02/02/24 - FAQ Answered!

There is often a mention of ‘aunties’ in your posts. What does that mean? Any older woman? A poorly dressed older woman? An annoying older woman? And are older men referred to as ‘uncles’? - by TwoChihuahuas

It’s technically used to refer to any middle-aged woman, anywhere from 45 to 65 (older than that and you’re definitely a grandma). There’s a lot of stereotypes associated with “aunties” though, that they’re usually loud, nosy, boisterous, very colourfully dressed, straight forward, ready to throw down, loves dancing, etc. There’s definitely “uncles” too, but they’re more often stereotyped as quiet and reserved and loves fishing, and don’t tend to come up in people’s stories of “interesting encounter I had today” very often.

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What does PUA mean? I thought it meant Pick Up Artist but I keep seeing it in contexts that make me doubt that assumption. - by Blythe

It totally means “pick up artistry”, but China uses PUA in much broader contexts than westerners tend to do. It can mean anyone, in any relationship, tearing down your self esteem in order to make you put up with their shit because you don’t think you can do better, and in general making everything your fault, and putting you in a mindset where you feel like you have to prove yourself to them. It’s all pick up artist tactics, but your parents can do it to you, and your boss can do it in the workplace, and your teachers can do it in school.

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What is the most interesting difference between the kinds of posts you're seeing/translating here, and the kinds of posts you see on American social media? (Interesting by your standards, that is.)

That’s really hard to say, because I kind of go out of my way to keep my Chinese social media “clean” so to speak. I click in to every post when I’m scrolling around and read it whether I’m interested or not, so the algorithm has a hard time determining what I’m into, so my substack doesn’t become an endless stream of “cute babies doing cute things” and “Chinese barbecue”. But on western social media, I’m actually going out of my way to train the algorithm so it stops showing me things I have no interest in.

So it’s hard to say what’s common to western social media, and what’s just an echo chamber effect as a result of me only being into certain communities.

Something I’ve seen other people comment on, though, is that the gender war on the Chinese internet is basically their equivalent of America’s race war, and where Americans complain about the injustices of the system in terms of police brutality and racial profiling, Chinese people complain the injustices of the system in terms of bride price regulations and leniency towards domestic violence. So there tends to be more of a concentration of dating drama/family drama/MIL relationship drama than I tend to see in America. There’s also a lot more of people sharing what it’s like growing up with a sexist family.

China also seems to have a lot more “obvious bots” than I ever see on the American internet? Like, under particularly big news or even particularly big celebrity announcements, it’s much more common to see thousands of identical comments all in a row, like some sort of official, government sponsored spamming.

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I was recently reading about a conspiracy theory that held "that there are thirteen families that secretly run the world, including the Rothschilds, the De Beers, and the Mai Wahs from China." Are the Mai Wahs an actual thing, or something invented by this conspiracy theory?

Did you get a chance to read the vtuber Confucius manhwa? It's up to chapter 8 now. - by OmgPuppies

I’m pretty sure Mai Wah literally just means 美华 (mei hua), that is, “American Chinese.” That sentence reads, “There are thirteen families that secretly run the world, including the Rothschilds, the De Beers, and the ~*~Chinese~*~.” So, I’m fairly certain that’s just a conspiracy theory. There’s definitely long running political dynasties that have been in positions of power in China since the time of Mao, though. I’m just not sure how much international influence they really have. There’s conspiracies in China that a lot of the influential Beijing families have been in power since the Qing Dynasty, too, not sure if those are true or not. China’s political system is so impenetrable, that you can’t even look up exactly who the People’s Representatives are, much less into their family history.

I really need to read more of that manhwa. I’ve been busy keeping up with sick little kids, but I swear I will catch up. It is a delightful piece of treasure.

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Is there a lot of anti-japanese propaganda in mass media, schools, Party etc? - by TonyZa

Oh yeah, tons. You’ve seen the hubbaballo about Japan releasing nuclear waste water. There was a lot of celebration when the earthquake hit Japan earlier in the year. A lot of bloggers jumped out to point out how inefficient Japanese rescue and relief efforts were compared to China’s during the Gansu earthquake (whether it’s true or not is another matter entirely, of course). Last year, there was a video that went viral of a Japanese restaurant with a sign up that said, “No Chinese or Koreans allowed inside.” And it sparked a big movement in China for Chinese restaurants to hang up signs of “No Japanese allowed inside.” There’s new influencers trying to make a new bid at becoming famous all the time by finding stores or restaurants that use Japanese elements in their decor and calling them out and demanding they pull it down.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad lately that the CCP has actually come out and made an effort to shut this trend down, because it’s starting to really affect Chinese businesses. Like lately, there was an influencer who went viral accusing a shopping mall in Nanjing for using “Japanese elements” in their New Years decor. Got the whole place shut down while they removed all the decorations. For reference, it looked something like this:

And the government’s come out and actually arrested him for “disturbing the public peace”, and warning others to not exploit the people’s patriotic enthusiasm for online influence.

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From reading your newsletter (and seeing charts like this) I have the impression that people from China are not very fond of the native food in Western cultures. Are there any exceptions, i.e. Western foods that Chinese people encountered through Western cuisines and that are now at least somewhat popular in China? - by Max

A lot of the “safer” varieties of western food is fairly popular in China. For example, people love McDonalds and KFC (though both of those brands adjust their flavours to be more suited to Chinese palates). Pizza was fairly popular for a while in there, before people decided it was too expensive to be worth it. I’ve also heard people in China say that Italian food is universal, nobody dislikes Italian. A lot of diet food tends to lean western too. I guess most traditional Chinese food is either too greasy or too much of a pain in the ass to make when you’re dieting.

