Some questions I have:

  • Do people in China have to boil their water before drinking it? I've found sources dated as recent as 2012 saying this
  • If I were to move to China, what western media would I have to be prepared to not have access to anymore? Just as one example, could I still follow/listen to American & European rock/metal bands?
  • After several years doing jobs that I didn't like very much, I finally recently moved to a job in an area that I like a lot (renewable energy). How easy would it be for me to find similar work in China? Sometimes it seems like the only work Americans can find in China is as English teachers.
  • Why does China accept so few immigrants? (500-2000 per year, vs about 1,000,000/year accepted by the USA, and 600,000-2,000,000/yr accepted by Germany)
  • Regarding sex, dating & family, is China generally more liberal than the US, more conservative, or about the same?
  • Does housing work in China similarly to how it works in the US? How much of their income do Chinese people typically spend on rent/homeownership?
    • SteamedHamberder [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Send me your wired, your posters

      Your Hot-couch asses yearning to see Xi

      The wretched fandoms of your casted pods

      Send them, your failing, largest sons to me

  • CrimsonSage [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    No the Chinese dont want western immigrants and likely will not accept them.

    "Why does China accept so few immigrants? (500-2000 per year, vs about 1,000,000/year accepted by the USA, and 600,000-2,000,000/yr accepted by Germany)"

    Because on a per capita basis China is still quite poor, so they A) dont have the resources B) dont have the historical draw and capital flows that the imperial core does, and C) Anti communist propaganda is still quite strong around the world.

    • join_the_iww [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      No the Chinese dont want western immigrants and likely will not accept them.

      Well that sucks. So basically I'm stuck here paying taxes to the wrong side of the new cold war, and there's no way to get out

      • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Look, you can either engage in adventurism or start meaningfully organizing. One of those is guaranteed to get you killed and probably not work, the other only might get you killed and could possibly work. Those are the options we western leftists have. Agitate in your circles, materially support resistance movements, and prepare yourself for a shitty time. Global communism isn't going to build itself and it's not going to be easy. Our position in all of this sucks but someone's gotta do it - may as well be you and me comrade.

    • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      "However, if you mean working as one of the 300 MILLION migrant workers in Chinese coastal cities doing hard labor, then I seriously don’t think Westerners are ready for it."

      Good point

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    My opinion is you should 100% disregard every opinion here calling you a coward or telling you that China doesn't need you.

    I would say with moderate confidence the Chinese know what they need more than you, me or anyone else here, if they need you then you'll find a job opportunity for you and that is all that there is to say about it, don't tie your conscious around meaningless philosophical arguments, with a population that large I think they'll be just fine if they take one more person along for the ride, and if they realy don't you then they are also big and mature enough to tell you/us to fuck off.

    After several years doing jobs that I didn’t like very much, I finally recently moved to a job in an area that I like a lot (renewable energy). How easy would it be for me to find similar work in China? Sometimes it seems like the only work Americans can find in China is as English teachers.

    It is true that there is an abundance of teaching jobs be aware that it is always easier to find a job in a country you already live in than not. This is how it usually works in the west assuming the immigration bureaucracy is just as bad then going to China as a teacher and then using your previous work experience to search for better jobs while you are already living there is a very good idea if you can do it, worst case scenario is you have to come back after a few years.

    I think you should be aware that some knowledge of Chinese is going to be a good advantage even if not required at your job it will help making your stay there much more enjoyable, the earlier you start the better.

    If you are still serious then one thing you can do is look around in Chinese learning communities and find a speaking partner to study and then also ask these sorts of questions they'll tell you all about living there so two birds one stone.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
    ·
    3 years ago

    Should western leftists be trying to move to China?

    No. You're not a leftist if you flee from the fight for revolution within your country, you're a coward.

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
        ·
        3 years ago

        Those are people whom plenty of them fought and died there and plenty of those that went came back to form the core of their nation's party of a new type to fight for their liberation in conjunction with the comintern.

        Those people weren't cowards. People who flee from the struggle are.

