Learning to Love China Internet

Rakan Al-Shawaf
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read
The Golden Shield Project (A.K.A China’s Great Firewall)

The internet in China sucks. It sucks for a long time, and then it starts sucking less. Then you learn to have a love-hate relationship with it like I do. On one hand, the experience of accessing western sites and especially western sites that are blocked (Facebook, Google, Reddit etc.) is dreadful. On the other hand, using Chinese sites and apps is super-fast and convenient.

When I first arrived here last year, it only took me a week to start pulling my hair out whenever I’d access social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat would never work for me even after getting a good (paid) VPN service. But this presented me with an opportunity to do something I’ve thought about for a long time but never actually done. That is to completely stop using these social media sites.

Compliance

So I deleted these apps, all of them, including my one true love — YouTube. I stopped reading Reddit, stopped browsing on Instagram and stopped watching snapchats.

To avoid using fb messenger as much as possible, I made my close friends get Wechat or Whatsapp (those who didn’t I no longer contacted regularly).

But the most difficult thing to comply with is not using Google apps. Everything from Google search, drive, Gmail and maps I relied on heavily back in Canada. So instead of Google drive I started using Baidu cloud (which at the time gave me 1TB free storage!!). Instead of Gmail I opened an outlook account and forwarded emails from Gmail to it (this happens automatically and is unaffected by China’s Great Firewall). Instead of maps — for better or worse — I used Apple maps. Instead of YouTube, I downloaded Youku and started watching Chinese cartoons — I’m here to learn mandarin after all.

Okay now for Google search, the way I reduced my reliance is by pinpointing my main reasons for making Google searches to begin with. Unless I’m doing research, I’m mostly Googling quick information that I needed. So things like what is the capital of Zimbabwe, convert 43 yards to meters, convert 30RMB to CAD etc. etc. All of these don’t REALLY require Google to search for. So I downloaded a couple apps (with my main criteria being the ability to use them offline) to help me out.

For Translation : Pleco

Pleco A.K.A Best App in the Universe

Pleco is straight up the most amazing fucking app I’ve ever used. They consistently get 5 star ratings with every update they make it’s crazy. Essentially it’s an English-Mandarin, Mandarin-English dictionary on steroids that works completely offline. Protip: Go to settings>Miscellaneous>switch “search for clipboard text” and “only if contains Chinese” on. Now when you copy Chinese characters from anywhere and then open the Pleco app, the words on your clipboard are automatically recognized and pasted. Super convenient when chatting with people.

For Converting currencies: XE Currency App

For Converting literally anything: CalConvert

For Reading up on information: Wikipidia App

Surprisingly Wikipidia is not blocked in China, and I can get plenty of information I usually Google search from their app.

For searching for things in general (unless it’s research): Bing.com

Yes believe it or not I use Bing all the time. They have servers in China so it loads swiftly, and most of the information you look for on a daily basis can be found on Bing. For some reason I can’t download the Bing search app, so I use safari with the homepage set-up as bing.com.

Place these apps at the bottom of your 2nd screen to maximize efficiency (faster to click).

VPNs

Okay so I’ve reduced my reliance as much as physically possible. But I still need to access social media and YouTube (for my business), I still need to use Google search for intense research and I definitely need Google adwords, trends and analytics. For that, we must use a Virtual Private Network or VPN. I’ve burned through and used well over 50 VPN apps and services. There’s a lot of garbage VPNs out there, and there are ones that become garbage depending on the time of year (Looking at you Astrill VPN).

Here is my VPNs set-up for most of the past year. I got ExpressVPN account for my laptop and also installed it on my phone. It’s a little pricey, but you can use it on 5 devices so find a friend to share it with.

Next, everyone needs a backup VPN. My tool of choice is Betternet. It’s free and has minimal ads interruptions. It connects fast — most of the time faster than Express VPN even.

Finally, everyone needs a backup back-up VPN. I use Master VPN. Ads are quite annoying but service is very consistent.

What I do is spread the VPNs across the 3 most used pages on my iPhone. Express goes on page one, Betternet on page 2 and Master on page 3. This minimizes the amount of time it takes to get connected to a VPN because you avoid having to scroll back to your homepage to connect.

The key to minimizing hair loss is to reduce connection-friction as much as possible

Bonus: about 2 months ago I got a dedicated IP with a government-registered VPN service for my company. As well as a VPN router for my office. Now, it has never been easier and faster to get connected. I haven’t used my backup VPNs since and cancelled my Express VPN service too! This option is very pricey, but keep it in mind for the future, it is well worth it.

Working around the Chinese Great Firewall is tedious, and even the best VPNs stop working when an international event (like G20, BRICS summits) are in town. But I think it is a major part of the China experience and talking about it with locals gives you a deep understanding of the Chinese culture and way of thinking.

I hope my strategies will help you in some way on your next visit to China.

Rakan Al-Shawaf

Written by

Cansbridge Fellowship

Lessons from tomorrow’s global leaders

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade