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Livin’ La Vida Kafei [咖啡] 💃🏻

In the depths of a vicious winter, I wrote about recent disappointments with coffee that I previously loved made in Yunnan Province, China’s coffee capital. Thankfully, when I bought a high-level burr grinder soon after, a free container of coffee changed everything.

I had previously bought several similar but lower-end versions of this grinder for between $14-20, but each died after a few months and refused to recharge. On TaoBao, when you add items to your shopping cart, the app updates the price when inevitable sales come along. While it was hard for me to plunk down over $70 for the fancy grinder, it was easier when it went on sale for under $50. (Burr grinders are pricier but create a smoother grind than their cheaper bladed counterparts.)

Along with this fantastic burr grinder came a small sample of a new kind of coffee that I hadn’t seen before: La Vida. I was skeptical about its quality because it wasn’t vacuum-packed or in a bag with a one-way seal, but it was DELICIOUS: freshly roasted, fragrant and giving off the kind of flavors you wouldn’t imagine could come from the humble coffee bean.

I immediately ordered a slew of flavors and discovered that the full-size 200 gram cans do have one-way valves, which assuaged any fears about the professionalism of the company.

That said, it was the very first company I’ve encountered since starting a website to profile entrepreneurs in China that declined to comment when I asked for details about the founder, which I found amusing! I didn’t care, as long as the coffee was good.

In the end, I liked the first coffee they sent better than others. While it says “Columbia Coffee,” it is from Yunnan, and it has become my go-to. While I’ll always remember the years that I enjoyed Sinloy and Shangrila’s, it’s a pleasure to discover a new tasty whole bean coffee from China’s famous coffee region.

Side note: TaoBao is a delight. You basically get to buy the things from Amazon before they get shipped overseas at a small portion of the cost. Last summer, when I was headed home for the first time in four years, I looked up things on Amazon to buy (don’t judge! Weird things remind you of home when you’re gone for a long time. Others include Target and Chick-Fil-A).

One thing I wanted was a rose gold pour-over cone for manual coffee making. I found it on Amazon* for under $20, but ever the researcher, I decide to do an image search of the same item on Taobao–and found it for a mere $5, though the price has since increased…to $8!

Overall, this coffee fiend is happy to have a solid choice and a good way to make my favorite drink day to day. More serious entries are on the way, but it’s fun to share a little bit of the light side of things here. To go with the coffee cone for making pourover, I use unbleached filters that, again, are cheaper here–about $2 for 100, as compared to $6 for similar models* on Amazon.

Of course, now that travel is possible again, I should probably factor in the price of annual flights to and from the US to my cost of living here. Thankfully, I’ll have a chance soon–I get to be with family on the Fourth of July in the US for the first time eight years! More on that soon–including my random upgrade to Silver Medallion thanks to Delta.

If you live in China and want to order the La Vida Coffee I mentioned, scan below:

☀️Have a wonderful summer, yourself! And stay cool 😎.

* Affiliate link! No added cost to you, but I will get a percentage of purchases made through the link.

What is Meituan, the famous Chinese food delivery app?

Video may not load for people in China.

Many people have heard about China’s cashless society and how we pay for everything with WeChatPay and AliPay, even for in-person transactions–but did you know that we use apps for almost everything, including grocery shopping? In China, MeiTuan (美团）(see here for more information about it) and Eleme （饿了么）are two of the most popular food delivery apps, while Pinduoduo (cheap goods, used more by local residents–the company that owns Temu, by the way) and JSS & Sherpa’s (for foreigners in English) are other ends of the spectrum.

How do you look up what you want to buy on Meituan or Eleme? First, look it up in your chosen Chinese/English dictionary (Pleco & KT Dict C/E are popular), then open the app, and copy and paste the characters into the search function. Alternatively, you can tap on the store of choice (ie WuMart, April Gourmet) and search within that vendor for what you want.

