As China shields itself from Americans, what’s life on the road really like?
Editor’s Note: The number of American exchange students studying in China has declined from a peak of 15,000 about a decade ago to 300-500 today. There’s been a similar decline among journalists, researchers, academics, corporate executives and more, which begs the question: if few are moving to China, what’s the country really like?
One of the few American students who headed to China recently happens to be our very own Lux associate Alex Marley, who spent a year in Beijing as a Schwarzman Scholar and traveled to nearly two dozen cities. Rather than an analytical summary of China’s place in the world, I asked him to write up some quotidian observations of life in a country increasingly out of reach of Americans.
“Are you crazy?! China is not a safe place. Don’t you remember they did …?” “Why are you going? Isn’t there somewhere else you’d rather visit?” “You’re going to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I know so-and-so went 10 years ago and had a great time.”
When I told friends and family that I was heading to China for a year as a Schwarzman Scholar, there was a wide range of responses just like these. Yet, it became clear that no one knew fellow Americans who had recently visited China. Before this year, I didn't either. China is both one of America’s largest trading partners and also one of its most looming threats.
So much of our information about the country is now filtered through layers of politics and media, so I thought it might be useful to just offer a few of my own personal experiences of living in Beijing and traveling across 22 cities of the mainland.
My first day in China was a blur. I landed at Beijing Capital Airport with several other incoming scholars. None of us knew what to do next. We arrived in China, check. We got our bags, check. Got our fingerprints taken, check. We were swabbed for COVID (and who knows what else), check. Now it was time to call an Uber and head towards Tsinghua University, but wait — there’s no Uber! Fortunately, we were prepared for this first hurdle and with some support from a bilingual scholar, we were able to track down cars on Didi and be on our way.
The journey to Tsinghua was only 21 miles long, but it seared my understanding of Chinese transportation. The ride took almost 1.5 hours, with traffic rivaling Los Angeles or New York during rush hour. I got seriously carsick, likely due to a manual transmission with a damaged clutch. From then on, I prioritized trains whenever possible.
Upon arriving at campus, I used a combination of body language and translation apps to identify that Tsinghua security was not allowing cars on campus. So we hopped out of the car with up to four suitcases each — which held our entire lives — and walked three-quarters of a mile in the searing Beijing summer heat to our dorms.
When entering Tsinghua University and Schwarzman College for the first time, I realized I was one of 84 American Scholars to have entered China that day, and one of only about 300 American students studying in China at the time. How can such a massive country with a population of 1.4 billion people have such limited U.S. representation?
I dropped off my luggage and started the registration process, which included:
- Headshots (which would be attached to almost every form I submitted in China)
- Creating a Bank of China account (in Chinese)
- Registration for Tsinghua University
- Application for residence permits
- A complete health screening (includes blood tests, X-rays, EKG and much more)
- And then the most important: WeChat and Alipay verification
Even with all the registration craziness, I ended the day taking a pitch with a founder I had worked closely with for Lux Capital at midnight (9 am PST) to ensure that Shahin Farshchi could join. (Editor’s Note: Our associates work hard!) Once we wrapped up, I went off to bed with two clear thoughts: “No wonder it’s tough to start living in China” and “My daily life might not actually be that different.”
Digital technologies are ingrained in all aspects of Chinese life, particularly centered around the so-called superapps of WeChat, Alipay and Meituan. It’s a lesson I would come to learn quickly.
As I got more situated and comfortable, I wanted to take some of my new friends out to dinner. While seemingly simplistic, I had no idea what restaurants to try or how to track them down. Yelp doesn’t exist, Google is blocked, TripAdvisor only has touristy suggestions, and the Michelin Guide was too fancy. Upon a recommendation from a Chinese scholar, I downloaded an app called Dianping (owned by Meituan), which acts as Yelp in China, and thought I was off to the races.
