An American Vlogger in China
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Today, we interview an American influencer in Asia, Garrett Parrish. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey, everyone. This is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Oh, yeah.

Hey everyone, my name is Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. Garrett Parrish is an American vlogger living in China.

You can find him on Xiao Hongshu, also known as Red Note, at Foreigner Life, where he used to have 15,000 fans. Presumably it's gone up. For U.S.-based listeners, you can find him on TikTok at The Foreigner Life, as well as on Instagram at The Foreigner Life. He makes content about topics that are trending. And if you have questions about China, his topics are probably the ones that you're asking. It's a lot of the same kind of stuff I end up asking on this show, because this is what people are interested in.

Welcome to the Bridge to China, Garrett. Hey, nice to meet you, man. Good to see you. It's nice to meet you as well. I want to learn more about you. Where in the States are you from? I'm originally from the outskirts of Boston. I grew up in a suburb called Lexington, which is where the Revolutionary War started. So it was a very historic town.

And very, like, a lot of American pride. So I grew up with a lot of rich American history throughout high school. And then I went to college at Boston and then moved to Los Angeles and then ultimately then moved to Asia. So definitely a Northeast kind of city, suburban kid when I was growing up.

Well, Los Angeles, that's, you know, just a little bit of, you know, a spice or something different. You know, you can juxtapose two different coasts. So wait a minute. At what point were you like, you know what? I want to move to Asia. I want to move to China. You know, that's not something that occurs to most people. Yeah, absolutely. So I China actually wasn't the first venture into Asia that I had ever experienced. So I work for an international American company.

And when I came into that company in Los Angeles, I then started working on projects in Asia, in Japan, in Hong Kong, and in Shanghai. And so my first international experience was actually in Japan. And so I traveled there for the first time about five years ago. And it sort of was my first experience ever really staying in the outside of the United States for a longer period of time. And

during that first experience in Japan, my whole mind just like exploded with, Oh my God, there's other ways to do life than we do it in America. And I learned so many different things about myself and about the way other countries, you know, organize their societies, the way the quality of life is. And, uh,

Japan was a really important moment for me to just expand my mind beyond what I knew from Los Angeles and from the Northeastern United States. And then from that point on, I really was very passionate and very motivated to live outside the United States. I saw how much I grew as a person and how much I enjoyed my time in Tokyo.

And then an opportunity with work came up to then move to Shanghai. And I immediately took it in like a day. And so I never really planned specifically to move to Shanghai. But I was very much planning and looking for the right opportunity to move abroad outside the United States. And as soon as the opportunity in Shanghai came up, I just took it and got on a plane. When you were in Japan, because that's your first experience, what kind of things shocked you?

Or surprised you. Surprised me. You said it gave you, yeah, different insights into life, right? So what were those? Yeah, so I think a lot of the things that many Americans experience when they go to Japan or Tokyo for the first time, they see how clean things are. They see how respectful the society is, the way that there's really great public transportation, the food quality. A lot of those sort of like basic building blocks of life were always really surprising to me. And it was really great.

moment for me to just realize that a lot of the challenges that America has and its infrastructure and its public health care system and just like the normal way of life. And then experiencing that in Japan was a huge deal for me.

And then on top of that, I always struggled a little bit socially in America because I grew up kind of as a nerdy kid. I was always into science and engineering. And a lot of kids like that in America can struggle to find their footing. But I think the biggest thing about Asia in general, and this is true with China as well, I think there's a greater and a more exciting appreciation for science and technology. And I went to engineering school for college, and I really was able to find something

social success in Tokyo and then ultimately Shanghai, where I was able to connect with people that shared a lot of the same values. And I think in general, societies on this side of the world generally tend to appreciate the same things that I appreciated. And so that ended up being a really great social fit for me. And that was really by far the biggest

experience for me was just finding a place where I actually felt comfortable being myself. And I found that in Tokyo and then ultimately found that in Shanghai. You know, Shanghai, as someone who lives in Beijing, most of my time in China and a little bit in Wuhan, and I've traveled around, Shanghai is often looked at as the most international city in China's mainland.