Even if you’re not great at Chinese, it’s a good idea to memorize the basic food words you order a lot. For me, these are:

  • Coke Zero: 零度可乐
  • Oatly oat milk: Oatly 燕麦奶
  • Soda water: 苏打水
  • Tomatoes:西红柿 or 番茄
  • Paper towels/napkins: 纸巾
  • Toilet paper: 厕纸
  • Chocolate: 巧克力
  • Spinach: 菠菜
  • Cheddar cheese: 红切达
  • Pasta：意大利面

See the video from the start, this post, or the video linked below to see this step by step!

May not be visible in China.

Finally, tap on the yellow in the bottom right where it says “去结算“ and add your address to start checking out. It’s a great idea to keep your local address alongside your first name and phone number in the Notes app if you live in China–but this also works for your hotel if you are visiting! These delivery apps are MUCH easier to use than signing up for WeChat, as long as you have AliPay set up with your foreign bank card1. The location finding is good for large hotels but can be tricky for local addresses, especially in traditional, old parts of cities–or in smaller cities in China.

Tap on the yellow in the bottom right where it says “去结算“ and add your address to check out.

One more tip: if your home is hard to find in China and you don’t speak Chinese well, you can often send photos or text that you translate with directions to the delivery men. More on that in a future post!

Once you confirm your address and submit the order, you’ll be taken to Alipay or WeChat to pay (you can choose), and then you wait until a rider is assigned and brings your order!

That’s all for today. Please leave any comments below related to daily life in China for foreigners! Coming soon is a video about the top apps that we use in China. For a free quick guide to China, or to receive updates on future posts, go here.

  1. See this YouTube video for step by step directions–the link takes you directly to the AliPay part about adding a bank card. ↩︎

Can you find ibuprofen in China?

Have you ever wondered what medicines are available over the counter in China? It was more controlled during the pandemic to track cases, but you can buy it easily now on your phone (as of February 2024). Ibuprofen, cold medicine, birth control, and allergy medications are all available OTC and for cheap or free delivery in China.

As a former frequent migraine sufferer and a current sufferer of endometriosis, Advil–or ibuprofen, as its generic name goes–is my best friend. Now that I’ve lived in China for years, I have a little note on my phone with medicine that I look up and buy frequently (because we do this on our phones, in addition to grocery shopping and having dinner delivered for 50 cents to a dollar a pop). I’ll talk about the Chinese equivalent of Zyrtec later, but today, let’s focus on Chinese ibuprofen. Read on to know how to look up ibuprofen on Meituan.

What is Meituan (美团)?

Meituan is one of the must-have apps to use if you live in China. This app and Éleme are the main ones used by local people to buy goods. I say “local” because many foreigners who are less familiar with Chinese use JSS or Sherpa’s, but those apps–while wonderfully convenient, with great customer service–offer FAR fewer items for sale and have insane delivery fees (for China–by US standards, their fees of 10-80 yuan, or $1.50-$12, aren’t so insane).

I don’t even know if you can buy medicine on the apps for foreigners, though. The nice thing is that if you are comfortable with translating screen shots, you can save a LOT of money, and Meituan offers a TON of discounts. (I routinely pay $3 for $14 worth of coupons, and here, if you don’t use a coupon, they refund you the remaining amount!)

How do you buy medicine on Meituan?

I used to use my KT Dict C->E app, but many foreigners use PLECO, to look up the Chinese names of medicines in English.

  1. Type “ibuprofren” in to the English-Chinese dictionary.
  2. On KT Dict C-E, tap on the Chinese, and then on the little wrench in the upper right-hand corner.
  1. Tap “Copy 布洛芬“ and open Meituan.
  2. Tap on the little mouse over the word “外卖“ (waimai, which means food delivery).
  1. Copy and paste the Chinese into the Search
  2. Choose the closest or cheapest option!

In both Hangzhou and Beijing, pharmacy delivery is particularly fast. I’m not sure why but I love it!

