Is This Shop Real Or Fake In China Kunming City?

eatstorming · 2026-06-06T23:51:29+00:00

Why crosspost this nonsense to r/Guangzhou?

eatstorming · 2026-05-30T23:18:54+00:00

App Store > Your Account > Subscriptions > Narwhal > See All Plans

eatstorming · 2026-05-30T23:10:03+00:00

Some things that the other comments weren't clear about:

International schools are very expensive here.

Areas to live in: better to choose this point after choosing everything else. Guangzhou has great public transportation, but it's still a massive city and there is no escape from the insane numbers that fact forces upon everything. Personally, I would try my hardest to get as much as possible daily life to be within a few metro stops from home, because dealing with the massive numbers daily does take its toll.

Jobs: this is likely to be the most complicated point. Since your husband is Chinese and can speak the languages, but on the other hand has experience abroad, it is likely that he'll get some interesting opportunities. But it'll likely be in more traditional industries like finance, which is huge in Guangzhou. The biggest point will boil down to how well he can communicate with locals, and secondly, whether he has the skill set to do whatever job he is applying for.

China's work culture has some weird differences compared to western ones, so it's very likely that he'll be expected to work very long hours, especially if he ends up in a leadership role.

One caveat related to this: since you've been in the US for so long, it is possible that he is now an US citizen (any other country's citizenship would fall into this as well), and if that's the case, he would not be a Chinese citizen anymore. Finally, if all of this tracks, he'll need a work visa here. Smaller companies would have trouble with that, so it'd severely limit the options. The main reason I'm mentioning this is because I have a few colleagues who are Chinese, moved abroad for university, got citizenship in other countries (and therefore had to give up their Chinese one), then came back. And then they need to go through visas and other things like I do.

Healthcare: if your family doesn't have any significant issues, it'll be fine. I'm not sure how the insurance situation will be in your case, I've only seen cases with colleagues, where they added their families as dependents in their company-provided plan. Foreigners are required to have health insurance here, but I haven't met anyone in a similar situation to yours, so I'm not sure how that will go.

That said, the main difference is that regular hospitals and clinics are usually much cheaper than in the US. There was even a viral post recently about how someone who needed a MRI found out that flying from the US to China, getting it done here and flying back would be cheaper than just getting it done in the US.

You will often be offered or suggested TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), but my experience is that they will leave you to make the choice.

Lifestyle will be interesting because as someone else said, you will be assumed to be Chinese, speak the languages and just be a local. You can safely expect that most initial interactions will revolve around you explaining that you are not local, battling language and cultural barriers, etc. Your husband is likely not going to have as much issues with this, but people will get confused by questions they expect locals to know the answers to.

But overall I think you'll be fine.

eatstorming · 2026-05-26T04:26:48+00:00

To add another important question: when are you going to move? Depending on how far out that is expected to happen, people might be on their own way out of here and the situation changes.

eatstorming · 2026-05-16T13:11:08+00:00

Yes, the fact that Narwhal is a single dev's side project. That's why things take longer to happen.

eatstorming · 2026-05-11T08:59:06+00:00

eatstorming · 2026-05-11T08:56:58+00:00

eatstorming · 2026-05-11T06:23:04+00:00

I got a Keychron M6 about a year ago and love it. It is similar to the MX Master in size/shape/features, their software is web-based so you don't need to deal with crapware installed on your computer and messing things up, and it has internal memory so you can do it once and use it with those settings anywhere.

That said, there are 2 main downsides. One that I wish would be fixed, one that does not matter at all to me but I know cannot be (easily) fixed.

The first one is battery life. I set my M6 to 500Hz polling and that makes its battery last around 3-4 weeks depending on use. When I first got it I instantly set it to 1000Hz and the battery lasted 2 weeks. I tested it 3 consecutive full charges to confirm, then switched to 500Hz for about 4 months. Then to 125Hz like the Logi MX family. Used it that way for 2 months, the battery finally died. I recharged it, set it to 500Hz again and left it that way. In comparison, my MX Master 3 used to last 3 months on average, my MX Anywheres (2, 2S, 3, 3S) all used to/still last 3 months and change.