China also has its own spin on just about every western dessert, where it’s the same thing, just less sugary. Chinese people are just as into doughnuts and cupcakes and fudge, so long as it’s got 20% the sugar that Americans put in.

It’s true though, that for as much as China brags about being a “foodie nation”, Chinese people are some of the pickiest people ever. They have no adventurous spirit at all. If they didn’t grow up eating something, they won’t give it a chance. And even if they try western cuisine now and again, they can’t stand to eat it for several days in a row. My family likes to travel, and yet wherever they go, whether it’s Europe or Canada or Japan or Africa, they always go eat at local Chinese restaurants, and I just don’t get the point of flying for hours to go to Paris just to eat Chinese food.

I’ve also seen a lot of Chinese people say, “If Chinese people won’t eat something, it must taste terrible.” After all, Chinese people eat bugs and Chinese yams and intestines and everything. So if they never incorporated something into their recipes, there must be no way to make it taste good, right? And that’s why Chinese people won’t eat turkey.

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What's the current situation regarding visiting China as a tourist (e.g. a European who can't speak Mandarin)? Is it possible at all? Advisable? - by Max

Oh, it’s definitely possible. You can download a translation app on your phone, and so long as you stick to the big cities, you’ll be just fine. If you had a 10 year tourist visa from before covid though, it’ll be considered automatically expired after covid, and you have to reapply for one, so that’s a pain in the ass. But China is still fairly friendly and safe for tourists that visibly look foreign. And honestly, for the most part, normal people you meet walking around are still going to be fairly helpful. You won’t have any trouble asking for directions or help. Nobody is going to try to mug you or scam you, because street criminals don’t speak enough English to pull it off and they don’t want to embarrass themselves. And even if your stuff does get stolen or something, the police will be very eager and efficient about helping you, because if a Chinese citizen complains about their work ethic, they can just delete those posts and arrest him, but they can’t do that to a foreigner. And nobody wants the embarrassment of you posting on your twitter account, “Third day in China, this is the third time I’ve had my phone stolen from me.” or anything. China really cares about saving face.

It’s a little bit more of a pain in the ass doing research beforehand, because China doesn’t use a lot of western sites like Yelp. So you’ll have to dig a lot more to plan out where to eat and such. And Google Maps won’t work in China, so you’ll have to put time into researching a GPS app that will work inside the Fire Wall. And definitely settle any bills you have coming up before you go to China. I ended up with a nasty surprise last time I went, when I realised my apartment’s payment portal is somehow banned by the Great Firewall, and I couldn’t pay rent.

Do I advise people go to China? I definitely advise all my friends against vacationing in China, for one major reason—traffic accidents. Traffic accidents are already a leading cause of death for people under 55. If you’re going to die young, chances are, you’re going to die by being ran over by a car or something. And China has almost 6 times the traffic fatality rates than Germany. And that’s based on official numbers that the World Health Organisation has already expressed doubts about.

People just drive like they’re insane in China. There are a lot of pedestrians, bicycles, tricycles, scooters, illegally modified scooters, and motorcycles on the streets who will just dash everywhere they can fit. Cars will use the shoulder, the incoming traffic lane, the sidewalk as an extra lane all the time. You can try to avoid part of the risk by never driving yourself and only using public transportation, but you’re not in any less danger as a pedestrian, honestly.

Honestly, it’s down to a matter of what you’re going to China for. If you want the food or the history, you can get almost the same thing by just going to Taiwan. They also have excellent Chinese food. They’ve got the Taipei museum, where you can see plenty of Chinese historical relics. And their traffic fatalities per 100K is just 12, instead of China’s 22!

If for some reason, you have to go to China, my standard advice is:

1. Get yourself a VPN beforehand. It’ll be a lot harder once you’re inside the Fire Wall, and you’d be surprised how much you rely on Google to survive until you’re suddenly without it.

2. Bring some regular OTC medicine with you, like ibuprofen, Tylenol, maybe some Benadryl, whatever you need. A lot of these take a prescription to get in China, and I’ve heard a lot of rumours that Chinese brands don’t work as well as western brands.

3. Use the same protocols as if you were going to Mexico—don’t drink the tap water, don’t eat from suspiciously cheap restaurants or roadside stalls. Definitely do not eat suspiciously cheap seafood. Particularly if it’s off of a buffet.

4. A lot of smaller stores in China don’t have any way of accepting card or cash, since mobile pay is so prolific, so stick to bigger department stores if you want to shop. Or, honestly, the easiest way is still just to get a local friend to pay for everything, and then you give them cash.

5. Stick to subways and trains as much as possible and avoid the road as much as you can.

6. The air pollution is known to cause some mild respiratory irritation if you’re not used to it—usually a sore throat, maybe a little bit of a runny nose and coughing. It’s not a cold, and no medicine you bring will really fix it. It’ll get better as soon as you leave, or you’ll get used to it after about 6-8 weeks. So don’t waste your ibuprofen.

7. Don’t get nice liquor at a bar. 80-90% of the time, it’s fake. Stick to local beers.