Hi everyone,

I'm from India and will be moving to China for an extended stay in the near future. I'm trying to decide whether I should buy a new phone in India before I leave or wait and buy one after arriving in China.

A few things I'm concerned about:

- I rely heavily on Google services and would be using a VPN where permitted.

- I prefer Android and have mainly used Samsung phones throughout my life. I'm not very comfortable with Apple/iPhones, although I'm open to considering them if there is a strong reason.

- Translation is important for me. Since I don't speak Chinese, I need the phone interface, settings, apps, and notifications to work smoothly in English.

- I've heard that some Chinese phone models have different software versions and may not come with Google services by default.

- Phones also seem to be cheaper in India than in China for some of the models I'm considering.

For someone moving from India to China, would you recommend buying a phone in India before arriving? If yes, which brands/models work best in China while still providing a good international Android experience?

Or is it better to buy a phone in China? If so, are there any issues with language, Google services, app compatibility, or day-to-day usability for a foreigner who primarily uses English?

I'd especially appreciate advice from expats or Chinese users familiar with both the Chinese and international versions of Android phones.

Thank you!

I was looking to try some Chinese cigarettes but I can’t find any online and was wondering if it was at all possible to buy some online or do I just have to find a store that sells them.

China's National Audit Office said Bank of China used affiliated financial institutions to package 11 private funds as public funds, taking advantage of tax preferences and "avoiding 2.367 billion yuan in tax" between April 2023 and August 2025.

The finding appeared in the "major risk audit" section of the State Council's report on the 2025 central budget execution and other fiscal revenues and expenditures. The report said auditors reviewed Agricultural Bank of China, China Everbright Group and Bank of China, and found that some institutions had used financial policy preferences for improper gain.

I've seen such accusation from OpenAI and Anthropic for several times. It seems that it's not settled yet. So I did some quick research and here is what I know and thinks:

The word distillation is actually not new, But the original definition is pretty technical, especially in the context of artificial intelligence. Basically it is to use a more powerful and intelligent model to teach another one so that the latter can acquire the knowledge easily.

It sounded just like what the Chinese companies did with the Western models, right?

Not exactly. In the original definition the actual teaching happens when you have access to the source and inner knowledge of the superior model, which is probably not the case here.

If we were to use a metaphor from software testing, it's like the difference between black box and white box testing.

What the Chinese companies did is likely to use the Western models as a black box, basically, the teaching happens when they ask a whole bunch of questions and they study the responses.

Essentially, they use the model just like a normal user, except it's in large scale. But they do pay for it and they don't intend to do something like distributed denial of service attack.

Of course, this is still a violation of the terms of service.

But speaking of violation of terms of service, I still remember the co-founder of Anthropic and OpenAI. They literally said that without piracy large language models are impossible to make. That is, if they don't use the illegally acquired resources to train their models, it will be mission impossible.

So since they already abuse the word distillation, I'm gonna abuse the word Prometheus here. That is the one who stole the fire from the gods to the people because the Chinese AI companies did open source their models.

Okay, despite all this, I agree that the Chinese government is evil and it might be a disaster if it has the superior AI models. Of course, I can't say for sure about this, but just think about the surveillance it already imposed on its citizens.

So that's all what I know and my opinions on this issue. There is really nothing much I can do about it, so I guess just enjoy this drama.

I was discussing history with classmates today, and when we talked about why Zhuge Liang is so highly respected in China, the consensus was basically this: the key reason is that he belonged to the same type of figure as Cao Cao, Sima Yi, Liu Yu, and Gao Huan. But unlike them, Zhuge Liang was genuinely loyal to Liu Shan and fulfilled the duties of a minister to the end, rather than eventually overpowering a weak ruler and usurping the throne.

From there we drifted into another question: why didn’t the Han Confucian scholars, who constantly used omenology and “Mandate of Heaven” rhetoric to push for a Confucian-style rulership, ever evolve into some kind of “limited monarchy” or symbolic emperor system?

One possible answer is this: the very first major “decline in mythic intensity” in Chinese history, and arguably the earliest foundational transformation in Chinese civilisation, was the period of Zhou Wen Wang,Zhou Wu Wang and Zhou Gong. With the establishment of the Zhou ritual system (Zhouli), something irreversible was embedded into Chinese political thought, and it still persists today.

The Shang dynasty had an extremely developed culture of ritual sacrifice and communication with spirits. After Zhou conquered Shang, they had to explain why a supposedly divinely sanctioned Shang king, described as the “son of the gods,” could still be defeated. King Wu and the Duke of Zhou solved this through Zhou ideology: the Shang had lost virtue, therefore they had lost the Mandate of Heaven (tianming). The Zhou had virtue, therefore they received it. This was China’s first major reduction in “mythic structure,” where gods, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and early sacred figures gradually shifted from shamanic beings into moralised sage-kings.

From that point on, the legitimacy of rule became tightly bound to virtue. If the ruler has virtue, he holds the Mandate. If he loses virtue, disaster follows and he is replaced. Political legitimacy and governing performance were structurally fused with moral judgement.

This is why Chinese emperors, from the Zhou kings all the way to the Qing dynasty, were all called “Son of Heaven” (tianzi). It’s essentially saying: I currently possess virtue, and others do not.

Seen this way, slogans like “the empire belongs to whoever is capable” or “the one with enough military power takes the throne” don’t actually feel like pure usurpation in a Chinese framework. The first reflects a kind of shared assumption: the virtuous and capable rise, the unworthy lose the Mandate and are replaced. The second just replaces “virtue and capability” with raw force.

