You can buy eggs one at a time if you like, in China.
The plastic egg trays also make good ice cube trays.
Ice isn’t a thing here in China. And if you do find ice cube trays, the ice cubes will be TINY.
There are stores here that sell nothing but fruit.
There are stores that sell veggies, eggs and meat.
You will get paid much more than your Chinese teaching colleagues. Do NOT talk about your salary. The only reason you’re getting more is that you are a native English speaker. Don’t flaunt your cash.
You might have to go to two or three grocery stores in order to get what you want. You will probably have to order certain things on Baopals. Yes, Walmart is here, but it’s not like it is in the U.S. There aren’t any makeup aisles and you’ll find a section dedicated to seaweed.
Stores close at ten p.m. You’ll find some businesses open 24 hours, but Walmart isn’t one of them. However, some McDonald’s and KFCs run 24/7.
Chinese streets don’t use blocks. Sometimes, every nook and cranny is used to set up space for a restaurant or shop. So if you see a place you like, take a picture of the store/restaurant sign, and the street you are on.
Regarding Street Food…
Street food can be iffy, but I’ve never had a problem buying fruit or eggs off of street vendors.
Thoroughly wash your fruits and veggies.
The Chinese use the metric system.
Wrapping Oranges in Plastic…
The Chinese will put oranges in plastic wrap.
The Chinese will place strawberries in trays, with each strawberry laying on a tiny slip of green tissue paper. Save the trays. They make good ice cube trays.
You can buy eggs one at a time if you like, in China.
The plastic egg trays also make good ice cube trays.
Most restrooms don’t have soap either. Get a small jar and fill it with liquid soap. Guys can slice a few slivers from a bar of soap and keep it in their wallets.
File under gross but true: During Covid, when I went out in public, I watched to see how many people used soap after washing their hands. After several informal observations, the average was one out of six people used soap while washing their hands.
If you go out with a group of people to eat, one person will pay for everyone. Kindly take note as to how much your meal cost and reimburse your host. No, I don’t like this system.
Squat toilets are the norm.
Translation apps are your friend. If you need or want something, type it into your translation app. Then, memorize the sentence, “I’m sorry, my Chinese is bad.” Probably the Chinese person will say, “mesa mesa” which roughly means, “no problem.” They might laugh and say their English is bad. Say this before you need something, then hold up the phone so the clerk can see what it is you need. Be mindful of using American slang. I was looking for bungee cords one day, but realized using the word “bungee” might confuse the sales clerk. So I asked if they had any rope to tie things on the backs of e-bikes. She led me right to the bungee cords, which is exactly what I wanted.
Another reason to have a U.S. bank account is so you can link it to a brokerage. Most online investment platforms won’t work with customers out of the country. Charles Schwab will, however.
Wiring money home involves a lot of paperwork. ICBC required six pieces of paperwork. CMB requires a passport, but you can only wire $500 home at a time. And they get a little miffed if you wire money home twice a month three months in a row.
Portion Sizes are Smaller
Portion sizes are smaller. Don’t expect to find one-pound bags of M and Ms in the stores.
You won’t find a good assortment of cereal either. If you want Cinnamon Toast Crunch, you’ll have to order it on Baopals, or Taobao.
Baopals is the place to go online for American/Western favorites. You’ll find probably six different brands of ketchup in the stores, but no cocktail sauce for shrimp. I discovered Baopals and have been ordering it ever since. I was desperate for Jiffy cornbread mix. It wasn’t to be found on Baopals, but a student found it for me on Taobao, at an astounding $7 a box. I tried the Betty Crocker brand on Baopals (considerably cheaper) and it was good enough for me.
Don’t think you can go into a convenience store and pick up a bag of Lays Classic. That’s an import. Lays “American Classic Flavor” is NOT the same. It makes my stomach hurt and after eating a snack size bag, the kind you’d put in a lunch kit, I had to go to the bathroom.
Coke and Snickers are Easy to Find, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Not So Much
Coke and Snickers are easy to find. Doritos may be steak-flavored, and so will the Cheetos. They also have cucumber-flavored potato chips too. If you want a taste of home, go to Baopals.com. It was started by expats in Shanghai who wanted other expats to have a taste of home. The company also has a good sense of humor. They have a weekly post called the “Cool, the Cheap, and the Crazy,” highlighting some truly ridiculous crap, some of it actually useful and worthwhile. They have great customer service as well. They deliver to the U.S.
