'American friends, you can't love your country only when its strong'

Folks from the United States are declaring that they will move to China. The Chinese response on Little Red Book was blunt.

The cyberpunk city of Chong Qing. Many Americans were wowed by Chinese cities, and have declared they want to move to China. Photo by Peijia Li on Unsplash

Many foreign vloggers love Malaysia. They love it so much that they declare that they’re moving to my country.

In fact, there’s one American vlogger who “moved” here despite not having a proper job or income. Just living off, well, savings, I guess. He is able to mostly because the dollar is a much stronger currency and his money goes far. However, at one point, he ran out of money and started asking for donations.

His kind followers did give him some money and he thanked them for enabling him to stay in Malaysia longer.

I, on the other hand, was turned off by it all. Why are you in Malaysia when you can’t even pay for your life here? What are you doing in my country if you’re not doing anything to contribute to it except making vlogs about how cheap yet modern my country is?

Whether it’s the United States or England or Canada, whatever, many people are thinking of escaping their countries. Usually to Asia. They often say in the videos that Asia is where they can “live for cheap in luxury”, which always makes my stomach twist with slight disgust.

(This is also really ironic because it used to be, once upon a time, people like me who wanted to move to the West. Watching the reverse happen is rather surreal.)

So, when I saw so many Americans saying that they want to move to China, I sighed a little and imagined a flock of foreigners dreaming about “living for cheap in luxury” in China.

The response is surprisingly blunt. (Yes, the Chinese can be very nice, but they’re also ruthlessly blunt.)

Here’s one post I saw on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book):

Here’s an AI translation of the post:

After understanding these days, I also discovered some differences between the Chinese and American people. Although everyone is hardworking and brave, and willing to endure hardships, Americans are more able to endure hardships. You can even work two jobs, sell blood, and have children without going to the hospital...

But the problem is, many American friends are saying "to leave this damn place." We Chinese people never think that way. If there is a problem, we should change, fight, and build. We have been like this for thousands of years, never avoiding it.

When the flood comes, we don't build an ark, we build a river, build a dam, instead of running from one place to another, and then screwing up and running.

If you have enjoyed the prosperity and glory of your country, you should accept its failure and backwardness. What you need to do is protect her, build her, and defend her, not letting her be destroyed by those worms.

Another comment said: “Over a decade ago, many people would talk all day about how great foreign countries were, such as their various welfare benefits and product quality, etc. However after hearing this, the thought most of us had was, ‘This is so good! I also want to build our country like this’. It is this kind of thinking that has led to the China of today.”

Many Chinese netizens also commented in various posts": “We’re not an immigration country” or “it’s very difficult to get a permanent resident here”.