Definitely. I spent several years living in a South American country, one that is considered almost “high income” for the region. Uruguay. Now back in the States I still recognize how much less we USA folks could live on if our society was not so pushed by constant consumption by the corporatocracy’s propaganda.
Learning to think in another language. Learning how even everyday things like doors and locks are different. Feeling distant from yet also slowly growing into that new to me culture
Smaller space, more use of renewables for heat, cooking, electric generation. Smaller cars than the giants on US roads that everybody here seems to “need”. Yet many of those very small cars are indeed USA street legal if Hyundai/KIA, GM, etc imported the Brasil-Made Chevrolet Onyx, the Argentina-made small Chevrolets, the South American KIA Picanto, VW “city car” the Volkswagen Up! (Already on EU streets in an even smaller version)
Grocery stores with more home made and store made products. Yet without the massive duplication we have of entire aisles of breakfast cereals, soaps, etc. There was a reasonably broad degree of consumer choices but not the overwhelming and ridiculous amount here.
People shopping in small amounts for what they need that day. Rather than huge hauls from Costco?
And the universal and affordable healthcare. Which was not the single-payer free-at-service nonsense that some US politicians claim everywhere in the world’ has. (Dear Bernie, NOBODY in the world has that!) Paid out of your local social security tax equivalent if employed, or about $60 US per month to buy into it if neither employed nor on benefits. Small “ticket charges” for physicians, labs, imaging, and about a $40 US ticket charge for the hospital ER. ZERO charge for hospital stay and all labs, tests, etc during that stay.
Mandatory voting with real competing parties and coalitions of parties. Military used almost only for UN peacekeeping.
There were frustrating times, and I personally had family reasons to return. But I still miss it, and sometimes envy those of my Uruguayan friends who could afford to travel to the US and my US friends that could afford homes in Uruguay while keeping a home also in the US.
One learns in ones bones that the US way is not the only way.
Brazilian here, your point about cars is very nice, but, as much as compact hatches are still the biggest sellers, Brazil has unfortunately been suffering very hard with the whole “SUVfication” bullshit. It’s to the point where some car manufacturers will just make a small hatch family car slightly larger, give it like 3 more inches of ground clearance, somewhat bigger wheels, and then call it an SUV, and all the soccer moms flock to it like lemmings (this is the entire philosophy behind the Renault Kardian. It’s literally just a Gen III Dacia Sandero with different body panels and lights that is a little taller off the ground).
The grocery thing is probably the universal experience when moving from a country where the average person has a high disposable income to low. There are simply more choices.
The grocery thing is probably the universal experience when moving from a country where the average person has a high disposable income to low. There are simply more choices.
I mean, if you are traveling as a tourist, things seem cheap, but to a local who works there, maybe not.
Westerners always say China is very cheap to visit, but as a former Guangzhou resident, when I was a kid, my parents had to work all the time and I rarely got to spend time with them. And we lived in a very shitty slum neighborhood. Locals don’t really share the same experience.
I think the people who are on work visas are just doing English teaching, very comfortable job, or maybe even some “White Monkey Job” that pays a lot.
Most Chinese people cannot teach English… so there’s that…
Wait I thought this was about Brazil and the USA. I know there are shopping malls in some big tier one cities that are primarily aimed for tourists and that’s another story but I meant local grocery stores outside the big cities and then compare that between Brazil and USA or some other lower disposal income country than the US
Tbh I don’t even feel safe re-visiting, unless I get magically body-swapped into a white dude or something.
From what I’ve heard, ethnic Chinese holding foreign citizenship still effectively gets treated as Chinese. I’m more likely to get exit-banned than some random white dude.
Also, I kinda feel sus about my parents. They jokingly threatened to send me back to China because “The West” is becoming “harmful” to me… I’m like… bitch what you mean… you literally brought me here, the fuck?
I read some news about involuntary psychiatric treatments and I’m just terrified af. I’m pretty sure they have connections back home.
My fear is that, and to be clear, this is just my own fears, not saying that this will happen, but I fear that my parents could get me exit-banned and bribe some corrupt doctor to declare me insane or something and force involuntary ECT or someshit like that and wipe my memories of their emotional abuse/neglect. But again, that’s just my fears, I hope they aren’t secretly that controlling/manipulative.
Here in the US, they are nobodys, they don’t have the Guanxi to do weird things, so its harder for them to weaponize the government’s tentacles against me. Things have to go through the courts and unlike China, they can’t just do involuntary treatments without a court order.