*I am NOT a doctor or in any way licensed to distribute medicine, so please make your own responsible choices! This is information shared for entertainment only ;). *

Disclaimer done, please pay close attention to the dosing. Both common forms of ibuprofen here come in stronger doses than the generic red ibuprofen pills that I take in the US–usually 300mg or 400 mg a pill. In addition, I always eat before taking medicine–thus the inspiration for the Short that led to this post!

That’s it! In the future, I’ll share how to order Zyrtec, other allergy meds and birth control. Click or tap here to sign up for future post alerts, and also get the free Quick Reference Guide to China, if you so desire!

Top 3 Tips When Coming to China! 🇨🇳

🔗 Links to other pages are shown in bold, not underlined.

Ever wondered what you’ve gotta do when coming to China? Start here! China has changed a LOT since I first came in 2014, and especially since the pandemic. (For example, you used to be able to use Alipay to take the subway even as a visitor, but now, post-pandemic, that QR code is tied to your health status and visitors don’t have that health code app. It’s not even available anymore! Instead, you have to use a physical card, old-school style.

(But I digress.)

The other thing is that the ORDER you sign up for AliPay, WeChat, and a Chinese SIM card–and WHERE you are when you do –matters–a lot. You MUST sign up for Alipay, prepare your bank cards, follow my bonus tips (*cough cough* Very Pretty Nettles), and wait until you get to WeChat to ensure you can sign up without a hassle–now, let’s get into it!

Read on to find out HOW to have the EASIEST trip to China possible! Or, if you prefer, watch the video; there are a few more details there than I put here):

✔️ Step 1: Sign up for Alipay and add a foreign bank card.

AliPay, unlike WeChat, can be dealt with PRIOR to landing. There is no identity verification like with WeChat Pay.

Be sure to download this one for mainland China.
Do not download the one for Hong Kong!

Download the app and then add a foreign bank card this way:

  1. Go to “Me.”
  2. Tap on “Bank cards.”
  3. Tap the “+” sign in the upper right-hand corner.
  4. Add a Visa, Mastercard or Discover card. American Express is not yet available, but this video by a language company in China1 says that AmEx is supposed to be added soon!

EXTRA TIPS:

  • It’s good to add your own bank cards in the US or your home country because banks from outside of China really freak out when you try to use them here when you opened your accounts in your home country. The “reverse firewall”2 is real.
  • If you don’t do it prior to coming here, then turn on your VPN *JUST* for the Security Verification steps. Make your IP address come from your home state or nation (in other words, choose the location that most closely resembles where you are actually from).
  • Make sure your US debit/credit cards do NOT charge international bank fees. Charles Schwab is a good one that doesn’t.
  • If all else fails, if you manage to verify your identity on WeChat, it’s actually easier to add bank cards there–perhaps because the up front verification is more of a hassle than Alipay’s is.

🚨 BONUS STEP: Must Do BEFORE You Come to China!

Sign up for Astrill VPN or at the VERY least get a FREE service like HotSpot Shield or BetterNet… but it is MUCH more important to just do it beforehand.

Get an Astrill VPN account before coming. A few others ones work reliably in China, but not NordVPN or Surfshark. Don’t believe the hype from influencers who don’t actually live here. Betternet Shield works okay for free; just swipe through the ads that pop up when you first open the app until you get to “Proceed with Ads.”

Astrill is expensive, but it works. The app is fast and easy to download after arriving, but you must set up the account BEFORE you come here. The Great Chinese Firewall is real and will drive you nuts, but ALSO (bonus bonus step!) realize that:

A. Everything Microsoft works, so you can use Outlook email accounts and search in English with bing.com.

B. Everything Apple works, so the Apple Maps app can reliably be used to navigate mainland China.

C. Nothing Google works, and Google Maps is often less accurate than other map apps since Google doesn’t have as much unfettered access to data and Chinese apps as Apple. That means you cannot access Gmail, YouTube or anything else like this without the specific programs I mentioned in the “Bonus Tip.”