Once I opened Dianping, I quickly realized that there was no English version and it is exclusively in Chinese. While I had been in China for about a month and had been studying Chinese for about 15 hours a week, I was nowhere near fluent enough to navigate the app. Determined to find an alternative to campus dining halls, I started using an app called DeepL to help with translations. While slow, I made progress using the following process:
- Take a screenshot of Dianping
- Open the screenshot in DeepL
- Translate text to English
- Select the desired option and repeat
Eventually, I found a Peking Duck restaurant nearby and rallied a squad to head out. Upon arrival, we were asked several questions in Chinese: “How many people?” (my Chinese was good enough for this one), “Do you want a private room?” and “Are you in the queue?” I quickly became accustomed to these questions, since I learned it is very common for restaurants in China to offer private rooms for parties of six or more, and many popular restaurants have a virtual queue you sign up for on Dianping to avoid waiting on arrival. In this case, there were no tables available but a private room, which we took gladly.
You can certainly order food à la carte like in the United States, but ordering can also be done through set menus. Diners don’t order these set menus from the server though, but rather by finding the restaurant on Dianping and pre-purchasing a coupon that contains a QR code. A waiter will then scan your QR code to initiate the order.
Since everyone at dinner had varying Chinese abilities, we purchased a set menu for six people and hoped for the best. Since Beijing is the home of Peking Duck, the food was surprisingly good. When we finished dinner, we just walked out of the restaurant since we had already paid for the coupon, sent a split bill through WeChat (which divides a bill evenly among everyone in a text group), and went on with our evening.
Once I had been in China for six months and finished some domestic travel, I became particularly fascinated by China's vast electric vehicle market (Editor’s Note: which happens to be the main subject for the next Riskgaming scenario coming up soon). After visiting Shenzhen, the first city in the world to fully electrify its transportation infrastructure, I wanted to figure out a way to test drive some of the 400 electric vehicles working their way to market. Like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, EV makers in China had multiple showrooms in every mall I visited, making it extremely easy to get behind the wheel — assuming, that is, you had a Chinese driver’s license.
With a newfound mission, I started to identify the necessary documentation and whether obtaining a Chinese driver’s license as an American was even possible. Fortunately, it was, but like other processes in China, it required substantial documentation, including passports, a stamped and translated American driver’s license, visa, residence permits (plus copies of each) and that all-important headshot picture.
Once I prepared all the materials, I tracked down the one place you hope never to visit as an American in China: the local police station. Instead of heading to a DMV, internationals applying for a driver’s license need to process the forms at the police station, so that they have all of your information on file in case of an incident. After identifying a police station that offered licenses, I called a Didi and headed over.
I did a bit of a double-take on arrival. Am I willingly walking into a police station in China? What if I accidentally say something wrong in Chinese and get in trouble? Nonetheless, I trudged onward and took a number to wait for an officer’s assistance.
Accustomed to DMVs in the U.S., I took a seat and got mentally prepared to hang out in the police station. To my delightful surprise, within a couple minutes my number got shouted in Chinese (which I realized the second time it was called) and I walked up to the respective desk. Through using a combination of my limited Chinese (which I think earned a little leniency from the officer) and frequent utilizations of DeepL, the officer was able to understand I came prepared with all the paperwork, held a residence permit, and wanted a license.
From that point on, the process was fairly straight forward. I signed the copies of my passport and the translation of my U.S. driver's license, wrote down my phone number and address in China, and handed over one of my physical headshot pictures. During this process I even attracted the attention of the supervising officer, who thankfully only wanted to speak with us in English and say she was impressed with my (very limited) Chinese.
Once all the paperwork was processed, I paid a fee of 120 RMB (less than $17) and received my laminated license right there on the spot. Take note American DMVs: it’s possible to print a license and skip the postal envelope!
With my license in hand, I started to explore the world of Chinese automakers. My first stop was to visit the BYD headquarters in Shenzhen. It was truly shocking to see the quality and attention to detail that went into their most affordable vehicles (starting at just over $10,000). While the car itself did not feel as though it would last forever, the amount of technology that was integrated into the vehicle felt unprecedented at this price.
Afterward, I wanted to explore what a Chinese electric sports car had to offer and visited a company called Zeekr. When I first stepped inside one of their cars, I immediately felt catapulted to the future. Zeekr’s vehicles were freshly designed from the ground up and incorporated a modern interior cabin with unique material choices. Unlike traditional sports cars, Zeekr’s vehicles were simple and unobtrusive. While there was clear homage to the simplistic style pioneered by Tesla, the cars made you feel more sporty than if you were driving a Tesla. Across different test drives, it dawned on me that Chinese competition in autos is fierce, and America has a lot of work to do if we want to successfully compete in the years ahead.
