working at a chinese company would be fucking awful and the salary would match your super fun cost of living noted here in the headline. some of these people are my friends. I’ve lived in similar countries
if you are retired, it’s great. if you work remotely for a European company, it’s great. if you work for a local company it could be great or it could be a seriously awful life. if you’re doing business it could be great or it could be a kafka-esque hell
working at a chinese company would be fucking awful
I got floored when I was told they get 5 days of paid vacation (10 if you worked for 10-20 years and 15 days if you worked for 20+ years) , and no vacation for the first year in a new company, and they have like ~7 days of public holidays.
Oh, and no paid sick leave (for a flue etc - you will get it for operations and similar but they must be dona via public hospitals).
Meanwhile here in Poland we get 5 weeks + 13 public holidays, and if they happen to be during weekend you get an extra day free later, and it’s considered rather low for the EU. And unlimited paid sick leave, including for fatigue etc.
Yeah, compared to the USA it’s an improvement but compared to many places here in Europe it’s almost appalling.
5 weeks + 13 days is appalling?
No, that’s Europe.
The PRC days off are appalling in comparison. And the previous comment didn’t even mention make up days.
No, China #1
Edit: fellow autists, this was sarcasm. Everyone knows the greatest nation on earth is the one with the most concentration camps, not the second most. USA! USA! USA!
Lol that is absurd. It all depends on the job and situation. That is common sense. Which is true everywhere in the world. Because of course it is.
Sure, but there’s a big difference around the world wether you can live comfortably as a grocery worker, a construction worker or a teacher.
Not everyone can feasibly do this, you need to speak mandarin + read/write chinese, legally be able to work, and have some way to deal with the gfw. Also tap water may not be drinkable but thats more of a nuisance since you can filter/boil it.
Also idk what the article is talking about with flying delivery drones and self driving cars in shenzhen, if you order meituan delivery its probably gonna be delivered by a gig worker on a scooter cuz thats all young people can get employed as these days. Delivery is insanely cheap and can’t possibly pay much, but also cost of living is relatively low, but still shenzhen is on the expensive end as far as living in china goes.
Finally paying for everything via alipay/wechat and visiting everywhere with biometrics is yet another convenience/privacy tradeoff. Visit china on a 10 year tourist visa, everywhere you go by train, every tourist attraction or national park you visit, every digital payment, is all linked to your passport. Equivalent for chinese citizens would be the national id card/number. China more or less skipped the credit card adoption phase afaik. Not that places won’t take cash but it’s less common especially in cities.
China is not a magical land where everything is perfect and futuristic. It’s a big country with a lot of people in many, many big cities that operates on totally different cultural systems. It is affordable from the perspective of a tourist who earns USD/Euro etc.
Source: I spent a month there in 2025
Also tap water may not be drinkable but thats more of a nuisance since you can filter/boil it.
When I visited the U.S. the tap water there wasn’t really drinkable. People said it was fine, but my friend bought bottled water, which I paid for during my stay because the tap stuff smelled evil. Tried the tap water at a restaurant and I physically couldn’t swallow it. Supposedly Massachusetts has pretty good water, too.
China is not a magical land where everything is perfect and futuristic. It’s a big country with a lot of people in many, many big cities that operates on totally different cultural systems.
I like this take. You often hear places hyped up in media because that garners clicks, but everywhere has its pros and cons. Living in Sweden, I’ve heard absolutely bananas claims about my country. I’m comfortable here, but not everyone will be, and it’s certainly not the utopia some people believe it to be.
China has some good things going for it. I’m not a fan of the lack of privacy there, but simultaneously Europe is taking a leaf out of that playbook. They seem to have decent healthcare, and the infrastructure is seeing some major work that a lot of places here in Europe sorely needs.
The working culture in China is off-putting to me, though I feel similarly for a lot of other places here in Europe as well. Germany for example has a really rough work culture, which always makes it funny when American immigrants sing its praises.
The world is complex.
The water in the US is drinkable almost everywhere. Only very small outliers would exist. So you don’t inspire confidence with your take there.
It is insane you’re getting downvoted like wtf do you mean US doesn’t have drinkable tap water?
Yeah I will never get over how people will just lie to throw shade at people and things they don’t like. America pisses me off constantly, I’m from there and I have a lot of rage for it. But lying about how the country’s drinking water isn’t safe to drink in general is a weird thing to do and it’s misinformation which is just gross.
https://www.nrdc.org/resources/new-map-shows-areas-high-lead-tap-water-levels-lead-violations
Theres more issues with American drinking water than most want to think.