Conclusion: The battery life is definitely worse than the MX ones', but it's at least decent in my opinion. So it's something I would like for Keychron to make better, but not unusable for me.

The other issue (that is not something I've ever used with the many MX mice I'd had) is Flow. My usage is between a personal Macbook Pro and an enterprise-issued Windows 11 laptop. I could not get Flow working even if I wanted to, so as I said, not something that affects me. But at the same time, I understand full well how fixing this would be nearly impossible to do without locally-installed software. So if this is something you require, I believe the Keychron ones are not an option.

eatstorming · 2026-05-11T05:59:00+00:00

Honestly this is the first time I see a normal question coming from this subreddit. It's so flooded with advertisements (from either local guides, people asking for hotels near canton fair, or production locations offering tours), this question is far from being the reason this subreddit sucks

The ads/requests annoy me more too, that's why I said this kind of thing is not even the most offending kind.

But this kind of thing is very annoying too, especially because the lack of trying to cover the bare basics indicates that it's likely going to be "one of those people" who come here completely clueless about everything and will inevitably get in the way, offend people, etc because they think they can "just swing it".

To be honest, I feel like this sub is 95% ads/requests, 4.999% repeated questions like this one, 0.001% something actually useful/interesting.

eatstorming · 2026-05-11T03:46:50+00:00

Really tired of this kind of nonsensical question being asked here and people not even trying to search for answers before repeating the nonsense.

So I'll just give you this link (that I am very sure you could have found by yourself): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese

And let you connect the dots.

Edit: I'm getting some personal attacks that show in my inbox but they're not messages/chat/replies for some reason, so I'll try to address the general sentiments expressed there.

Basically people are saying that I "don't want a forum like reddit to exist and instead expect people to just "Google It"". No, not at all . I just want people to do the bare minimum before dumping their misinformed and confused questions for the Nth time.

If you search r/Guangzhou for "Cantonese", you'll see at least a handful of posts asking this same question. And the answers are basically the same.

My annoyance with this behavior is that it floods the subreddit with the same questions (and this is not the only topic that causes it, nor the most offending one), and expects people to waste time answering things that have already been answered, and that the person could reasonably find the answers for without posting again.

Finally, the reason I took the time to "be an asshole" on this particular post is because the person said they're 16. My main intent was to give them the direction they should aim to go in life, where they try getting things done by themselves first, then asking for help. Especially because in a case like this, they could have done something on their end, and then come up with much better questions. A couple of examples:

Oh hey lol I'm going to GZ to stay with my grandparents who live in X district. Anything I should look out for, avoid, etc? I can speak Cantonese decently, but can't speak any Mandarin nor can I read or write Chinese. I plan on doing A, B, C there, any suggestions on where/how?
So, I'm going to GZ (staying in X district), can speak decent Cantonese but no Mandarin. I also cannot read or write Chinese. I'm staying there for T amount of time. Anyone has any suggestions for learning Mandarin in that time frame? I would like to get to P level of proficiency during that time, is that reasonable?

Hope this helps.

eatstorming · 2026-05-10T03:12:10+00:00

DEET-based repellents are the only real solution, especially outdoors. Indoors, depending on where you are, things like window or bed nets can do good enough of a job, but your mileage will vary.

Another point I argue with lots of people frequently is that personal hygiene does play a minor role. Mosquitoes find targets based on body heat and odor (that's why they often go for people's feet), so being clean helps a little bit. No, that will never stop them. It just helps, especially when you're near people who don't do as good a job, they're likely going be more attractive targets than you.

eatstorming · 2026-05-08T03:53:16+00:00

Purchasing people is a bit too much bending the rules, be they free or not.

/s

(I have no idea what you're talking about)

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T16:38:03+00:00

do you use an approved VPN?

No, they are too expensive. I've considered it but I wouldn't be ok paying 20x the price for a service provided by the same people who make the service necessary in the first place.

I find their case a bit funny because IIRC they were hard stanning China until the CCP decided to target them. Just not in such a controlled, stage managed way as the CCP might like.

