. Here are the not-so-good things you're maybe not thinking about: - Air pollution is still a thing. In some cities, half the days you'd like to go outside for a run, you shouldn't because the air is too bad. - Things like national parks are more crowded, less natural, and less tastefully done here than in any other developed country. - As a foreigner you can only stay at maybe half the hotels and guest houses around the country. The others will simply not allow you to stay. - As an American you'll deal with special attention from the government. - Going to a hospital where nobody speaks your native language is one of the most stressful experiences you will have.

roca 3y ago

It's not a great society for Uyghurs, or Christians, or Falun Gong, or anyone who want to speak their mind. It's not just accepting limitations on your personal freedom, it's being comfortable with the oppression of everyone around you.

catothedev 3y ago

If you want dense/affordable/good-public-transportation and you like east asia, I'd recommend Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Kaosiung. You can live in those places with far less political, language, thought-police concerns than mainland China.