Lead contamination is wide spread.
Theres also many places where drinking water is contaminated with PFAS https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/
Americas tap water is not as clean or as reliable as one would hope it to be, and it would be a fair concern to want to avoid drinking it.
Which is a very different position than america does not have drinkable tap water
I mean sure, Its drinkable… anythings drinkable once. Its what happens after thats the danger and concern.
it’s the chlorination. makes it smell foul and impossible to swallow, at least for me. last time i had to buy one of one of those bottles with a built-in filter, because otherwise i would just instinctually not drink water.
Then say the water tastes bad. Don’t spread misinformation that the US doesn’t have drinkable tap water.
So long as you want to drink from lead pipes. That’s safe, right? Obama drank from the water in Flint and said it was fine so I guess Americans are immune to lead poisoning.
That’s not true everywhere and besides that’s moving the goalposts. OP was claiming the water was clearly so nasty you could tell by taste and smell which would not be related to lead pipes in any way. America has more problems with drinking water than it should by far but it’s actually just a lie to pretend it can be considered unsafe to drink as a blanket statement.
So Obama drinking form lead pipes and saying it’s safe is good? Or do you believe he was wrong?
The tap water is absolutely drinkable. If you don’t like the taste get a filter.
“Just buy more things to make the water fine to drink” Yep, that’s America. No wonder yanks drink so much sugar water.
That is not what I said. The water is fine to drink without it. I do it every single day, as do the vast majority of Americans. If you have a fridge with a water dispenser (90% of US fridges) it already comes with a filter.
Tap water is just dependent on the area you live in. You’re use to the tap water where you live and in similar regions. Whether you drink it or not you’re exposed to it every day. It’s normal.
When you travel. You’ll always have this reaction if you’re not use to it. It’s not unique the US and the tap water here is perfectly fine.
People in the US say the same thing about Europe. But I traveled all over Europe and the tap water is fine. It’s “weird” definitely but for the same reasons you think American tap is weird.
Having said that. Lake Tahoe in California is the top tier of tap water in America.
Rome and it’s public water fountains were my favorite in Europe. Really refreshing and cool water on ancient water infrastructure. Top tier for Europe.
europe generally doesn’t chlorinate its water as hard as north america. every bathroom and kitchen ive been in in the us smells like chlorine, and trying to drink the water makes my throat physically swell shut. in europe i only have that reaction if i get pool water in my mouth, which is how i figured out i’m allergic to it.
I’ve traveled most of the US coast to coast. Never had water like that. It varies dramatically region to region and I taste a difference. I’ve traveled to a couple of counties in Europe as well and the water is similar
Also that bathroom smell isn’t the water. People use chlorinated bleach to clean
Depending on where water is sourced and local geography, water can have extremely different characteristics even town to town. Throughout most of Missouri for instance it’s sourced from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and generally fine. Down south in Nevada Missouri there’s a high sulfur content in the ground. And the water pulled from it has a STRONG sulfur smell and taste. It’s safe to use and drink. But if you aren’t from the area, a struggle to use. Joplin not very far away has a completely different taste and characteristics to their water.
Generally any place that sources from a river as long as they don’t over chlorinate should be pretty acceptable to most people. The places that source from geologic aquifers or other more stagnant bodies that have a chance to leach larger contents of specific minerals from the ground. Can have distinct taste and smell profiles. Especially well water. It doesn’t matter where US or any other place on Earth will be the same.
i know what bleach smells like, i clean my own bathroom. it’s not that.
In some places peroxide based bleaches are more common over chlorinated bleach. Plus percentages of chlorine vary in different bleach products.
Interesting. Had to look this up. Apparently a lot of Europe uses small amounts of chlorine too in similar levels to America. But some countries like the Netherlands and Germany have alternatives that use Ozone. I could definitely understand this taste difference if you live in a country that doesn’t use it. Thanks for expanding my tap water knowledge.
For reference. The levels of chlorine added to tap in Europe (UK and others) or America are around 0.5 ppm. A swimming pool with chlorine would have 5.0 ppm. 10x seems actually lower than I would have thought. Especially given how much a swimming pool smells of it.
I lived a month in the Netherlands and never noticed a difference in taste personally. Drank tap a lot of the time.
I’d wonder if you’re from the Netherlands or Germany (or maybe a country that doesn’t add chlorine that I didn’t see listed).
Or maybe it’s used less for cleaning in Europe and your sensitivity to it is due to that. I’d be curious to know where you’re from.