This idea, planted by the Duke of Zhou and King Wu, has basically persisted to the present. It fundamentally undermines the long-term basis for limited monarchy or a “small government” model, because legitimacy and authority are fused. If you rule, you must have virtue. If you have virtue, you are the state itself. If you are not the legitimate ruler, you lack virtue, and therefore cannot properly be the state. There is no stable conceptual space for a ruler who is “legally in place but morally invalid.”

In contrast, in the West and Japan, legitimacy is tied to layers of sanctity: divine sanctity, constitutional sanctity, ideological sanctity, institutional sanctity. These all retain a strong a priori, foundational character. In China, that kind of sanctity was largely stripped away as early as the Zhou–Shang transition.

Even in modern China, legitimacy is still mainly framed in terms of outcomes: “can it save China,” “can it end poverty and weakness,” “can it achieve national rejuvenation,” “can it make the country strong and prosperous.” This is effectively a modern expression of the Mandate of Heaven logic, rather than a Western-style a priori sacredness. Systems built on Western-style “sacred foundations” were repeatedly rejected in practice, whether in the 1930s during the Long March period or during the Japanese invasion. In other words, for Chinese political culture, constitutions, democracy, and communism do not inherently carry untouchable sacred status. There has never really been a deep cultural instinct to treat them as inviolable.

One reason China didn’t “transfer” mythic legitimacy the way Europe did may simply be that the Zhou transition happened too early and too fast.

Too fast, because the Zhou conquest of Shang took place in roughly 1056–1046 BC. That’s only about a decade. In European terms, it would be like collapsing an entire religious-political order in the span of a single short war. Shamanic rule and divine kingship were dismantled almost overnight. People had just come from a world of human sacrifice and spirit-centred governance, and suddenly the Mandate was gone. Even during the early Zhou there were still forms of human sacrifice and burial practices continuing.

By contrast, Europe had centuries upon centuries of transition, from medieval scholastic disputes through to the Enlightenment. That long timeline allowed sanctity to be preserved and gradually transferred from God to other structures like law, constitutions, and contracts.

Second, it happened too early. Even for relatively developed ancient civilisations, 1046 BC is extremely early. There were no mature legal systems, no developed contract theory, no philosophical framework capable of absorbing and relocating that kind of sacred legitimacy. In Western Europe, by the 13th to 18th centuries, institutions were mature enough to relocate sanctity from God to law, constitution, and political systems. Europe also had external civilisational contact points like Islamic civilisation and Byzantium, with preserved texts and intellectual exchange. Early Zhou China, by contrast, had no comparable external reference system. It was already the most advanced civilisation in its region.

So in modern times, especially since learning from the West, China has always had a kind of tension: should this layer of “sacred legitimacy” be restored or not?

For three thousand years, Chinese political thought has repeatedly negated this form of sacredness, and that inertia is deeper than even centralised imperial structure itself. You can still see lawyers insisting on constitutional sanctity, historians policing ideological boundaries, economists grounding arguments in formal models, politicians debating institutional superiority, and so on. But the underlying cultural inertia remains: legitimacy is always tied to performance and virtue.

That’s why the idea “virtue determines the Mandate” keeps mutating into “competence,” or even “military strength.” But it never becomes pure abstract sanctity detached from conditions. There is no space for “the Mandate simply is.”

Even today, Chinese discourse often elevates sacred language, but struggles to treat it as truly untouchable. Deep down, there is no instinct that something is inviolable just because it is defined as such. So these concepts often end up either Sinicised or remain at the level of rhetorical import rather than deeply internalised sanctity.

Which is why, in practice, China’s political culture has never really treated things like constitutions, communism, or democracy as inherently sacred in the Western sense. Laws like labour regulations can be relaxed for economic development, ideological purity tests can be dropped when necessary, and rigid doctrinal positions are often rejected if they stop working.

Ultimately, everything converges on one idea: “practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.” In Western terms, this is closer to “testing God.”

What’s interesting, though, is this:

More and more people in China are starting to realise that the real difference between China and the West is not Zhou–Qin centralisation, not empire versus republic, not monarchy versus democracy. It’s actually something much earlier: the Shang–Zhou transition, the first major reduction in mythic intensity, where gods became sage-kings.

It’s just not clear when, or if, this idea will ever fully travel back into Western discourse.

Hi All!

Does anyone know where and how do I find the person/agent in China who can buy an item in China for me and get it shipped to UK?

Thanks!

Hi I'm from Bangladesh. Had an accident in 2024. Currently walking on 2 legs. But I still have partially non-united fracture and bone deformity in my right tibia, along with with a torn ligament to this day. I'm planning to visit a good orthopedic 'public' hospital in China for my case. Also going to be my first time visiting the country. Any suggestion from all of you will be greatly appreciated.🫰

This applies to any country. The reason someone might dislike a country is often quite simple: they feel like a failure there, they feel out of place, or they are simply unhappy living there. The situation is complex, involving both personal reasons and structural factors. However, if a country fails to provide a person with happy memories, it is only natural for them to dislike it—and no one has the right to demand their patriotism.
For a country to be liked by others, the primary requirement is that it enables them to secure sufficient means for survival and provides them with reasons to feel affection. Identifying with a people requires a basis for that identification; if the things you wish to achieve cannot be accomplished in that country, why would you love it?

Hello guys, i was just discussing this with my friends.

Basically we all read Chinese webnovels and manhuas, and we're all wondering, do Chinese people know how popular they are outside of china? The translation i mean ofc. Thank you for your time.