u/ups_and_downs973

Indonesia is making influencers get proper work visas

I know that this is kind of a stupid question because the obvious answer is just delete it but we all know how isolating life in China can be and Instagram is unfortunately still my main means of communication with friends and some family back home.

I enjoy posting every now and then and people back home have expressed interest in seeing what I'm up to but the net negative massively outweighs the positive. Since moving to China, like everyone, my screentime has shot up and I am so damn sick of seeing laowai influencers' absolute slop being pushed to me *constantly*. That combined with all the other shit going on in the news and around the world and I can see in myself that social media is not good for me right now. It's making me bitter, jealous, and just generally unhappy.

I've taken social media breaks before but I feel like doing so here will feel a lot more isolating and I enjoy my conversations with people back home.

Has anyone gone cold turkey on social media here? How did it go and did it work?

Look I get it, the vast majority of people have never and probably will never visit China so to them maybe using a qr code to order food or seeing an electric scooter deliver waimai is some other worldly experience but I genuinely think if I see another American or English person act like they're Marco Polo, as if they've just discovered Asia and are reporting back to the western world for the very first time because they see some ayi selling fruit on the side of the road or visit the same exact photo location that every other tiktoker for the last five years has been to in Shanghai and Chongqing I genuinely might bash my head in.

"Just ignore it" " what does it matter to you" "who cares" ... Yeah I get it. But also, fuck that. These people are literally making money from the most mundane bullshit which for any of us who live here is just daily life, and then acting like they're some gracious oracle delivering priceless information to the masses.

I detest travel influencers outright but I genuinely think China travel influencers may be the worst of the bunch because with the exception of a very few select, the vast majority have no fucking idea what they're talking about and are just rehashing the same shitty information over and over again.

Anyway. That's my weekly rant done. I feel better now.

I am expecting next year to be my last in China (for now) and after four years here I've travelled pretty extensively around the country. The final frontier for me is also the most complicated. I've wanted to visit Tibet forever, and I've been throughout Sichuan and Yunnan along the border but I really want to actually get to Lhasa and beyond before I leave.

Has anyone here been to Tibet? How did you find and choose a tour/guide and how much roughly did they charge? I really hate the idea of taking a guided tour but I recognize that's likely the only option. I absolutely detest the Chinese-style tours of being herded around like cattle, following a flag and a megaphone so that's an absolute no-go for me.

The other issue is when. I, like many others, work in teaching, meaning my holiday options are limited to the worst times to travel and Tibet is double trouble because flying directly to Lhasa for a short trip runs the risk of altitude sickness.

I'd appreciate any advice or anecdotal evidence about how best to squeeze a visit in before I leave roughly this time next year.

I have been a ride or die 老干妈 fan since even before I moved to China and literally always have a jar of it at home to use on just about everything but I recently bought a tub of some homemade chilli oil in the Muslim district of Xi'an and it is so good. It's spicy, slightly numbing, has peanuts in it, the works!

I was then grocery shopping last week and noticed there are so many different chilli oils on the shelves and I've just always defaulted to lao gan ma. I now feel inspired to try through as many different brands and styles as I can to find my definitive favourite, and so I am turning to you all for recommendations on where to start. Please drop your favourite chilli oil brands/types below:

This post isn't really realted to life in China per SE but I'm just curious to hear others opinions on this. For those who have also lived here for several years have you noticed a shift in favour of China from your home countries and has that affected how people interact or respond to you living there?

In the past year alone I've had dozens of people who had never expressed any interest in China whatsoever reach out to me about life here, it seems like everyone I know has visited China recently whether for a layover or designated trip.

I consider it a good thing overall that people are broadening their horizons but it also slightly irks me that when I first told people I wanted to move to China it was met with a lot of skepticism and 'why though?'s. Now those same people are posting online about how amazing their trip was and how they wish they could live here.

Look, I know it's petty and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and of course it stems mostly from jealousy but I have a genuine burning hatred for travel vloggers and influencers and everytime they pop up on my socials feed it ruins my day.

I have no interest in being a travel vloggers or anything of the sort but I am so sick of seeing them get for free or get paid for what I have to work and save my entire life for. And they are almost always the worst type of people. They're arrogant, vain, ignorant and generally have zero consideration for their surroundings or etiquette for the places they're in.

I am so sick of seeing them act like they are experts on a place they've visited for like a week and promoting the same shitty restaurants, tourist traps or whatever else they've just seen in someone else's video and are rehashing as their own 'hidden gem'. I'm sick of seeing people lick their boots like they're some modern day Marco Polo because people do zero research of their own and rely on these fuckwads to spoonfeed them where to go and what to do.

I've only ever come across one travel influencer who I didn't find insufferable and they blocked me after they visited my home country and I called them out in the comments for sharing information that was blatantly wrong.

There is zero reason for this post but there it is. Have a nice weekend. Unless you're a travel vlogger, in that case fuck you.

I've been here for a few years and while I don't see myself staying forever I've managed to save a nice little pot now and would like to start planning ahead. Most people on here will suggest investing into an index fund but as an Irish citizen I don't have access to the s&p afaik, and Ireland has one of the highest capital gains taxes so it doesn't seem like a great move. Alternatively I could look into a private pension but I don't really know how it works if I open that in Ireland but live abroad. Assuming I don't return to Ireland regardless of where I eventually end up, how can I plan savings without knowing for sure where my forever home will be?

Any Irish in this group I'd appreciate your input as to what your savings strategy looks like. Cheers.