    • LoudMuffin [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's just going to look like Indonesia in the US though....

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Maybe we shouldn't leave for other countries, but we should live close to one of the borders and have cash on hand in case things go south.

        • LoudMuffin [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Yeah, people call me a doomer but look: there are ALREADY militias run by psychos who have done multiple tours as occupiers in the Middle East. The cops are allied with those guys, and the general public is largely uninterested in socialism. Between the guy who got smoked by PPD for defending himself against a Proud Boy and people like Rittenhouse essentially being cleared to do as much violence as is necessary to quell any nascent leftist movement it's clear that if and when the government becomes openly fascist that we are going to get absolutely slaughtered. I'm not even talking about explicit leftists either, a lot of these freaks are pretty open about wanting to exterminate everyone to the right of Ronald Reagan.

          As much as I admire some of the efforts we've seen in the last two years we're not going to be able to mobilize any kind of serious response to the right wing any time soon. The schoolboard takeovers by QNuts don't face any resistance. A lot of their grassroots organizing doesn't get anywhere near as much pushback as it should. These guys want to fucking kill you, and they've been ready to do it, regardless of how hoggish most of these paste eating idiots are they still hold and are supported by the reins of power and you don't have to be very smart or resourceful to do violence to largely defenseless people.

          I'd like for someone to tell me I'm wrong but those guys are ready to fuckin go....we're just barely getting started, and we have over a century of brainwashing to overcome. People say that declining material conditions are going to magically turn everyone into a leftists but as we saw with Trump this is clearly not the case for about half the population...

          • bigboopballs [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            The USA is going to go full mask-off Nazi Germany in the next 20 or 30 years, isn't it?

            I wonder what will happen in Canada

            • Ziege_Bock [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Annexation by Amerika before it nukes the world in a conflict with China. War never changes.

            • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              China will enter a non-agression pact with the US. Both will occupy parts of Canada, and then they'll go to war with each other a few months later. There will be mass pogroms in the US against various ethnic groups that are accused of being a source of national weakness. In the following century Americans will blame China for these pogroms because they entered an "alliance" with the US when they signed the non-agression pact.

          • chiefecula [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            declining material conditions are going to magically turn everyone into a leftists

            That's not quite how it works.

            Look, the fake news tells everyone the line is all time high and the US is the richest country in the world. But at the same time, the cost of living is going up while the wages stagnate. So people make more and more money but they don't get richer..? Where does all the money go? Where's all the profit, it literally doesn't add up. Obviously someone has to steal that money away from them, like it has to go somewhere, right? And that's where the populism comes in. The leftist say the rich hide the money in the offshore accounts and we need to make them pay. That's all well and good, but the problem is, the left isn't the only kind of populism.

            Another option is to say "you make enough money, but then the evil government steals it from you to give it to the welfare queens, so the government and the minorities are the bad guys.

            The people are hurting, the people are angry. The people need a villain to blame for the shitty situation they're in. And the rich are more than happy to spend billions of dollars to throw the minorities under the bus. Many normies literally have never ever heard anything about the left besides the propaganda that says the commies are more evil than the nazis.

            Declining material conditions push people away from the liberal "nothing will fundamentally change" bullshit once the status quo stops working for them. People want the change, so they become populist. But that doesn't necessarily mean left populist, a lot of people are going into the right wing populism instead. Which isn't surprising at all with at least a century long process of brainwashing people into thinking communism is hell.

            And the whole "are going to" part is also a complete fucking nonsense. This thing has been happening for a while. Just in the last ten years there's been a Tea Party movement AND Trump Q bullshit. Less and less people support the libs because the living conditions get worse and worse, that's true. But while the left is definitely more alive and than it was ten years ago, that's not good enough. Even without the global warming, the left needs to grow faster than the right, and that's not where we are currently.

          • replaceable [he/him]M
            ·
            3 years ago

            Please remove the body shaming or the comment will be deleted

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Depends on how overtly you reveal yourself.

        "The Communists disdain to conceal their aims" was written in a time long before mass surveillance.