Sometimes my mom forgets we’re in the US and still try shenanigans with the court system, I’ve seen it first hand, fucking crying in court because she got an unfavorable judgement. Bruh, shenanigans don’t work here. (not unless you’re part of the 1%, which we are not)
From my experience"from what I’ve heard" stuff can be unreliable, although in your circumstances, sounds like you’re best playing it safe. There were cases in China of children being institutionalised for BS like videogame addiction. There’s also the chance though that they fixed that problem. For example, I was warned against smog in Beijing, I arrived and there were trees everywhere and half the cars were electric. Turns out they fixed the problem (although the city didn’t have the freshest of air but I didn’t have any adverse health impact from a temporary visit). I had heard stuff about Christian Persecution there, legally churches do need to be state sanctioned, but people claimed such churches were just propaganda arms/theatres for an illusion of a right to religious belief. I went to a church there and the way the service was carried out had it’s unique aspects, but the actual content of what was being preached wasn’t any different or concerning from what churches would preach here in the UK. There was no politics mentioned except a Chinese flag sitting outside the building and a poster tucked in the corner outside talking about “socialist values” which translated wasn’t really anything alarming from a theological standpoint.
Further research indicated the reason why Opendoors (an organisation commonly cited regarding Christian Persecution) put them in the “red” category was due to Xinjiang and Tibet where family or community members may not take kindly to an apostasy from their traditional religions, as opposed to state persecution.
Sure, China isn’t ideal but I have seen people over exaggerate stuff. It is advised if you renounced Chinese citizenship to always carry proof with you from what I’ve heard.
My fear is that, and to be clear, this is just my own fears, not saying that this will happen, but I fear that my parents could get me exit-banned and bribe some corrupt doctor to declare me insane or something and force involuntary ECT or someshit like that and wipe my memories of their emotional abuse/neglect. But again, that’s just my fears, I hope they aren’t secretly that controlling/manipulative.
Here in the US, they are nobodys, they don’t have the Guanxi to do weird things, so its harder for them to weaponize the government’s tentacles against me. Things have to go through the courts and unlike China, they can’t just do involuntary treatments without a court order.
Well… as long as you’re not a teenager. I had pretty similar fears growing up in a conservative Christian family that my parents might send me to some camp like that. The “troubled teen industry” is very unregulated and has seen a lot of cases of child abuse and even deaths, and kids can end up there for any reason at all, it just takes parental consent. I didn’t dare tell them when I was having doubts about God until long after I had moved out and had completely left that shit behind. If they thought I was going to spend eternity in Hell there’s no telling what they might have done, and they also probably didn’t even know about all the abuse and stuff that happens there and wouldn’t have listened to me if I tried to talk my way out of it. It was pretty terrifying, and probably contributed to my far-left political views today.
If I leave, I would never be able to gain such close access to fuck shit up. xD
But seriously tho, this is on of the problems of known danger vs unknown dangers, I know who these people are, I can plan accordingly. I don’t think living with stangers as roommates would help my mental health. I tried living on campus once, my depression went from 10/100 to 110/100. So I had to withdraw.
Definitely. I spent several years living in a South American country, one that is considered almost “high income” for the region. Uruguay. Now back in the States I still recognize how much less we USA folks could live on if our society was not so pushed by constant consumption by the corporatocracy’s propaganda.
Learning to think in another language. Learning how even everyday things like doors and locks are different. Feeling distant from yet also slowly growing into that new to me culture
Smaller space, more use of renewables for heat, cooking, electric generation. Smaller cars than the giants on US roads that everybody here seems to “need”. Yet many of those very small cars are indeed USA street legal if Hyundai/KIA, GM, etc imported the Brasil-Made Chevrolet Onyx, the Argentina-made small Chevrolets, the South American KIA Picanto, VW “city car” the Volkswagen Up! (Already on EU streets in an even smaller version)
Grocery stores with more home made and store made products. Yet without the massive duplication we have of entire aisles of breakfast cereals, soaps, etc. There was a reasonably broad degree of consumer choices but not the overwhelming and ridiculous amount here.
People shopping in small amounts for what they need that day. Rather than huge hauls from Costco?
And the universal and affordable healthcare. Which was not the single-payer free-at-service nonsense that some US politicians claim everywhere in the world’ has. (Dear Bernie, NOBODY in the world has that!) Paid out of your local social security tax equivalent if employed, or about $60 US per month to buy into it if neither employed nor on benefits. Small “ticket charges” for physicians, labs, imaging, and about a $40 US ticket charge for the hospital ER. ZERO charge for hospital stay and all labs, tests, etc during that stay.
Mandatory voting with real competing parties and coalitions of parties. Military used almost only for UN peacekeeping.
There were frustrating times, and I personally had family reasons to return. But I still miss it, and sometimes envy those of my Uruguayan friends who could afford to travel to the US and my US friends that could afford homes in Uruguay while keeping a home also in the US.
One learns in ones bones that the US way is not the only way.
Brazilian here, your point about cars is very nice, but, as much as compact hatches are still the biggest sellers, Brazil has unfortunately been suffering very hard with the whole “SUVfication” bullshit. It’s to the point where some car manufacturers will just make a small hatch family car slightly larger, give it like 3 more inches of ground clearance, somewhat bigger wheels, and then call it an SUV, and all the soccer moms flock to it like lemmings (this is the entire philosophy behind the Renault Kardian. It’s literally just a Gen III Dacia Sandero with different body panels and lights that is a little taller off the ground).