When I visited the U.S. the tap water there wasn’t really drinkable. People said it was fine, but my friend bought bottled water, which I paid for during my stay because the tap stuff smelled evil.
What else did you think about your visit to Florida?
They said Massachusetts lol. I get that everyone has different taste but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else that described the water there as impossible to swallow. But I believe them, I thought the water in Poland tasted bad and I’m sure that was largely just because of what I was used to.
Oh, I misinterpreted what they said about Massachusetts, but you’re right. I thought they have generally decent water and also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to complain about Florida’s water. I’m sure there are variances across the state, but what I’ve experienced in Florida is horrible, sulfur-smelling water. Walking around as people are watering their lawns at night is a noxious experience. But you’re also right that a lot of it can be attributed to the mineral content of water in a given place and what we’re used to (except for Florida… their water is objectively non-potable).
Don’t forget Texas
My tap water is just fine in San Antonio. It’s cool because you can either drink it fresh, or boil it off and it’ll turn into rocks.
Germany has a rough working culture? Where do you get this from? In some unions full-time equates to only 35 hours a week, and we commonly have 30 days of vacation. And our working culture is nothing at all like in the US. We have very good employee protection rights and unlimited sick days. And currently I am working in the public sector, where I can choose to work only 4 days a week (with 80% of the pay, ofc). It is really great.
Think it depends on where you are. I’ve three close friends who all have had really rough working experiences.
One person was studying at business school and had an intern position at a company. There were legal limits to how much my friend should’ve been allowed to work, but the company didn’t give a fuck. This ended up being a detriment to their studies, which was the whole point of working to begin with. They were tasked with way too much responsibility, and neither authorities or union really gave a fuck.
Another friend works in tech. They had a similar situation during their studies, and have since taken on a “hard work is good” mindset which I find revolting, because hard work isn’t intrinsically good, it’s rewarded with more work, and you get exploited until you burn out.
Further, the fairly strict social hierarchy Germany has is really off-putting to me, and it’s reflected in the working culture. Work meetings I had in Germany were always awfully stiff and weird.
Again, this is from a personal preferences perspective. Some people love the rigours. I do not. Most of the Nordics have been influenced in some manner by Janteloven, and it’s reflected here. I cannot stand social hierarchies where someone is supposedly your better for some arbitrary reason.
The former friend moved here, and experienced our working culture. I remember one day they talked to me about how shocking it was to have the CEO of their company bat for them, and talk to them like an equal. They said it would’ve been unthinkable at their previous workplaces.
I can tell you, your experiences can’t be generalized. The work environment can really differ from company to company, and also depends in which industry you are working. I am working in IT, and in my department my colleagues and I can talk to each other in a very casual, non-formal way.
I’m not saying they are, and like previously mentioned lots of people enjoy Germany and its social/work culture. That’s perfectly fine, it’s just not for me. Germany still has a hierarchical culture we got rid of a while back in Sweden,. We used to use honourifics, titles, and such, but nowadays it’s awkward, borderline rude to use them.
There’s actually an amusing phenomenon with younger people entering the workforce trying to apply a formal “you” in Swedish. Historically though, that was always used to talk down to someone. We never really had a formal you, but “ni” fits in really well with “vous” or “Sie” if you’re unfamiliar with its history.
996 is illegal and companies who do this are prosecuted, from my understanding.
Generally they’re not, provided they can keep it low key.
And since within the PRC it’s quite easy to fire people, and courts and settlement is about how much 面子 you can make the company lose without pissing off local authorities vs. the 关系 and pressure they can bring to bear to have you drop it there’s not much to be done.
“ask” that people do overtime, and then fire them for not being a team player, or downmote them into a stressful deadend if they don’t take the voluntary overtime.
I also lived in Shenzhen, except for years. All deliveries are guys on scooters. The drone shit is a fantasy that they make videos of but never actually happens (just like the Sea World water light show). All the tech is janky as fuck and the locals work around and despite the tech. The rich treat the locals like slaves, and some have slaves (usually Filipino). Every bathroom smells like piss and shit because they don’t use bleach or any cleaners. And finally the water is undrinkable and “neighbor smell” (look it up) makes you want to vomit every morning.
Plus, delivery drones have one fatal flaw that always gets glossed over - they’re loud as hell. Even if the tech can be made to work right, people simply don’t want to put up with that much constant high-pitched noise. If a company ever did figure out large-scale drone delivery, delivery drones would be immediately banned due to the sheer annoyance of the damn things.
