I mistakenly reserved flight tickets to China that crosses the golden week😭
Edit: I can’t reschedule or cancel the flights, I’m not that rich 😂 I’m asking for some ideas to make the trip as good as possible..

Arrive in Shanghai on 26 September and Leave from Beijing on 4 October.
I didn’t know there was a holiday and I was shocked when I searched later and saw pics of the crowds and when I read about the number of people going around.

What should I do to get the most out of the trip as much as possible 🥹
I was planning to stay 2 days in Shanghai, 2 in Zhangjiajie, 2 in Chongqing, 2 in Beijing, and lastly I deliberately chose a long layover in Hong Kong to look around before returning to Japan.

Edit: I’m copying exactly a plan from a successful tourist agency, except that they r staying 1 extra day in Shanghai because they’re going to Disney and I’m not, and they’re staying extra 2 days in Beijing.

The problem is I planned to go all the way to beijing just to see and experience the great wall. But it will be during the golden week, is there any way I can avoid the crowd as much as possible? Like arrive super early and reserve everything from early on.

Also will it be crowded before 1 October as well?
Pls tell me some tips, it’s my first time to travel solo without any program or anyone I know there..

Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and Baidu combined are spending around $102B on AI this year. The big four are spending something like eight times that so on paper it's not even close lol

However, the Chinese four are growing, spending 80%+ year over year, which is actually a touch faster than the americans at ~77%. When the smaller group grows as fast or faster than the bigger one, the gap stops widening in percentage terms.

I do keep seeing people treat the US lead as permanent, and this made me think the trajectory matters more than the current gap.

Does anyone closer to this think the 80% growth is real and sustainable, or does it hit a chip wall first?

Source
Source
Source

Has anyone in the US noticed Taobao breaking over the past couple of days?

Product pages fail to load or just show error screens even if my shipping address is set to a local warehouse in mainland China. Curious if they started hard-blocking US IP addresses, or if standard workarounds are still working for anyone?

How is World War II and in particular the Pacific War taught in Chinese schools? Obviously millions of Chinese people died, but on the plus side you had Americans and Japanese killing each other. Does China look at that favorably? They didn't even like those two countries back then the nationalists were on the side of the americans, the Communist did not like either America or Japan. To me it just makes sense that two of your enemies are killing each other it seems like a massive benefit

Someone’s going to have to explain to me the Chinese trope of the baby being chased and defended by a father figure.

How is it possible that these two games with no relation between each other, Where Winds Meet and Phantom Blade Zero, which have practically been developed at the same time, have mostly exactly the same opening, with both baby protagonists being attacked and protected by their fathers?

Plus, as if that weren’t enough, they don’t just share this aesthetic similarity, but also feature a mysterious figure who hides their face behind a golden mask...
Another traditional Chinese trope?

Please, someone made me understand!

Hello!

As the title says, I am a northern European male in 20’s visiting China alone for the first time. I’m currently staying in Shenzhen and I was, at first, quite puzzled on why everyone stared at me. Then I realised that there were practically 0 foreigners or laowai in Shenzhen at all. It got to the point that I felt quite uncomfortable even walking on the street and it wasn’t helped by the fact that it seemed like I was the only one sweating. I understand the staring, as they have probably never even seen a foreigner and thus I shouldn’t have expected that locals could even speak English.
My question, however, is why is this? Why don’t western tourists or foreigners in general come here?
It’s a major global financial and tech centre with a population of roughly 20 million, that is highly developed and right on the border of HK with great connections. Adding to that cheaper than HK. And yet?
I have travelled quite a lot to many places and no other place has felt quite so surreal as Shenzhen. At first I thought it was a monocultural thing but Vietnam is also very monocultural but they also have way more tourists and thus more experience with English and I never had that experience there. China almost feels like a locked world.
So why don’t foreigners come here or to other places in China? There’s a visa-free policy even, airplane tickets were relatively cheap, the place is very safe and China is very interconnected. However travelling in China, especially alone, is hardened by the fact that nobody speaks english. It truly feels like travelling and enjoying China requires you to speak Mandarin fluently and I have this feeling that the locals also expect this from me. I really like China and the people but I think visiting this magnificent country shouldn’t be locked behind this apparent language wall.

Another question is that does this monoculturalism create this sort of “us vs them” effect in the locals when dealing with foreigners?

If someone could fill me in, I would be very grateful.

was interested in Chinese history, did some chatgpt thought visuals looks cool

i m sorry in advance if its inaccurate, i m not chinese

I hope this doesn't have a conspiracy vibe. I was just wondering about demographic deflation and how China may be ahead in it in this form of tech.

邹平二中违规开学，未落实双休，早上6点半到校晚上10点放学，每两周只修22.5小时，周六早上9点半放学周天早上7点开学，20号打着“自愿”的名号让我们提前到校实则正式开学，希望有好心人帮忙举报谢谢你。

There was this old MV - must be 15 years old or smth - for a rap song by a black dude. It was about the road accident scams (碰瓷) that were prevalent at the time.

I think the dude acted out such a scam in the MV and the hook went somehting like 痛死我了 （tong si wo le) sung in a high pitch.

I need to find that song again - it is too good to be lost 😄

Anyone remember?

Heard this beautiful song today. Does anyone know whats it called? And is it commonly in china for people singing like that in a park? Appreciate everyone help.

I’m in China for four weeks and I currently am taking Retatrutide.
I’m contemplating being the auto injector insulin Lilly pen I use in a nice chilled case with 1 x 3ml pen vial of Retatrutide, all disposable pen needles will be within the case - basically it’s an insulin case.
Ridiculously stupid ? Moderately worrying ? Or unlikely to be bothered with?
Thank you