---
type: Country
title: China
description: Harry's observations from China — Alipay-only payments, blocked Western internet, marriage markets, surveillance locals defend, and infrastructure he rates ahead of the West's.
tags: [china, east-asia, shanghai, surveillance, transport]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# China

Harry visited China in early 2024, spending time in
[Shanghai](/places/shanghai.md) on a six-day transit visa, and returned in 2026.
He frames the first trip explicitly against the statistic that 73% of people in
Western countries hold unfavourable views of the country.

## Observations

### From [I Rented a Chinese Girlfriend in Shanghai 🇨🇳](/videos/4VzMQYqcZKs.md)

- **Internet**: YouTube, Instagram, and other Western platforms are blocked.
  Locals use VPNs; a foreign phone with a foreign eSIM works without one —
  Harry's did.
- **Payments**: everything runs on Alipay by phone; Harry's foreign bank
  card was nearly unusable. Sort out mobile payment before you need it.
- **Dating and family**: the one-child policy's gender imbalance helped
  spawn rent-a-girlfriend services; parents still pressure children to marry
  early, but urban young people increasingly stay single. The one-child
  policy itself has been lifted (around a year before Harry's visit (from
  video – unverified)).
- **Speech**: locals won't criticise the government on camera — "I love
  China" is the only safe on-record answer; honest opinions come off camera.
  A subscriber contrasted this with India and the UK, where you can say what
  you like. See [expect a script on camera](/tips/expect-a-script-on-camera.md).
- **Safety**: low crime, friendly police, and advanced transport — a
  subscriber rated China's infrastructure ahead of the other countries he'd
  travelled.
- **Customs**: drinking water is served hot, for health. China is
  multilingual beyond Mandarin — Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hakka.
- **Money and costs**: Harry's full rented-date day cost 1,400 yuan, about
  $200; the Oriental Pearl Tower was $56 (from video – unverified).

### From [I Ignored the Media and Visited China 🇨🇳](/videos/K3X46veg64I.md)

- **Six-day transit visas are available on arrival**, which is how this trip
  runs.
- **Infrastructure is the first thing you notice** — a 270 mph maglev covering
  the airport run in eight minutes, and Harry's flat statement that Chinese
  transport is ahead of the UK's and the US's.
- **Electric vehicles are around 40% of usage**, Teslas are cheapest in the world
  here because the factory is outside Shanghai, and number plates are colour
  coded: green electric, blue petrol.
- **The one-child policy is now a three-child policy**, in response to
  population decline.
- **Communist Party membership is hard to obtain** — about 97 million people,
  under 10% of the population.
- **Surveillance is a trade people say they accept.** Asked directly, locals
  report near-zero crime and the ability to walk anywhere at any hour as the
  return on it. Harry records both his own discomfort and their answer.
- **On the limits of what people can know**: Harry's guide says many Chinese are
  becoming more nationalistic, that access to outside information is limited, and
  that where state media is the only view available people are easily misled.
- **Western brands are aspirational** rather than resented, and a middle class
  Harry's guide describes as looking for a new identity queues round the block
  for them.
- **Marriage markets** are a real institution: parents advertise their adult
  children's age, height, weight and job in a park, and brokers take a commission
  on a match.
- **Being gay** is manageable in Shanghai and among the young, and very hard in a
  small city or with family.
- **Handshakes are soft**, and can seal an agreement without paperwork.
- **On the dog-eating stereotype**, the answer Harry gets and endorses: 1.4
  billion people eat many things, famine has driven people everywhere to it, and
  in Shanghai people dote on their dogs.
- **Religion**, per Harry's figures: roughly a third agnostic or atheist, 16%
  Buddhist, 7% Christian, 1.7% Muslim.
- **Fake goods** come straight from the factory, and the sellers will raise the
  price mid-negotiation to test you. Walking out worked.

### From [I Went to One of the Wealthiest and Most Advanced Cities](/videos/T263hFcMBoA.md)

- **One country, two systems is a real border.** [Macau](/places/macau.md) and
  [Hong Kong](/places/hong-kong.md) each run their own currency, legal system,
  immigration and passports, and moving between them and the mainland is a
  crossing each time. Cars near Macau carry two or three number plates for
  exactly this reason.
- **Entry is easier than its reputation.** UK passports are now visa-free for the
  mainland outright; otherwise 54 countries qualify for a **240-hour transit
  visa** with an onward ticket, entering one way and leaving another — see
  [use a transit visa](/tips/use-a-transit-visa.md).
- **Growth at a scale that has no Western comparison**:
  [Shenzhen](/places/shenzhen.md) was a town of 30,000 in 1980 and is over 17
  million now, on the back of Deng Xiaoping's first special economic zone.
- **New technology launches in Shenzhen first**, which is why it looks unlike the
  rest of the country: driverless taxis at 2.4 yuan a ride, drone food delivery,
  powered walking exoskeletons on sale in malls.
- **Much of it is gated behind a Chinese ID card**, including the driverless-taxi
  app, which effectively excludes a foreigner travelling alone.
- **The high-speed rail network** runs 45,000 km at up to 350 km/h with 95%
  on-time performance, tickets bought on Trip.com and travelled on your passport,
  and — the detail Harry singles out — **fares priced by distance rather than by
  demand**.
- **Hong Kong feels Western where the mainland doesn't**: Google, Facebook and
  Instagram all work, and far more people speak English.
- **The colonial histories are the reason all three exist**: Portugal took Macau
  as a trading post in 1557, Britain took Hong Kong after the Opium War, and both
  were built as gateways to China for European trade.