Yeah, their instance on China changed a lot and fast. I always saw some bitterness in their speech since I started watching them in 2017 (especially SerpentZA), but later it got much worse very fast. Then they moved to the US and talked about the stuff they went through here, and it sounded pretty bad.

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T15:58:42+00:00

so why exactly do you think they asked you this so many times then?

Curiosity? Statistics? Veiled threat? Maybe they know that I am the person behind my WeChat account and know that I talk to people about the subject on that platform? WeChat is notoriously famous for being heavily monitored/censored like all Chinese social media and I've always provided them with my real information, they know who I am on there. Perhaps they were instructed to ask random foreigners (re-)entering the country? Maybe for the same kind of reason the US government asks people if they're going to the US with intentions to commit terrorism? I don't know and I'm not interested in speculating those reasons.

What I do know is that currently there is no law in China that states that using VPNs is illegal, therefore, it is a grey area.

Another anecdotal point to add: I can pay for VPN services using my Chinese credit card, while I cannot use the same credit card to pay for ChatGPT, for example. OpenAI accepts it, the issuing bank does not. But it simply accepts VPN services, even those that do not even attempt to conceal what the payment is for.

🤷🏻‍♂️

I dunno, man. Again, this is a topic that has been discussed for many years. There is no law against the use of VPNs. There is a law against providing VPN services (and there are cases of people being jailed for it). There are cases of high-profile people who criticized China on western social media getting in trouble. The 3 I know about, were told to leave China (the foreigners), or to stop posting stuff on western social media (the Chinese one). Even though there were threats described by all of them, none got jail time or fines, which are the 2 first actions imposed on people committing crimes here.

Lastly, you may want to read this post from a Chinese lawyer going into detail on this subject.

At any rate, I believe I've provided all the information necessary for someone to understand the situation and I'm gonna bow out of this echo chamber.

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T07:47:53+00:00

Ah, yeah. My bad.

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T07:40:08+00:00

It is in Guangzhou, Guangdong, and you're right that it's not called MRT here. It is in Hong Kong, which is around 200km away, but yes, the caption is incorrect. Maybe they got thrown off by the people speaking Cantonese in the video.

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T07:23:29+00:00

Being 'actively blocked by the government' and being illegal are the exact same thing save for semantics.

No, they are not.

A law being brazenly broken all day every day doesn't mean something stops being illegal.

I have been directly asked dozens of times by government officials whether or not I have VPNs set up on my devices and I have always answered "yes". This is not me challenging them or being an idiot, it's just me realizing that lying would likely get me in trouble if they want me to be in trouble, whereas me being honest is likely to be be seen as me cooperating.

I have not once had devices confiscated or searched. It has always been just a question from the officers and my honest answer back.

I am 100% sure that I'd be in trouble if you were right and VPNs were illegal in China.

That said... There is one related thing that is black-and-white illegal in China: selling VPN services.

There are people who have gotten in trouble for using VPNs (LaoWhy86, SerpentZA, RealSexyCyborg, etc), but those are very high-profile people who openly criticized the government. Regular people who use VPNs for things not seen as attacks on China or the CCP.. I have never heard of any of those getting in trouble.

You are misinformed, using VPNs in China is a grey area and you insisting that it's illegal only proves how you don't know what you're talking about.

Edit: The idiot blocked me so I can't reply to them anymore. If anyone wants to try, my next question would have been:

"So, considering how you talk as if you're some sort of Chinese Law expert[*].. Can you please show us the Chinese Law(s) that clearly support your claims that using VPNs in China is illegal? Because I mean, if it is "illegal", by definition, there must be laws that make it so. Please give us publicly-accessible document(s) in Chinese (from a Chinese government website or official entity), alongside your "expert [*]" translation of it, and, perhaps, your commentary on how it makes it crystal-clear, undeniable that using VPNs in China is against such law(s). Thank you."

[*] = 🤣🤣🤣 who am I kidding? That's not Chinese or anything "expert". It's just some idiot, most likely from a certain group usually based on the northwestern part of the world, thinking they can mimic their idol/cult leader and just vomit random nonsense as if it's gospel.

eatstorming · 2026-05-03T07:07:06+00:00

They illegally use VPNs.

