hi bro

I tested with my HK number, it is true. I can register at the very first time, but i got banned as soon as I logged in, it said because of security issues.

can you ask her what types of food she would like to try? and how many ppl for a table? which areas or district she may stay in Beijing? I can list some recommendations with map locations for restaurants (i’ll post that in real chinese food community) that local ppl go to, so she wont experience those fake ones for foreigners only.

yes, are you studying sociology or political science? You quickly got the main point. This approach also makes competition stronger, aiming for better pay or promotions to make sure the living standards don’t go down. In China, some voices are starting to say this. They believe that this no lay-off practice also goes against socialism. In this situation, we shouldn’t compete with your fellow workers, as they’re our comrades. The ones causing everyone to fight against each other and exploit everyone are the capitalists. We should come together and resist.

nice, nice to see you read this and made comments on each bullet. I quote this from WKFG (chinese meaning “I have nothing to say” or “I’d keep slience” 无可奉告 ), it was a total anonymous forum created by several college students in China and it was widely spread in several days. You don’t need to register and they wanted to create a place where every voice can be heard and ppl may support with each others instead of engaging in a war of words (like Elon and Zuckerberg in twitter, LOL). But it was quickly shut down due to numerous reasons.

I quoted it here then.

this is horrible, I did not even notice it. during the COVID lockdown period, foreigners were required to have a Chinese mobile number, as only a Chinese mobile number would allow them to obtain a health code. The government used this to track GPS locations as a means of monitoring the spread of the pandemic. It’s truly sad to witness China becoming more closed off; this trend only in the past 5-10 years. Hopefully, in the future, the country can be as welcoming to everyone as it was in 2008.

shot, I did not realize that. they dont support foreign numbers? of course for CN apps, they all need a number to sign in. sometimes they just directly get your number with the cell provider on your phone and you can do one click to sign in with the phone-number… this is not good, for we dont have privacy.

haha nice, for you got the name Osaka. I’m really sorry, that;s racist for me to think you as JP. Gaode should have English version and it’s good for China, no worries on that.

If she got a native English level, then totally don;t need to worry about the tour in Beijing. For communications, wechat is the most widely used Chinese chat app and we also do all payments or make orders in restaurant with wechat (your wife will tell you how Chinese are doing that when she get back. LOL.). VPN is ok for individual usage, just feel free for that. sometimes the VPN network may not be that good, and definitely you can reach her by texting messages. Forbidden City tickets here: https://intl.dpm.org.cn/ticket_details.html, need to be prebooked, she can use the passport.

yup. Still there are a certain amount of ppl still hold the communism dream, this conflict even appears inside the CCP. Many ppl just regard China as an one political party country, but inside the CCP, there are many divergent factions.

AI also is developing fast in China and you’re correct, nowadays, all Chinese state-owned enterprises and central enterprises are facing the same issues as US. but chinese companies decided not to do layoffs, but reducing the salaries of each individual where everyone still has a job as a response to this impact.

Really thanks for mentioning that, I forgot to say that although the economy has turning to capitalism, many state-owned companies still have an organization and operation as socialism. China describes it as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, that every Chinese student must learn.

but traveling in china is still good. won’t worry about it, in Beijing a lot ppl can speak English and a certain amount of ppl can speak some Japanese.

It’s really a good question. (I’m really impressed you asked that, seems you are an expert for Chinese history/politics). I’m just a normal guy, so I may only answer it from my view.

When we were young at school, we were told that as you described in the post. China decided to do mixed economy to develop and adapt to the world, but our goal is still communism. This is an ideal dream for the previous leaders of China, we all admire them, like Deng XiaoPing (Tough he was tough on some certain aspects). We call it the “Reform and Opening-up” (Since 1978).

Nowadays, people are still arguing whether this idea was good and whether China still has its initial dream to become a communism country, for some ppl in China believe the reform has failed because china has turned to be a total capitalism country inside like the western world.

But from my life experience, with the mixed economy idea, china developed so so fast, when ppl thought that we should put economy to the first instead of the political system during 1980(1978 is the exact year) to 2018. not only economy, but also arts/humanism/technologies.

However, things changed in the recent 5 years, with the covid destroyed the economy and Xi changed the Chinese constitution that he can be president forever (this is a huge thing in china for us, for it changed the whole political atmosphere, we all feel sad), and we don’t know why the current government becomes aggressive and has a lot conflicts with other countries. In this situation, China is not as energetic as it used to be. Many ppl think China has reached a crucial crossroads in its destiny now.

Hi! getting a Chinese SIM card is a wise decision as roaming can be quite expensive. I’m sorry that both Line and Google Map require a VPN. However, you don’t need to worry. If your wide has a VPN, she can use them. CN takes action only against the public sale of VPNs or their use for illegal activities, but there’s no problem with individuals using VPNs to browse Google or other apps. (Otherwise, what would Chinese developers do, haha!)

I was born and raised in Beijing, and even though I work in Shanghai now, I’m still familiar with Beijing. Feel free to leave msg if you or your wife have any questions. (If she’s planning to visit the Forbidden City, make sure to book tickets online in advance. For navigation, she can use Gaode Map in China, it is developed by Alibaba. For finding good food, she can download DaZhongDianping, which is China’s Yelp.)

hi おおさか, thanks for checking! I think lemmy.world may have it’s own fediversion policy for only connecting to certain lemmy instances, it can be set in the config. we are not in the list so you cannot find this instance. (I tested with programming.dev and this forum can be found there. ) btw, we don’t have that “allowed instances” policy here.

LOL. my bad.

sad to know it. Those governors&medias did not do good things. Also I admit that the current CN government does have some issues… a lot ppl may not like it. Many of us think it may be the US and CN problem that affects the relationship for CN and India as well. We really don;t know why nowadays a lot public medias just let ppl hate each others. ;(

I know Bangalore for north, the city of high-tech in india

niceee, good to know. there are a lot of Indian restaurants in China, and we have no way to distinguish what kind of Indian cuisine they are.

LOL

In big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, I believe that around 80% of the younger generation might be familiar with panipuris, if you show the pics of it, they’ll say “oh i know it”. CN ppl call it “the Indian Crispy Ball”. It has gained significant popularity in China, following TikTok and live streaming shows. around 30% of them might have even tasted it. (I work in an international company and the number shall be even higher)

As for chaats, the familiarity might be about half of that for panipuris.

lemme find you a chinese Indian restaurant manu later. lol.

oh my… Free Artist. LOL