I would maintain a U.S. banking account just to be on the safe side. And make sure the bank uses Zelle.
Chinese bank cards are good for 10 years. However, the U.S. bank cards usually expire every two to three years. I was in Beijing the last time my card expired. I had it sent via FedEx to the school, which kindly agreed to watch out for it.
China Post
This time, however, my detailed residence address didn’t work. Chinese mail is not like mail in the U.S. I wasn’t sure which post office handled mail for my apartment complex. After several weeks, I asked my credit union to send my card to the China Post located on campus. I requested it be sent FedEx, but the credit union said the China Post address wasn’t valid, probably because the China Post was on a street with no name, and the building had no number. So I requested it be sent regular mail, USPS to China Post, at the branch located at the college, in a dormitory. I asked my Chinese phone number be on the front so when China Post received it they could text me. (They never did.) But after checking two weeks in a row, it showed up.
My Traveling Mailbox
It’s not that I use the card to buy very much. But my Traveling Mailbox was paid via the card, and they had cancelled my account because of non-payment. I finally got it working again, but it seems everything else got paid via PayPal, or was directly taken out of my account. So I think I’ll set up PayPal for Traveling Mailbox, so I won’t have any more interruptions. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Google Play was paid via PayPal.
Bank Account with Zelle–Trust Me
The last time I’d used the card was to withdraw money because the college took two and a half months to pay me. Frantic that I was running out of money, I withdrew some cash from my U.S. account so I could still eat. I had no idea when I would get paid, so I had to make the money last.
The reason why you should have a home bank account with Zelle available is because of Swapsy. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
How much are eggs in China? About $3.62 for 30. Jealous yet?
Chinese pavement is frequently broken, in serious need of repair, or non-existent. Steps mysteriously rise out of concrete, so you really need to watch it at all times. What seemed like a level, continuous step can suddenly disappear.
What You Need to Know: A Horseback Riding Lesson
They tell you only what they think you need to know. And that can be frustrating if you want honest feedback. For the first time in decades, I took a trial horseback riding lesson. The guy who was teaching me said I was “a master.” It was nice to hear, but secretly I wondered. I remembered to post on the correct diagonal, and didn’t fall off, but I couldn’t quite get my horse to canter, even though the instructor gave me a whip easily a meter long. Too bad, because after that, I had to move to another city. I was planning to take lessons had my contract been renewed for the fall.
Wiring Money Home
Wiring money home is getting tougher than ever. And it’s easy to accumulate a half dozen bank accounts. Here’s why. My first school used China Construction Bank. I started an account there. Then, the school switched to Bank of China because it was more well-known and had branches in the United States. So, I got a Bank of China account, but never closed CCB. It was because CCB only required three documents to wire money home. Then, I got another job, but that school banked with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC for short. So I had bank account number three. A few jobs later, I got a China Merchants Bank account. Then, the job right after that banked with China Everbright Bank. So now I have five bank accounts. My current job banks with ICBC, but my WeChat is hooked up to China Merchants Bank.
You may wonder why they didn’t just put my salary into CMB. Well, that’s because, unlike in the United States, whatever bank your employer uses becomes YOUR bank too. Don’t have an account there? No worries, they’ll open one up for you. But because I like CMB, I didn’t switch my WeChat to ICBC. So every time I get paid, I have to transfer the majority of my ICBC balance to CMB.
But recently, when I tried to do a wire transfer to the U.S., the CMB in my new city was asking about the deposit I made right after I got paid. So now I had to get a print out of transactions from ICBC, even though I explained that I get paid via ICBC, but prefer to wire money home through CMB. So I also had to have a tax statement, and my contract, along with a print out from ICBC, as well as my check stubs, and the monthly proof of tax payment.
So when I did another wire transfer home, I waited until I went to Xiamen. I’d been working with one particular branch for well over a year, and they knew the drill. So I transferred some money home and no questions were asked.
This is another post to warn people that picking up and moving to a new country (like China) means there will be a period of adjustment. Trump has been in office for a week, and jaws are dropping at the executive orders he signed. This post is for those truly serious about moving to China and what to expect.
