> These endless rows of skyscrapers, put up in the construction frenzy of the last few decades, are ugly
And dangerous, and won't last more than a few decades. Just watch some of the tofu dreg videos https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1eyUAZCb3sA
> There were very few foreigners. In Beijing I might have seen half a dozen cumulatively across entire seas of people
Most foreigners from US and Europe have left after the COVID lockdown - they've seen with their own eyes the true nature of authoritarian/dictatorship regime. Also, the closer relationship of Russia and China has many unable to stomach supporting a regime that attacks Ukraine, another democracy. The foreigners are now from Africa, Middle East, or Belt and Road countries.
> Outside of Shanghai, almost nobody spoke English.
This is why China will be irrelevant in a few decades, as it recedes into its own shell. When most export manufacturing will have moved to Southeast Asia, when domestic goods is preferred over foreign goods, when export dwindles due to sanctions and tariffs, when it gets harder to harder for average citizens to obtain passports. China will be closed off just like the 18th century, just how Xi Jing Ping wants it.
> many young people expressed feeling stressed or overwhelmed
Imagine that you just graduated, and no one is hiring in your fields. And you can only drive didi or meituan, but the pay is decreasing fast, and there are 20+ idle drivers at lunchtime every day, and you are only making $300/month. And next year, there will be another 12+ million graduates - the size of the entire population of Sweden. You are trying to look for a job in another country, but travelling outside the country is discouraged and passports are hard to get.
> The biggest surprise from talking to Chinese VCs people at AI labs was how capital constrained they felt
China’s startup scene is dead as investors pull out—’Today, we are like lepers’
https://fortune.com/2024/09/14/china-economy-startup-creatio...