What Is It Like to Live in China?

Is China Really as Bad as the Media Says?

China has a brutal reputation in Western media. The vast majority of what you see is negative, and a lot of guys are genuinely afraid to come, they think they'll land and get captured by the Chinese government for being American. People half expect me to be some communist spy who hates American freedom. It's nonsense.

I'm a Black American who's lived here happily for a decade. The picture in your head, the super-strict, joyless, dangerous communist place, does not match the life I actually live. There are a lot of falsehoods out there. Give China a fair shot and ignore the noise, and what you find is very different from the headline.

What Are People in China Actually Like?

Here's something nobody warns you about, in a good way. It's easy to make real friends here.

I grew up in the South, Georgia and Arkansas, and I never clicked with the people around me. I had a bit of an international childhood (my mom was military, so I spent a few years in Germany), and back home I just couldn't link up. Out here it's the opposite. The people who move to China are already open-minded, already wired to travel, already living outside their comfort zone. So you find your people fast.

And that changes everything. Back in America, a lot of guys can't even get their friends to commit to a trip, they flake at the last second. Out here, my crew already lives overseas, so we organize real international trips together. The friendships I've built in China are why I'm never doing this alone.

The social life backs that up. I know a lot of you guys go out to the club back home and it's dead, nobody wants to talk, the night's a wash. That was my experience too in a small college town in Arkansas, a real mixed bag. Out here it's the opposite. Just about any night of the week I can go out, meet people, and have a genuinely good time. People warn you China is some joyless, super-strict place. The nightlife and the social scene tell a completely different story.

What Is Daily Life Like in China?

Here's something that catches every American off guard: China is almost entirely cashless. You pay for basically everything with your phone, a quick QR code scan through WeChat Pay or Alipay, from a shopping mall down to the guy selling fruit on the corner. No wallet, no fumbling for coins. It sounds like a small thing until you live it, and then pulling out a physical card back home feels ancient.

That digital convenience runs through everything. You order food, hail a ride, split a bill, pay your rent, top up your phone, all from the same couple of apps. For a foreigner it takes a little setup and then it just disappears into the background. The day-to-day here is modern and convenient, which is the opposite of what the headlines would have you believe.

It also makes your money easy to see. When every transaction is logged in an app, you actually know where your cash goes, which matters a lot when the whole point of being here is the gap between what you earn and what you spend.

Do You Need a Car to Get Around in China?

You don't need a car here, and not having one quietly saves you a fortune. No car payment, no insurance, no gas, no parking. A metro ride or a cheap rideshare gets you across a massive city for next to nothing, and it's clean, fast, and runs late.

Between cities, China's high-speed rail is the part Americans can't believe. It's fast, it's cheap, and it goes basically everywhere, the kind of network that makes US travel feel like a joke. You can be in a totally different part of the country in a few hours for the price of a nice dinner back home. That ease of movement is a big reason I never feel stuck.

Is There Culture Shock When You Move to China?

Let me be real about the culture shock, because it's the part guys underestimate. Chinese culture runs on its own customs and cultural norms, and at first the everyday life feels foreign. Tipping isn't a thing, social rules are different, and Chinese people can be direct in ways that surprise a lot of Western newcomers. None of it is bad. It's just different, and a little effort to learn Chinese goes a long way.

The Language Wall

The language is the real wall. Most locals outside the big cities don't speak English, so early on you'll lean on a translation app until you pick up enough to speak Mandarin for daily stuff. Plenty of foreign teachers and foreign workers get by without fluency, but the more Chinese you learn, the deeper the real China opens up.

The Food Is Its Own Adjustment

In a good way. Real Chinese food at neighborhood Chinese restaurants is nothing like the Western food version back home, and trying everything is half the fun of living in China. There's even a deep tea culture worth getting into. Want a Western night instead? The big cities have plenty of Western spots too.

Do You Need a VPN to Live in China?

China's internet is walled off, so a lot of Western sites and apps are blocked. Nearly every foreigner I know runs a virtual private network (a VPN) to reach the tools they're used to. It's routine, not dramatic. Just get it set up before you arrive and everyday life online feels normal again.

Is China a Good Base for Traveling Asia?

This one surprised me. Living in China is like parking yourself at the center of Asia.

Cheap flights everywhere. I once caught a one-way from Chengdu to Bangkok for about $105. You can be in a completely different country and culture in under four hours. Domestic travel is just as good, fast, cheap, and easy across a massive country, and China is so varied that ten years in, I still haven't seen it all. The culture and the whole environment can shift completely from one part of the country to the next. If I ever got bored of my city, Chengdu, I could jump to a totally different part of China, like Hainan, the island province, which feels a lot like Thailand. You don't get stuck. You get options. Thinking about the move itself? I covered it in moving to China.

Honestly, I think a lot of people who grow up in Asia take this for granted. I once flew a Chinese friend to Bangkok and she shrugged, just another Asian city to her. Me? I was blown away, a completely different vibe a short flight from home. As a foreigner you actually feel how rare that is. I can take a trip basically every week if I want, and it's not a big deal.

