I arrived in China in early 2014 – and left in 2019.
To everyone who asks, I describe these five years as some of the most memorable in my life. And that's not a lie. I loved it.
However, I also understand that there are many aspects of being a foreigner in China that you DO NOT necessarily enjoy. Living in a country that is so different compared to most democratic countries is a challenge.
And in this article, I will be completely honest about the reasons why I would NOT move back to China. If you're someone who might consider moving to the East: be warned. I'm gonna scare you a little bit.
#1: The food
If you ask any random Chinese person in the West what they miss most about their country, you will get two answers.
Their family.
The Chinese food.
….which is why loads of foreigners are super excited to go to China and taste the fantastic Chinese cuisine. Well. I hate to break this to you… but Chinese food in China isn't very good. Most of my foreign student and expat friends ended up constantly buying food from foreign restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai.
After spending nearly five years in China, I ate Chinese food maybe once or twice every month. Madness. But necessary to survive.
What's wrong with the Chinese food in China?
First of all, the meat quality is terrible. So I completely stopped eating meat from Chinese local restaurants after getting sick several times. If you want to know more about this, I would suggest that you read the article called "China's Food Safety Issues Worse Than You Thought".
Secondly, there was about a 20 % chance of becoming quite ill every time I went to some local restaurants. That's not necessarily a hygiene problem – but the bacteria flora is very different in China compared to my home country.
#2: The growing nationalism
I don't want this article to become very political.
However, most Chinese people love their country. They have been taught by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to be extremely loyal to the party and to China.
When I arrived in 2014, this wasn't a big problem. Xi Jinping was just recently coming in as a president (well…dictator). And he was not yet promoting these ultra nationalist ideas that he's now unfortunately famous for.
I saw a big shift in the narrative towards foreigners when I was in China. In 2014-2015, most people were super friendly and nice to me and my foreign friends. They loved us trying to buy vegetables in Chinese – and many of them stopped us on the street to ask for photographs.
That changed very rapidly over the next few years.
These are only three of many examples of what we had to deal in the last year we lived in Shanghai:
Some random Chinese guy entered a nightclub with a lot of foreigners. While shouting "I HATE FOREIGNERS! I LOVE CHINA!" He started to go mental and beat up various white people inside the club. He was eventually stopped by the guards, but obviously not given any harsh penalties by the governments. After all: it was FOREIGNERS he attacked.
As I entered a restaurant to have dinner with some friends, the waiter randomly came up to me and said: "Hong Kong is a part of China". That was literally the first thing he said to me. Completely out of the blue, haha.
Two innocent Canadians were randomly taken hostage and put in prison because Canada arrested a criminal Huawei CFO. It tells you how far the CCP is willing to go in order to punish foreigners in China. Read more about that story by clicking this link.
Video: Growing Nationalism in China
This guy, Laowhy86, has made a video that perfectly explains the growing nationalism in China:
…and it's a very good reason not to move to China as a foreigner.
#3: Air Quality
Even though air quality has improved over the last years, it's still terrible in China. Really terrible.
Sometimes when I walked home from our university in Beijing, I could literally taste the smog inside my mouth. The walk from my university in Wudaokou to my apartment did not take more than 15 minutes.
I've written a long article about how it is to live in Beijing during the most polluted year in history. You can read that post by clicking here.
#4: Living cost in China is no longer cheap
If you want to eat, drink, rent an apartment and live a good life in Beijing or Shanghai – you have to pay up.
Even though I'm a Norwegian, I felt that China started to become quite expensive. At the time, I was working in a company that gave me about 15,000 RMB per month. In Shanghai, that doesn't get you far if you want to live a comfortable Western lifestyle.
Luckily, I had a couple of other income sources. If not, I would probably leave sooner.
So make sure that you enter China with a full wallet…or have a good salary on your expat job.
Video: Living cost in Shanghai
This video features the living cost situation quite well. Some things are super cheap in Shanghai – other things are super expensive.
But let's be real. You don't want to buy local food and live in a crap apartment with cockroaches while you live abroad.
#5: There are always people around you
Coming from a country with less than 5 million people, I was used to walking long distances in my hometown without meeting a single person.
Let me put it this way.
Even though you are walking home at 04:00 on a Monday night from a night club – you are still meeting people at every corner. Literally. You can never take a 360 turn without seeing another person in China.
And it gets to your head. I started to feel sick by entering the subway before work. The number of people that come together will make you feel like a fish in a tuna box.
During my last year in China, I took a taxi back and forth from work every day simply because I was so sick of having all the people surrounding me.
This video uploaded from the BBC is literally how I felt every day:
If you're not a fan of crowds: don't go to China.
#6: The visa situation
Let me quickly break this to you. Getting a visa in China isn't easy.
Very often, the visa agents need to do some "creative stuff behind the scenes" in order to keep you in that country. And I hate the feeling of not knowing whether or not I can stay a place – or whether I have to leave very soon.
Over the five years that I stayed in China, I actually had these different types of visas (I'm not joking…) :
Long-term student visa for my master's degree
Short-term student visa for language school
Tourist visa
Business visa
Work visa
And I can be open about that now. The reason is that I will never go back to China unless something drastically happens with the political situation.
#7: As a foreigner, you're a second-class citizen
I got so tired of being a second-class citizen after five years in China. Let me give you some examples of what I mean:
Several Chinese websites required a Chinese national ID for registration.
You always had to pay a much higher price for vegetables, etc. in the local stores.
It was extremely difficult to buy tickets on buses, for trains or airplanes.
Any legal dispute in China will ALWAYS go in favor of the Chinese person.
And a lot more.
As a foreigner, you will never be Chinese. And you will not be treated fairly.
#8: VPN and Internet
I like to use Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Also, I love to read online newspapers from free democratic countries.
Guess what.
In China, that's forbidden.
From the day I entered China until the day I left China, I was a criminal. And the crime I committed every day was to use a VPN in order to access blocked websites. Due to the increasing nationalism, press freedom in China is worse than ever.
It's just impossible for someone who works online (like myself) to have a good working life in China. That's one of the big reasons why I left.
Not at all. I learned so much during my time in China.
However, I will never return until the political situation has been sorted out. I'm not a fan of dictatorship countries.
What is the BEST thing about living in China?
The best thing is that you learn something new every day. Literally every day. As I took the time to learn Mandarin Chinese, I could freely walk around talking to people everywhere in Shanghai.
Also, the Chinese culture is really interesting and different from what I was used to back home.
What is the ABSOLUTE worst thing about China today?
The growing nationalism. It destroys the image of a beautiful country.
Have you been living in China yourself? Or are you a Chinese citizen who disagree with any of my arguments? Feel free to add a comment to the comment section below!
Do you regret living in China? 
0 Yorumlar