  • FidelCashflow [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Every expat I see is a liberal or apolitical. One of us internet commies has to have done it but I don't see any vlogs about it and that's kinda weird I think.

      • FidelCashflow [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Have you seen barret channel? Theast vlog I caught was him absolute losing his shot over slowly riding a horse. He might be one of the squarest persons alive, even for a little old british dude. I love him for it, but it doesn't speak to an unbreakable power level here.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
    ·
    3 years ago

    China does not need extra warm bodies; they have plenty.

    If you're a citizen of a country in the imperial core, you can dedicate your efforts to finding options for people to withdraw from economic society without crossing the political border.

  • Chapo_is_Red [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    My feeling is moving to China just because you're a leftist doesn't make much sense. China has enough people, they don't need western lefties to help them build socialism. Moving to China for this reason is abrogating on doing politics in our own countries.

    Move to China if you're interested in learning about Chinese culture/language or have a good job opportunity there.

    Don't become and English teacher if you aren't interested in learning pedagogy and treating the work seriously. Too many westerners in Asia become EFL teachers and half ass it the whole time.

  • carbohydra [des/pair]
    ·
    3 years ago

    @AlexandairBabeuf put it well I think:

    people talk a lot about emigrating, honestly this question should be posed as "where should we go when we're exiled"

    :xi-beard: the price of admission to AES is making enough trouble to be fleeing there as fugitives

    that said we might not have the luxury of exile since prison labor is so profitable, so being prepared doesn't hurt

  • ItGoesItGoes [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I live in China and my Chinese is pretty good (I study a degree in economics that is fully taught in Chinese), so I think I can fairly solve your doubts.

    Do people in China have to boil their water before drinking it? I’ve found sources dated as recent as 2012 saying this

    Yep, even in big cities like Beijing. Actually, most people just buy mineral bottled water.

    If I were to move to China, what western media would I have to be prepared to not have access to anymore?

    Pretty much all western news outlets and social media. You will also have problems accessing certain platforms like Steam, but you can always get a VPN.

    Just as one example, could I still follow/listen to American & European rock/metal bands?

    Of course, no problem with that.

    After several years doing jobs that I didn’t like very much, I finally recently moved to a job in an area that I like a lot (renewable energy). How easy would it be for me to find similar work in China?

    Being completely honest with you, if you can't speak Chinese, and you haven't graduated in a Chinese university, the chances of getting hired by a Chinese company in your sector are very small. You have to think you are competing with thousands of Chinese engineers that won't bring any trouble (language, cultural differences, visa arrangements, etc), so unless you have something special to bring to the table, they probably won't want you.

    Sometimes it seems like the only work Americans can find in China is as English teachers.

    That's a sad reality, but also an understandable reality. Why would you hire a guy that can't even speak Chinese and only brings troubles, when there are thousands of local engineers you can chose from? Would we expect a company in the US to hire people that can't speak English in high paying positions? Even foreigners like me, who will graduate from a Chinese university, will probably just be hired in some department related to international commerce.

    If you want to get a job in China without a good Chinese level and a degree in a Chinese university, your best chance is to be a teacher, or get hired in some American company that operates in China.

    Why does China accept so few immigrants? (500-2000 per year, vs about 1,000,000/year accepted by the USA, and 600,000-2,000,000/yr accepted by Germany)

    China only wants high value immigrants.

    Regarding sex, dating & family, is China generally more liberal than the US, more conservative, or about the same?

    Very conservative. You better not try to have one night stands or have a "temporal" girlfriend/relationship, that's typical sexpat behaviour. In Chinese society it's expected that your girlfriend or the person you have sex with is the one you will marry, so make sure if you have any relationship and you don't intend to commit, both of you are in the same page, otherwise you would be taking advantage of those cultural differences.

    Does housing work in China similarly to how it works in the US? How much of their income do Chinese people typically spend on rent/homeownership?

    Depends on the city, in big cities it's very similar to most developed countries, while in smaller cities it's more easy to find more reasonable prices.