The part I'm chewing on now is Hainan, the island province down south. The lifestyle there is comparable to Thailand, so I could have a full beach life and still be in China, still speaking Chinese day to day. That's the thing people miss about this country: it's so vast that you can completely change your life without ever leaving it.

How Much Does It Cost to Live in China?

Let me put real numbers on it, because the low cost of living is what makes the whole lifestyle work. Using average figures from Numbeo, here is roughly what a month looks like outside the megacities, in US dollars.

• Rent, one-bedroom: about $225 a month outside the centre, closer to $375 in a major city centre. Plenty of teaching jobs cover housing or pay an allowance, which can zero this bucket out.
• Food: a meal at an inexpensive local restaurant is about $3. Eat mostly local and your monthly food bill stays tiny.
• Local transport: a monthly pass is around $21, single rides are pocket change.
• Utilities and internet: roughly $50 for power, water, heating and cooling, plus about $10 for fast broadband.

Add it up and a comfortable life lands well under $1,000 a month outside the megacities, and a teaching salary covers it with room to save. I broke the full breakdown down in cost of living in China.

Which City in China Should You Live In?

The single biggest thing that swings your cost and your lifestyle isn't how you live, it's which city you choose. On Numbeo's averages, the megacities like Beijing and Shanghai run far higher than a second-tier city like Chengdu, and the gap shows up mostly in rent.

If saving is the goal, skip the megacities. A city like Chengdu, Xi'an, or Kunming gives you the same strong teaching salary against a much lower cost of living, and they're great places to live in their own right, not some downgrade. The number on a cost-of-living index page lumps the whole country together and hides this, so the country average is never really your number. Your city is.

Can You Make Good Money Living in China?

Here's the part that makes the rest possible. I've taught English here for 10 years, and there's such an abundance of teaching jobs that going broke has never been a real fear. The cost of living is low and a teaching salary sits well above it, so every month I'm running a profit. I broke the actual numbers down in cost of living in China.

That buys the thing money is actually for: time. For years my university job was two days a week with over four months of paid vacation, and that's before the public holidays the whole country gets. My friends joke that I don't really work, and honestly, compared to most people, I don't. All that free time is real time for travel, hobbies, and building things on the side. This is plain geoarbitrage, a strong salary against a low cost of living.

Is China Safe to Live In?

This is the one I didn't expect to matter so much, and it's the fear that keeps most guys home. So let me back it with more than my opinion. On Numbeo's crime index, China consistently scores as one of the safer countries in the world, with a high safety rating and a low crime rating, comfortably ahead of the United States on both. That matches my decade on the ground exactly.

I'm not worried about random violence, about someone running up on me, about the stuff that quietly stresses a lot of guys back home. I don't have to think about going outside and catching some extra bullet holes in my wardrobe. I know a lot of you wish you could say the same, and out here it's just real. I can be free.

My anxiety is low. I'm in the best shape of my life, exercising regularly, just generally healthier. I genuinely believe living here has stretched my lifespan, probably by at least 10 years, purely from how much my stress levels dropped. Safety and peace of mind sound boring until you've lived without them. Worried about the safety question specifically? Watch the video above, I go straight at it.

What Are the Downsides of Living in China?

It's not all easy, and I won't pretend it was. When I first got here it was rough. There's a real language barrier, and there are cultural differences you have to learn to read. None of it is a dealbreaker, it fades as you settle in, but China asks more of you up front than a place that rolls out the carpet for first-timers. China gives you the biggest upside if you're ready for a real adventure.

And here's the freeing part: you're never locked in. I could jump to a totally different part of China whenever I wanted, and Hainan, the island province, honestly has a vibe comparable to Thailand. China can be your home base or your launch pad into the rest of Asia. If you're weighing it against somewhere like Thailand, I broke those numbers down in cost of living in Thailand.

How Do You Actually Move to China?

You don't just show up and hope. You line up a reason to be here first, and for most guys that reason is English teaching. A teaching job gets you the income and a soft landing, and there's such an abundance of it that going broke was never a real fear for me. You don't need a fortune, you need a job and a plane ticket. From there, the real life opens up.

Why teaching specifically? Because it solves the two things that actually stop people: money and legal status. There's a huge, steady demand for English teachers in China, the pay is strong against the local cost of living, and a school will typically help you get set up when you arrive instead of dropping you in the deep end. Online teaching stacks on top of that and pays well per hour, so a lot of guys run both. It's the closest thing to a cheat code Americans have for getting overseas.

And the income is real. My own university job covered my entire life on roughly two days a week, with over four months of paid vacation on top. Stack a salary like that against a cost of living around $660 a month and you see why I say the money out here is basically profit. For years, going broke was never a fear, because the work was always there. If you're brand new to all this, start with what English teaching actually is.

Job first, then the adventure.

Frequently Asked Questions