D. I lied a little regarding Google–mixed reports suggest that Google Translate CAN work. This comes most reliably from the 9 minute mark of this video by Nico, a delightful woman whose jaw-dropping channel with her husband is great for gorgeous views of China. That said, download the OFFLINE PACK as they suggest, or even better…

E. Use Baidu Fanyi to translate stuff. Baidu is kind of China’s Google. The app is in English even though the name in the App Store’s in Chinese, and it works for all languages without need of a VPN.

✔️ Step 2: Get a physical China Mobile SIM card when you land in China.

A screenshot from Apple’s website taken February 2024.

Forget about E-SIMs. I know they’re all the rage now, but Chinese phones don’t use them. I saw exactly ONE YouTuber who was able to use Airalo in China, BUT he was only here briefly and never even used Didi–and that’s the issue. Many, many local services use your phone number, and by that, they mean a local number. China is +86 prefix. There is very little support in China for foreign phone numbers or email. Email is not commonly used except with international companies or schools.

As of February 2024, E-SIMs do not consistently work in China, no matter what you’re promised by outside companies.

WeChat Groups are KING here, and they link you to hundreds of people who can help you learn to live here more inteliigently. I asked not one, but TWO, expat groups of hundreds of women whether e-SIM cards that they bought prior to coming had worked, and NO ONE said yes. One woman out of hundreds said that it worked for the Internet (which is understandable!) but NOT for anything else, and this is what matters: your Chinese phone number is crucially important for navigating China. It is NOT just about having a foreign-bought SIM card so that you can access the Internet; it’s about having a real, physical Chinese phone number with an established Chinese company (our equivalents of T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T) so that you can access pretty much any service in China.

A local Chinese phone number is crucially important for navigating China.

I don’t know why, but the phone number is even more important than your passport a lot of times. You cannot access the vast majority of wifi networks in China without a Chinese phone number and an SMS text to give you a log-in code. Airports have kiosks to help foreigners use their phone numbers to log in, but they rarely work. So if you will be here longer than a few days, just seek out a China Mobile kiosk, hand them your passport, and get a SIM for 15-20 USD and a month’s service plan for around 200 RMB (usually $25-30). I promise you, the investment is worth it.

China Mobile kiosks are at PEK (Beijing’s older airport), but they can also be found every one or two blocks. Just show the screenshot and your passport!

✔️ Step 3: Set up WeChat Pay with a Chinese phone number AFTER you arrive.

Watch my YouTube video from the 5:30 point forward for more details, but long story short: they used to let any random person get WeChat easily, but now, it’s a highly secured service that is easiest to sign up for IN China. I cannot stress this enough: wait until you get here to sign up for WeChat.

To be clear:

  1. Arrive in China.
  2. Get a Chinese phone number–preferably a physical SIM card-based on from China Mobile.
  3. Find a friend who can verify you when you get to that step. Chinese people are friendly; you can ask new acquaintances at your hotel or restaurant, or local friends who live here.

WeChat users can only verify about one person a month, so don’t feel bad if you’re refused. It is likely not personal!

  1. Sign up once you have someone lined up to verify you.
  2. Use your Chinese phone number or an email address that is NOT blocked here (NO Gmail. Outlook or iCloud is okay). Do NOT use your foreign phone number, as the app will likely try to send you an SMS to authenticate, and unless you have T-Mobile Wi-Fi, you won’t be able to access it once you’re here.
  3. Show the local friend your QR code for them to scan.

Voila! You’re ready to use WeChat!

Why bother?

Everything social and most of the professional is done via WeChat. It’s the ubiquitous app that none other than Elon Musk, for better or worse, wishes to emulate. There is now a “WeChat Professional,” but few companies (in my experience here since 2014) use it; there are extensive privacy settings and some people don’t use the social media aspect (“Moments“), so you’re not as exposed as when using Facebook or even Instragram. You can also create groups and hide posts from people.