The grocery thing is probably the universal experience when moving from a country where the average person has a high disposable income to low. There are simply more choices.
I mean, if you are traveling as a tourist, things seem cheap, but to a local who works there, maybe not.
Westerners always say China is very cheap to visit, but as a former Guangzhou resident, when I was a kid, my parents had to work all the time and I rarely got to spend time with them. And we lived in a very shitty slum neighborhood. Locals don’t really share the same experience.
I think the people who are on work visas are just doing English teaching, very comfortable job, or maybe even some “White Monkey Job” that pays a lot.
Most Chinese people cannot teach English… so there’s that…
Wait I thought this was about Brazil and the USA. I know there are shopping malls in some big tier one cities that are primarily aimed for tourists and that’s another story but I meant local grocery stores outside the big cities and then compare that between Brazil and USA or some other lower disposal income country than the US
I love visiting China but I don’t really see much of a reason to want to live there
Tbh I don’t even feel safe re-visiting, unless I get magically body-swapped into a white dude or something.
From what I’ve heard, ethnic Chinese holding foreign citizenship still effectively gets treated as Chinese. I’m more likely to get exit-banned than some random white dude.
Also, I kinda feel sus about my parents. They jokingly threatened to send me back to China because “The West” is becoming “harmful” to me… I’m like… bitch what you mean… you literally brought me here, the fuck?
I read some news about involuntary psychiatric treatments and I’m just terrified af. I’m pretty sure they have connections back home.
My fear is that, and to be clear, this is just my own fears, not saying that this will happen, but I fear that my parents could get me exit-banned and bribe some corrupt doctor to declare me insane or something and force involuntary ECT or someshit like that and wipe my memories of their emotional abuse/neglect. But again, that’s just my fears, I hope they aren’t secretly that controlling/manipulative.
Here in the US, they are nobodys, they don’t have the Guanxi to do weird things, so its harder for them to weaponize the government’s tentacles against me. Things have to go through the courts and unlike China, they can’t just do involuntary treatments without a court order.
Sometimes my mom forgets we’re in the US and still try shenanigans with the court system, I’ve seen it first hand, fucking crying in court because she got an unfavorable judgement. Bruh, shenanigans don’t work here. (not unless you’re part of the 1%, which we are not)
From my experience"from what I’ve heard" stuff can be unreliable, although in your circumstances, sounds like you’re best playing it safe. There were cases in China of children being institutionalised for BS like videogame addiction. There’s also the chance though that they fixed that problem. For example, I was warned against smog in Beijing, I arrived and there were trees everywhere and half the cars were electric. Turns out they fixed the problem (although the city didn’t have the freshest of air but I didn’t have any adverse health impact from a temporary visit). I had heard stuff about Christian Persecution there, legally churches do need to be state sanctioned, but people claimed such churches were just propaganda arms/theatres for an illusion of a right to religious belief. I went to a church there and the way the service was carried out had it’s unique aspects, but the actual content of what was being preached wasn’t any different or concerning from what churches would preach here in the UK. There was no politics mentioned except a Chinese flag sitting outside the building and a poster tucked in the corner outside talking about “socialist values” which translated wasn’t really anything alarming from a theological standpoint.
Further research indicated the reason why Opendoors (an organisation commonly cited regarding Christian Persecution) put them in the “red” category was due to Xinjiang and Tibet where family or community members may not take kindly to an apostasy from their traditional religions, as opposed to state persecution.
Sure, China isn’t ideal but I have seen people over exaggerate stuff. It is advised if you renounced Chinese citizenship to always carry proof with you from what I’ve heard.
Well… as long as you’re not a teenager. I had pretty similar fears growing up in a conservative Christian family that my parents might send me to some camp like that. The “troubled teen industry” is very unregulated and has seen a lot of cases of child abuse and even deaths, and kids can end up there for any reason at all, it just takes parental consent. I didn’t dare tell them when I was having doubts about God until long after I had moved out and had completely left that shit behind. If they thought I was going to spend eternity in Hell there’s no telling what they might have done, and they also probably didn’t even know about all the abuse and stuff that happens there and wouldn’t have listened to me if I tried to talk my way out of it. It was pretty terrifying, and probably contributed to my far-left political views today.
Sounds like you need to move out. Maybe try a flatshare if money is tight
Keeping enemies close in case I want revenge.
If I leave, I would never be able to gain such close access to fuck shit up. xD
But seriously tho, this is on of the problems of known danger vs unknown dangers, I know who these people are, I can plan accordingly. I don’t think living with stangers as roommates would help my mental health. I tried living on campus once, my depression went from 10/100 to 110/100. So I had to withdraw.