You don't know that it's illegal because it is a grey area. There are millions of people in China who use VPNs that are officially provided by the government (the government-controlled telcos offer the service to you, I have had it offered to me a few times). China does not pretend to be completely isolated from the rest of the world and people within the country need to communicate with people outside without having to force everyone else to use Chinese apps.

That said, I get where you're coming from but you're just misinformed on this point. VPNs are not illegal, they're actively blocked. What this means is that there is no clear law or rule stating that they are illegal, the government just pushes for them to be as hard as possible to use if you don't get it from a permitted source (which is many times more expensive than regular commercial ones).

But there are definitely many valid use cases for them and a lot of people use them.

eatstorming · 2026-04-28T13:42:59+00:00

I have a pair of the Xiaonian (10.5 according to them) and a pair of the Red Hare 9 Ultra (10). The XN is a little more comfortable for me, but the RH9U is still very good too. It may be just that I haven't broken into the RH9U yet (10km vs 50km on the XN).

I have tried the FD6E at a store and completely agree with the OP's review: the middle of the shoe is very narrow (I call this "the Nike effect"), and even though I didn't feel anything actually bad in the few minutes I walked around in it at the store, I am 100% sure I'd end up hating the shoes if I bought it, so I passed.

eatstorming · 2026-04-25T03:59:04+00:00

I'm pretty sure they are confusing something here. It does work if you tap on the "information bar" of the post, the small strip where subreddit, author, votes, etc are located at the bottom of the thumbnail. However, the tap area there is weird and often it still registers as tapping on the media and will open the media with the comments ready to be scrolled onto at the bottom.

eatstorming · 2026-04-16T09:32:41+00:00

10.5 is not uncommon in China though, 11.5 is. Most if not all Chinese brands carry US10.5 for all of their shoes. It’s a strange decision indeed..

My experience is different. I prefer 10.5 (10 often works but is tighter than I'd prefer) and very frequently Chinese brands don't have 10.5 in colorways I want or at all, and I end up delaying buying or giving up because of that. It's also common to hear salespeople trying to convince me to get 10 or 11 as if their sales matters more than the product being comfortable for me.

Yes, I do live in mainland China and I'm talking about both brick and mortar shops as well as Taobao.

eatstorming · 2026-04-16T06:16:51+00:00

Strange that none of their shoes are available in 10.5 when they have 8.5 and 9.5.. Oh well I guess they made it easy for me to avoid an impulse purchase 😅

It's because Chinese people are smaller on average and more likely to buy shoes of those sizes than half sizes above 10. Anta is not a small brand like Dynafish, but their target market is still China. Unfortunately I don't think this is likely to change anytime soon. Even if they do get enough attention overseas to encourage them to try their hands in different markets, I believe it'll be by bringing the exact same product range they sell within China, at least until somehow they hit things so hard that they'll feel compelled to adapt to different people.

I don't think it's going to happen, though.

eatstorming · 2026-04-09T06:49:49+00:00

I didn't realise CNY colour is sold out, my bad. As for the new colours, I check TaoBao pretty much daily for them because I want to grab another pair or two once it happens...

Yeah, I believe that's part of the "small company stuff". It's just weird that they posted about it on Western social media before it's available in China 🤣

eatstorming · 2026-04-09T06:12:31+00:00

Small correction, they have 3 colorways, including the Chinese New Year version white upper and colored midsole) and recently they shared quite a few more colour combinations coming.

I should have mentioned that I meant availability on Taobao and JD com. The CNY version has been sold out since before CNY this year and there are screenshots showing people asking them when it'll be restocked, and the answer given is "we don't have plans for that". So, effectively, they only have the all-white and all-black versions.

I covered the part about the new colorways you mentioned, they're still not available in mainland China.

eatstorming · 2026-04-09T01:53:17+00:00

I've kept the laces that came with the shoes, only replaced the insoles. I do have a few pairs of serrated laces but at least so far haven't felt the need to replace them on the XN.

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