I cannot emphasize this enough: people in China do not use their phone numbers to call each other or to communicate; they use WeChat. iMessage use is an oddity even though iPhones are popular; only total strangers like delivery men or Didi drivers use one’s phone number to communicate with customers.

You add people on WeChat by scanning their QR code or being scanned, a feature that has been active since 2014 and likely inspired similar features in the West.

That’s all! I will do more detailed posts and videos in the future about each aspect of these things, with one exception: I already did a post about Didi, China’s Uber. Regardless, I must insist that you download and use Didi Greater China. Uber is no longer here, and there are many other worthy apps of use, but Didi is mostly in English and offers great customer service. Click or tap here to read more.

You can order traditional taxis with this app, but can also order personal drivers akin to Uber and Lyft.

I must insist that you download and use Didi Greater China.

That is it! There’s a whole new group of apps to use after this, but if you do these steps in this order, your trip will go so much smoother. Just add that bank card, set up a VPN before you come, get a physical SIM card when you land, and then set up WeChat when you’re here with a person nearby to verify you.

🗞️ Want notified about those needed apps and other China tips? Click or tap –> here <– to sign up for notifications, and receive a Quick Reference Guide to China free, too!

  1. On YouTube, their videos are on this channel. They are a role model for me but are years ahead and have a robust, positive social media presence IN China, too! I admire them a lot. ↩︎
  2. The West makes SO much of “The Great Chinese Firewall,” but what frustrates me most from abroad is the lack of global awareness displayed by US companies towards US citizens abroad. There is little awareness that some of us CHOOSE to live overseas, and I am often blocked from websites in MANY countries (France, Thailand, Kuwait, South Korea, and Argentina, as well as China, to name a few) because everyone from Bank of America to a random restaurant in San Diego assume that because I am trying to access their website from outside the US, I’m a bot. ↩︎

“Got Wasta?” Networking Across Nations

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🔗 Links to other pages are shown in bold, not underlined.

In 2021, I came across the book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer, and it rocked my world. To be frank, it also helped me understand my relationships with Chinese colleagues and friends, and it further drove home the differences between soft power, small talk and true intimacy.

What I find interesting is that nearly every culture has a word for “networking,” the lame label used in the US. “Nepo baby” is catchier but doesn’t capture it completely. Regardless, in English, the bland term refers to the idea that one can find opportunities and succeed in life and business by connecting in informal atmospheres with those in related spheres. More negatively, it refers to the fact that many opportunities in life depend more on the people you know that what you know; i.e., your cultural cache, web of influence, or ability to wield favors from others in a way that gets you what you want in the business world. If you are born into wealth and “people who know people,” you are more likely to move in circles of great power and influence. But what is this idea called in other places?

First Up: Networking in the Middle East

The bulk of my experience abroad has been in China and Kuwait, so I’l focus on those. To be direct: wasta–واسِطة in Arabic–is the term for “networking” in the Kuwait and many countries whose primary language is Arabic. Defined in the West somewhat cynically in some contexts and in more neutral manners in others, the most salient aspect in my career as a teacher was how some children were permitted to stay in certain schools despite horrendous behavior due to who their parents were.

Before that, though, I became aware of the term via whispers among my new coworkers. While alcohol is strictly forbidden in Kuwait (unlike the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, where it is allowed in certain contexts), wealthy, well-connected residents enjoy it freely–albeit discreetly. Meanwhile, Filipino distributors of bootlegged alcohol are often imprisoned and deported since they’re actively discriminated against and definitely lack wasta.

Some schools are also owned and run by individuals with high-level political connections, which also affords certain protections to individuals in their employ. Such individuals live in lovely buildings owned or leased by leaders whose wasta offers some assurance that these buildings won’t be bothered by police when their residents hold pool parties and partake of less-than-halal drinks… or so I’ve been told.