I have limited space in this column, so these anecdotes are merely a glimpse of my experience living in China. There are countless nuances and unique etiquettes that vary between these nations. Many of these differences have substantial global consequences, but many arise from a lack of understanding and exposure. It is not easy to pick up your whole life and move to China, nor is it something I’d recommend for everyone. But if you are an individual who wants to have a global impact and help navigate the precarious geopolitical and global technological future, there is no better way to understand.
Evolved Technology: Why technology is counter-intuitively pushing us back to natural products in pharma development
The history of pharmaceutical development has traditionally been one of exploration on the frontiers of life on Earth. From fungi to molds, we’ve sourced many of our most important drugs from some of the unlikeliest places, and it’s all due to evolution. Nature’s intense competition and selection forces has made it the ultimate developer of pharmaceuticals, with potential cures lying in wait for someone to find them.
Searching nature is expensive though, and thus, pharmaceutical companies re-centered around synthetic chemistry over the past few decades, hoping to realize a more reliable and inexpensive drug discovery model. Unfortunately, we have hit a logjam with such an approach, and the evidence is clear that natural products are often regularly superior to synthetics.
We wanted to dive deeper into the future of biopharma, and so we brought together our own Tess Van Stekelenburg and Elliot Hershberg, the writer of Century of Biology, to work on a new mini-series for the Riskgaming podcast titled Evolved Technology. It’s an extension of a series of talks that Tess and Elliot (“two crazy bio-optimists”) have conducted in SF, and we hope it illuminates a critical scientific frontier with implications for all of us.
In this first episode, Tess and Elliot talk about the editing of life; why thousands head to the Himalayas to find tiny caterpillars in the dirt; the business history of natural products in pharma; the transition from natural products to synthetic chemistry; the limitations of our current biochem toolkits; and finally, how AI/ML are bringing us back to the search for natural products using higher-order models.
The Orthogonal Bet: Using Computational Biology to Understand How the Brain Works
Continuing our theme of biology, our scientist-in-residence Sam Arbesman spoke with Amy Kuceyeski, a mathematician and biologist who is a professor at Cornell University in computational biology, statistics, and data science, as well as in radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Amy studies the workings of the human brain, the nature of neurological diseases, and the use of machine learning and neuroimaging to better understand these topics.
Sam and Amy talk about her work, the connection between cognitive science and building AI models, and new approaches to non-invasively stimulating the brain to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
🔊 Listen to “Using Computational Biology to Understand How the Brain Works”
Lux Recommends
- I loved this Bloomberg Businessweek deep dive by Felix Gillette and Ashley Carman on how "Joe Rogan Invaded Austin and Became Comedy’s New Kingmaker.” A great and interesting story of urban economic development, star power, and the continuing rise of Texas at the center of the national cultural imagination.
- Sam was enraptured by Alvin Chang’s analysis of 1950s sci-fi films in a slick parallax illustration on The Pudding. Fun fact: only 12% of sci-fi films in the 1950s were set in the future. The vast majority were set in the present day.
- I’m very behind on some reading, but this essay from back in March by Elliot Ackerman in The Atlantic on "War-Gaming for Democracy” was a thoughtful reflection on the meaning of wargaming in the context of America’s increasing polarization. Are we simply imagining alternative futures when we design nightmare scenarios, or are we in fact laying down the roads to these dystopias?
- Sam enjoyed this unique game by two designers called “What Beats Rock?”, which takes Rock-Paper-Scissors and extends it infinitely to what I think are pretty much all material nouns. Dyson Sphere beats Sun was written by 527 others including me, and so let’s just say it’s a bit of a nerdy game. It’s a great example of the “poetic web” that Sam talked about recently on the Riskgaming podcast.
- Finally, an issue near and dear to my heart: Bloomberg Businessweek has a blockbuster set of stories on the rise of nurse practitioners in American healthcare, including why the profession is growing so rapidly as well as the high costs from the uneven training standards of the profession. “For health-care organizations, NPs are cheaper to employ than physicians, and under some circumstances the organizations can bill insurers for their time at physician rates.”
That’s it, folks. Have questions, comments, or ideas? This newsletter is sent from my email, so you can just click reply.