Don’t Drink the Tap Water
Tap water is NOT drinkable. You’ll see few drinking fountains in China. What they DO have are water stations dispensing hot (yes, hot) water. There are various types of water bottles here, and also tea bottles, which have perforated receptacles at the top. The receptacles are to put your loose tea in, so when you take a swig, the water is tea-flavored.
I’m more of a water person anyway, so what I do to save money is to freeze regular water bottles half full, then when I’m ready to leave the house, fill the rest with cold water that has been boiled and chilled in the refrigerator. That way, I have ice-cold water all day long. The Chinese aren’t really used to drinking cold water. The belief is that cold water is hard on the stomach. And if you stop at a convenience store to get cold water, it may actually be ice-cold, or it may be slightly chilled, or room temperature.
No Sugar with Your Tea
I rarely see sugar served with tea. So bring your own.
If you cherish salt and pepper, be sure to bring those along too. Chinese restaurants don’t serve seasonings at their tables. McDonald’s has salt if you ask for it. But it’s much easier to get a little jar with a screw-on lid, or a mini Ziploc bag (occasionally sold at MiniSo) and put some salt in it. This also goes for the western-themed restaurants. I ate at a Mexican restaurant the other day, and there weren’t any salt or pepper shakers on the table.
No Fat Chicks (or dudes) in Walmart
They have Walmart, but they don’t have the three-wheeled scooters so you can sit and shop. China may have an obesity epidemic, but I’m not seeing it. I can go literally for weeks or months before seeing someone really huge.
Great Walls, Even More Steps
Be prepared to climb steps. One school had my permanent classroom on the sixth floor of the school, with no elevator. And this was a very high end school, where everyone in the graduating class went to college. Most of them ended up at prestigious U.S. and U.K universities. Regardless, we all had to climb steps, although I gave my students a break and didn’t mark them late. I didn’t like slogging up those stairs either.
Speaking of steps, you have to climb quite a few of them to get to the Great Wall. And once you make it to the Great Wall, there are even more steps. The second time I went (I visited the Mutanyu section both times) I took the ski lift to the Great Wall. It’s about a five minute trip. Much better than the hour it took for me to climb the steps.
Want to get some cool mail from China? Check out my Patreon. For just $5 a month, you’ll get a postcard of my original photography, a fact about China, and some pretty stamps. You just need to subscibe and provide a snail mail address. Don’t worry, I won’t share your address!
I also have a YouTube channel: Nowaylaowai.home.blog
One of my former students asked me if I’d heard anything about American Tik Tok users coming over to RedNote, which is known in Chinese as Xiăo Hōng Shū, pronounced Zeeow hong shoe, or Little Red Book. I hadn’t heard anything, but a couple days after his message, got on YouTube (my main news outlet here) to check it out.
I used to be on Tik Tok. I can’t really understand the appeal of it. Plus, my account got deleted and I can’t figure out how to get it back. But I guess it’s a boon for small businesses. A rancher made a video, someone saw it, and asked if the cows in the background of the video were for sale. The rancher himself said Facebook and Instagram are dead, which doesn’t bode well for me. I can’t seem to figure out Tik Tok.
Tik Tok, on the Clock, but the party might stop
But the ban is alarming. In a country where it seems that everyone needs a second job JUST to survive, many people have been making bank on Tik Tok. And it’s helping small businesses. So after my students’ questions, I checked into it. I found that John Oliver of Last Week Tonight did an entire show on it. I watched some other videos too. (But not the Serpentza one.) And the looming ban seems to be sparking a cultural revolution.
It’s because Chinese and American citizens can talk to each other, uncensored. And from the comments I’ve seen on videos, people are welcoming this. The U.S. mainstream media seems to be nobody’s friend. It’s been building up, and ever since Luigi Mangione’s Robin Hood act, people are more leery and angry at the mainstream media. People rightly wonder how so many people can be so dumb. The MSM was aghast at Mangione’s vigilante justice, wondering how anyone could do such a thing. This hands-throwing in the air, and wondering what the motive was made everyone NOT in the media roll their eyes.