Anyhow, I took wasta with me in the form of an adorable mug by The Glue, a cute company in Kuwait that also makes mugs that talk about books. “Got Wasta?” is, of course, a cheeky take on “Got milk?” and a nod to this aspect of Arabic culture, and became a lasting way to remember this particular term. I gave it to a family member and kept the mug that talks about books to use myself. It’s sitting behind me as I write this in Beijing.

My personal fave out of those purchased from The Glue.

Speaking of… on to China’s word for networking!

In China: Guanxi

Unrelated photo because guanxi is kind of hard to photograph ;-).

According to Investopedia, “guanxi” (关系) is “not just to the existence of relationships but to their nature: to having personal trust and a strong relationship.” The way that it varies from the US and the Middle East, in my experience, parallels this idea.

One idea that comes up in Meyer’s book, The Culture Map, is how people from the US will strike up conversations with strangers in public, yet also maintain a bit more space between their private and professional lives at work. Laws against asking questions about one’s income, marital status and hobbies naturally complement this practice, while in China, such frank conversations are common.

I will admit to a bit of bewilderment about this, as Chinese coworkers often asked me these things, but I would know them for a long time before often learning that they had a spouse or kids. That said, I rarely asked whether they had these, and as The Culture Map mentions in the very first chapter, this matters in communication in China, where people are often very polite and don’t offer information until asked.

When women at work in my group of friends got engaged, however, I was quickly informed, and my lack of proficiency in Chinese undoubtedly played a part.

Most foreigners with passing ability in Chinese will have the experience of a cabbie or Didi driver asking whether they are married, what their jobs are and how much money they make. At first, such inquiries can seem brash, but after six years here, they’re no longer a surprise. There is a raw energy to the way that Chinese people engage, a frankness that obliterates ideas of political correctness in the West and makes it rather easy to communicate without fear of offending coworkers. The only times one must be tactful is, of course, when it comes to issues of Chinese autonomy and reach over disputed regions.

That said, I have operated largely in the field of education, and less in that of business. There, it does seem extremely important to curry favor and actively nurture relationships with influential individuals, but so far as I can tell, it parallels the way that US business works.

Beyond business, guanxi extends to family relationships. During the Chinese New Year, children are granted coveted hongbaos, red envelopes filled with money. You can give virtual hong baos on WeChat to show your appreciation for good service. Recently-married couples also receive the same. Later, however, newlyweds are expected to give money back to relatives in equal measure.

Likewise, when you go out to eat in China, the custom is to fight over who will pay for the (entire) meal. The person who doesn’t manage to pay is meant to protest loudly before, eventually, conceding defeat–and the next time, the roles are reversed.

The long-term effect is a kind of generous humility that gets passed back and forth between families and friends, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing! Rather, it appears to give those more in need a hand up when they need it, and later on, they are, too expected to contribute. (China’s incredibly high savings rate might have something to do with this!)

Of course, there is always a dark side to human nature, and such relationships can be wielded for control and harm, just as in other cultures. But I hardly think that guanxi or wasta are uniquely capable of that; rather, such terms are their own way of expressing a reality true the world over: relationships lead to access; no man is an island; and perhaps, for the lazy introvert like me, getting out there and communicating with people has a purpose, however much of a hassle.

We are, after all, communal beings, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Another fun mug from The Glue.

So, got wasta? Guanxi? Or just a desire to connect? Have at it!

I think I’ll make this a weekly post. I enjoy exploring language in new contexts, and while it may not always be a term with an equivalent in English, it will often be just that. Regardless, I hope this little lesson helped, whatever corner of the world you come from!

If you’re not from the places that I’ve already mentioned, what is the word for “networking,” guanxi or wasta in your country? Do tell!

🗞️ Want notified about future posts? Click here to sign up for notifications, and receive a Quick Reference Guide to China free, too!

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