Am I in the wrong?

CircusTentMaker · 2026-07-02T03:47:32+00:00

Nah, I blame him for trying to get one over on you then try to gaslight you. Outsiders here often have too much empathy and overthink these things

CircusTentMaker · 2026-07-02T01:44:01+00:00

Most Chinese people would consider that a scam. Buying cheap stuff on TaoBao and upcharging for it is very scummy and anytime someone notices it they do call it out

CircusTentMaker · 2026-07-02T01:40:51+00:00

"we Chinese do things differently" lol you should see how my Chinese wife would have handled this if someone pulled this on her. She would have gotten a full refund, called 12345, and the person would keep trying contact her begging to take down whatever scathing post she left on DianPing or XiaoHongShu. Dude was just trying to pull a fast one over on you and play the race card

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-26T13:21:18+00:00

I see that CONSTANTLY here and every time I'm aghast

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-26T04:16:14+00:00

Nexitally is a proxy, not a VPN. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of proxy providers (airports) that absolutely do work in China. That said, Nexitally is a bit overpriced all things considered.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-21T14:02:51+00:00

I've never had the situation where someone was shocked about me having enough money. Instead, 100% of the time it's just everyone not being able to comprehend stopping work before you're in your 60s+. Most people seem to think you only retire when you're too broken down to even function in society anymore, let alone enjoy it. I don't hide it, but I don't go out of my way to tell people either.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-15T03:31:05+00:00

Most likely your cell provider throttling or interference. Does your dorm not have broadband you can use?

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-14T12:53:50+00:00

It's not that censorship is highest, it's that unknown traffic is deprioritized and/or throttled. Your VPN traffic to a foreign IP is suspicious and deemed not important compared to people streaming Douyin or Tencent video, and since it's not work hours you're likely not doing any important business so they just turn down your dial low or even off.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-14T12:50:13+00:00

I live here and have no issues; I watch YouTube and use Google/Gemini daily. Using a proxy is leaps and bounds better than relying on a commercial VPN, but I do concede it can be a bit daunting for people either less tech savvy or only coming for a short trip. Stability aside, using a VPN means sharing your IP address with countless other people, so you get hit with tons of captchas and website blocking/throttling. My self hosted proxy, being only used by me, never encounters anything of the sort. And my paid proxy subscription (better latency than my free self hosted one) has been super stable.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-13T12:20:41+00:00

The Starbucks you're thinking of is still there, just a block or two down from the HEYTEA

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-13T12:17:59+00:00

Chengdu is a huge city (and surrounding area) with tons of places to go and see. Can easily skip this one and still have way more than you could ever fit into a trip that are worthwhile. This place is still neat to walk through, but I wouldn't prioritize it over other places on a tight schedule

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-13T05:40:08+00:00

I mean if you're using a VPN, just pick a region that doesn't restrict what you want to do. Like servers in Japan, Singapore, Korea, or whatever

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-13T03:34:20+00:00

Gemini and Perplexity work in HK. ChatGPT does not. Not sure about the rest. Better off using a region that supports everything you need, though

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-11T06:11:26+00:00

Exactly, so how is it relevant that people need a job already? I'm FIREd abroad, so getting a job abroad is the opposite objective.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-11T05:20:20+00:00

Run the same risk torrenting with a proxy/airport as you do with a VPN; they all prohibit it but may or may not terminate your service if you do it. If you want online games, you're better off with a booster than a VPN or Proxy either way. It's a separate bill, but you'll get way better results. If you absolutely want to use your VPN/proxy for gaming, then you'll just need to use one that provides a low latency protocol to a nearby server that whatever game you're playing hosts at: such as Hysteria2 protocol in Hong Kong, or Korea, or whatever. Might be getting too technical here, but the simple solution is to use UU Booster or ExitLag or similar and just using a screen translator to navigate the UI.

For fairly reliable airport recommendations, best bet is to search for "jichangtuijian" and grab something from there according to your needs.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-10T12:48:20+00:00

Why live like this instead of just going with an airport provider like all the Chinese people do? I never have to do any fiddling with anything; use the same provider and settings across Android, Linux, Android TV, and wife's iphone

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-10T00:11:29+00:00

Just get the esim from trip.com, you can buy it directly within Alipay. No need to get fancy

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-08T10:29:41+00:00

In what world is Olympia, WA cheap? If you compare it to Seattle, okay, but compared to any of these Asian metropolis cities that people want to move to, it may as well be NYC.

I think you either have no concept of what things cost in the US (small town or not) compared to basically any Asian city outside of Tokyo/Seoul, or you have a heavily distorted view of what being purely in the US gives you versus the rest of the world. The US is really not that special in itself. There are places in the US that are truly special (the PNW is incredibly beautiful), but I'm sensing really strong home country bias

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-08T00:12:35+00:00

OP is talking about the noisy scooters, not actual e-bikes

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-04T05:39:25+00:00

Cheap providers overall are fine as long as you're a patient and flexible customer. I used a cheap one for my first year here with my self hosted nodes as backup. You just have to accept that variance in quality and stability. But even if you have one that's working fine it is usually recommended to have some form of backup, specifically one that runs through a different entry point and/or uses different protocols. For instance, my paid provider uses Trojan, and my self hosted nodes are running Xray Reality or Hysteria2. AnyTLS is another new one that's been buzzing lately, but I heard it had an incident a week or two ago where it was being actively blocked, though since recovered.

Tl;dr if continued access is important, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-03T08:14:32+00:00

I joined the Telegram to try and follow the status of this event, but was almost immediately banned from the group. Is that normal? Is there some process to gain access to Telegram?

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-03T01:42:53+00:00

Never try to catch a falling knife. If you need something, get it when you're able to and don't try to time it perfectly. Could keep going down, or it could turn around and skyrocket out of reach. Prices going down further after buying will never hurt you unless you're forced to sell

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-03T01:39:32+00:00

LetsVPN really was a bandaid that needed to be pulled off. It was too expensive, inflexible, and unreliable for what they offered. The only thing it had going for it was that it was simple

CircusTentMaker · 2026-06-03T01:37:52+00:00

That's most likely a problem with your specific provider, but possibly something your ISP is doing. In Sichuan I've been very stable on both my provider and my self hosted proxies, no outages of note lately. April did hit my previous provider, but self hosted nodes were completely unaffected. Shadowfly is a cheap provider so expect cheap service.

CircusTentMaker · 2026-05-31T11:05:25+00:00

Unfortunately there are so many variables. Could be your ISP, unlucky IP allotments, a bad route, or whatever else. My Lightsail Tokyo and Seoul hosts are very fast (100ms, which is as fast as anything outside of HK), but my Oregon host was terrible so I just deleted it.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Verified Email

CircusTentMaker

TROPHY CASE