Mainstream Media isn’t telling you that you’ll hardly see any homeless people here
Because MSM knows. But like a sitcom, MSM wants to distract us from the REAL problems. Upset about working two jobs? Fear not! If you just score the right gigs, you’ll be able to retire at age 45—provided your wealthy parents will cover living expenses while you invest your entire paycheck on a drop-shipping business.
Mainstream media isn’t telling you that you can walk around cities like Beijing and Guangzhou and barely see any homeless people. Rents are cheap by American standards. I used to pay $392 a month for a two-bedroom apartment without utilities. Now I pay zero. Yes, my employer GAVE me an apartment. And it’s brand-new, not some rat hole in a terrible neighborhood. You can get a plate full of food at one of several hundreds of restaurants in any given area for $3-4. Bus rides are anywhere from 14 to 28 cents. The subway is probably $1.50 round trip where I need to go, and if you need to go a ways, you might pay $1.50 one way. And I don’t even think about being shot at anymore when I go for a walk.
Americans are getting a glimpse of a China they didn’t know existed. And some Americans are trying to learn Mandarin so they can better communicate.
A Peaceful cultural revolution?
Tik Tok refugees is what these people who are flocking to RedNote are calling themselves. And I’m not surprised there are lots of other problems in the United States, as well as other popular apps that are invading privacy, that are blissfully ignored because they AREN’T owned by China. But I’m guessing a majority of Tik Tok users don’t have much valuable information to steal. As one teenage girl said on Last Week Tonight, she didn’t give a shit.
But it gladdens my heart to see ordinary Americans and ordinary Chinese citizens talking to each other. I told my students Chinese food is very popular in America, but I felt Americans feared and disliked China in general. If the Tik Tok ban causes a peaceful cultural revolution for the 21st century, so be it.
Governments are the characters who want to turn ordinary citizens against each other, and against citizens of other countries who haven’t even met. From the love of American culture, I don’t think the Chinese have a beef with America or its culture OR its citizens. Maybe both sides might eye each other’s political systems with skepticism, but by talking with people who actually LIVE in those countries, we can find out from ordinary people, not the media, be it state-owned or mogul-owned, how things are really like. Nothing’s perfect anywhere, but China is definitely not some third-world hellhole the mainstream media describes it as being.
However, the longer I stay in China, the more the U.S. seems to be leaning into hellhole territory. I was watching videos of Kensington Avenue, a street in Philadelphia, birthplace of America, that truly looks like a failure of the American system. There’s no American dream there, just a nightmare.
Since I’m bad at Tik Tok, I’m begging for money here via Patreon
Hey there! Would you like to look forward to getting snail mail? Check out my Patreon–If you join for a mere $5 a month, send me your mailing address, and you’ll get a postcard every month featuring my original photography. If you like Elliott Erwitt’s photography, you might dig mine. I take pictures of dogs, cats, wacky signs, sunsets, cityscapes, found objects, and things that catch my eye.
The U.S. never fails to entertain. I’ve been watching fires devour southern California for days now and I’m wondering when the next CEO is going to take a bullet.
It could be the greedy suckers from one or perhaps a few of these companies:
Allstate
American National
AmGuard (stopped writing homeowner’s policies in 2023)
Chubb (CEO is Evan Greenberg) Its 2021 earnings call said it would “significantly reduce homeowner’s insurance in California.”
Who the Hell is Homesite? Or Falls Lake, for that matter?
Falls Lake Insurance
Farmer’s Insurance (WE are FARmers, bum de duh duh duh duh duh)
Nationwide (apparently NOT on your side, if you live in Cali. And if you do, you have until June 2025 until you find another carrier, ‘cause they’re gonna drop you then.)
State Farm
The Hartford (stopped issuing policies in early 2024)
Tokio Marine, and Trans Pacific (both owned by Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc)
Travelers (stopped issuing policies in 2022 and 2023.)
Because I’m a vindictive bitch, I was kind of interested to see Vera Bradley, a company based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is on rough times right now.
I came across this article on my Facebook feed yesterday.
In case you don’t know, Vera Bradley makes handbags, accessories and luggage. I’m a handbag girl myself, but if Vera Bradley had approached me over 40 years ago for investment money (not that I had any) I would have said no. I thought the bags were ugly, and a friend described them as “overpriced, glorified diaper bags.”
Diaper bags or no, the company took off worldwide and made millions.
Shows you what I know.
Vera Bradley, hometown status symbol
Vera Bradley became a status symbol and highly prized by a group of women and young girls, of all ages, ethnicities, and races. I worked part-time for the Fort Wayne Reader for 14 years, and I wrote a column about how much I hated the bags, then I did a deep dive and went to the outlet sale and interviewed several people about the appeal of Vera Bradley. Shit, I was shocked to visit a relative in Puerto Rico and was confronted with a suspiciously familiar patterned bag. I looked closer, and yes, at the very bottom, in a corner was “Vera Bradley.” I asked my relative about the bag, and one of her daughters had bought it for her. She gushed about it—she loved it.
The Midwest’s Birkin Bag
I loved doing research for the article; going to the famous outlet sale, watching women paw through dozens of items, picking up a gloriously tacky plastic purse that should have been at the dollar store (It was selling for $10.99 at the sale) hearing about the fistfights and black eyes, but I still didn’t understood what the appeal was. The bold, busy patterns didn’t really go with any outfit and couldn’t be described as “classic”—these weren’t Birkin bags, or even a discounted Coach tote. The patterns turned me off.
Years ago in China, I went into a small store and found a bunch of little makeup bags and Ipsy pouches, and discounted pencil bags, and yes, some Vera Bradley coin purses. (I scooped up the Ipsy bags—the pale pink Ipsy x Valfre Halloween-themed one—for $1.40 each) but left the VB alone.
Ironically, one of VB’s biggest investors, from Puerto Rico, advised the company to do SOMETHING. Either go private or let them buy it.
Born in Fort Wayne, Made in China
In doing research for the article, I found that some former fans of VB weren’t so ardent about the company anymore. Once made in Fort Wayne, the company moved overseas. At the outlet sale, I got to compare a U.S. made item with its Chinese counterpart. The stitching on both the Chinese-made bag and the U.S. made bag was questionable. And Connie Gumbel was angry that a company that got its start in Fort Wayne was abandoning an American workforce for cheaper overseas labor: “Don’t take the people that supported you and take it over to China and pretend you are doing someone a favor when you’re not.”
When I asked about the labor outsourcing, I was told by Judy O’Dwyer, “The cost of the items would be significantly higher if made in the USA,” she said. “In the interest of global economy, I’m happy to have developing nations have the manufacturing business. Based on my professional experience as a director of a workforce development program at Ohio State University, many Americans are unwilling to train for manufacturing jobs, especially those kinds of jobs which are considered low-skill jobs.”
I think more people would consider training and working a “low-skill job” if they knew that low-skill job wouldn’t be sent to China.
But what’s ironic is that VB isn’t cheap. If a set of luggage normally went for $330 back in 2013 and was Chinese made, what would it have gone for if it had been made in the United States?
I just don’t understand the appeal
I took a quick look at their website and noticed all the patterned bags were shown with models wearing solid color clothing. Good call. Because there’s no outfit on earth, patterned or not, that goes with a VB bag. It’s nice to see they have some plain, solid color bags in conservative colors, but I just don’t get it. No matter if it’s backpacks, duffels, “party” bags, pajamas, or frumpy-looking tops with yes, quilted patterns on the top with a solid bottom—not exactly figure-flattering—I just don’t understand the appeal.
The company lost nearly $13 million in fiscal third quarter 2025, but supposedly doesn’t have any debt.
Want to read the letter Fund 1 wrote to VB? Check it out here.
Classic leather cross body bags, and a link to Luigi
As for my handbag style, I prefer classic leather cross body bags, although I’ve been using a nylon orange backpack for day-to-day stuff. It’s big enough for everything I need. But when I want to keep stuff to a minimum, I rely on one of these. The brown one was $15, not sure how much the red one cost, but it was probably the same price. I got them at a leather wholesalers in Guangzhou. I was so dumb, I didn’t realize I couldn’t just buy one brown bag. I felt that $45 was too much for one bag until it was explained to me that it was $45 for three bags. Fifteen dollars?!!! I’ll take THREE!
And if VB had started out with these kind of bags, I would have invested.
Their loss.
I’m on Medium. Read my feelings about Luigi Mangione here.
No Way! Laowai! 
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