So could you tell me, for you, how does Shanghai compare to, say, Los Angeles or Boston? What differences and similarities are there between West and East? Oh, absolutely. I think it's really hard to compare any city to Shanghai because it's just so massive, like 32...

million people, 29 million people, however you count it, at least four times the size of New York City. And I spent some time there as well. I think for me, it feels like one of the most international cities that I've ever really experienced. I think New York probably outpaces it a little bit in terms of just the sheer magnitude of different types of people that are

concentrated in one spot. But I think the biggest thing for me about Shanghai is just that it has a grit to it. It has a very creative energy to it. I think Tokyo is really a fantastic city and I love Tokyo as well. And Los Angeles is a very chill city.

And Boston is a very academic city. So people in Boston kind of tend to just kind of go to school and focus on their work and kind of stay inside. Los Angeles people are more active and a little bit more leisurely. But Shanghai is just like always go, go, go, go, go, go, go. The speed of the city and the energetic grit that it has is really just unparalleled in terms of the motion of

that the whole society, like every week you see a new store, every couple of months you see a new company, there's new bikes on the street. There's just so many new things all the time. And half the city was built in the past 30 years. So just that momentum is something that is

quintessentially unique to Shanghai and I've never really seen anywhere else. Well, can I ask you, how long have you been living in Shanghai? I moved here about eight months ago, last September, and I've been working here, traveling back and forth for about a year and a half. So my first venture into Shanghai was about 18 months ago, a year and a half.

And I had spent a little bit of time in Hong Kong and other parts of mainland China before. But Shanghai was like my first big city experience. And then ultimately, about a year after traveling here for work, I decided to fully relocate. Well, can I ask you, are you planning on learning Chinese? Are you learning Chinese? And is it necessary? Yes.

I'm currently learning Chinese a little bit. I've been studying Japanese for a couple years now, and so I'm able to read a lot of the Chinese characters from my study of Jap- but I'm just starting- a month actually- to start official Mandarin lessons. And so I think it's really important when you do move to a new place

that you invest the time and the energy to learn some of that local language. I think in Shanghai, you can certainly get by without it, but I think that's a kind of a sad missed opportunity if you don't really engage with it. This is how I felt when I was living in Japan, that you can kind of experience expat life in Japan and get by. You can experience expat life in Shanghai and be fine, but

I think there's certain parts of society that you just can't really access unless you speak the local language. And I think sort of out of respect for your hosts and the people that you are a guest to, it's very meaningful to learn some of that local language. So hopefully in the next couple of years, I'll be fluent, finish studying Japanese, and then also be fluent in Mandarin as well. Maybe speak a little bit of Shanghai. Wow. That's a lot to take in. Oh, yeah.

Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. You're listening to The Bridge.

I kind of want to ask about how you've embraced Chinese culture specifically. Like, for example, in America, we, cause you sit down at a restaurant. The first thing they give you is a big tall glass of ice water. Maybe I don't know in Shanghai how it's like, but in Beijing, the first thing they give you is boiling hot water. So do you drink tea now instead of coffee? Do you have your own bottle water that you carry around or have you picked up any other habits from, from here?

Absolutely. I think personally, one of my most proud characteristics about myself is that I am very adaptable. So I adjust very well to new environments. I think that comes from how I grew up as a kid. I was constantly moving and in different places. And so I learned how to adapt really fast. And so there's quite a few different things that I've adopted in each place that I've moved. And particularly in Shanghai, a lot of the basic ones, you know, you take your shoes off, you enjoy the hot water at restaurants for sure. I never really understood the

that thing. And when I first came here, it was kind of strange, but I totally get it now. And I really, really love it. I think for me, the biggest kind of cultural shift of moving here that I really have adopted is a certain practicality and lack of self-consciousness when it comes to self-expression and sort of being yourself. And one thing I love about the

not very self-conscious about themselves. And this is totally different from living in Tokyo where society is very conscious of how you're behaving and what you look like and all those types of things. And for me, just being very comfortable even taking videos on the street, just like I do on my social channels,

I would never have been able to do that like a year or two ago until I moved to China and just experienced a very open society that is very culturally accepting of people just like being themselves. You walk past the park and you see all the older generation, you know, dancing disco and not caring at all. And I think that for me has been the most important thing.

learning and growth that I have adopted from Chinese society. So I want to restate this because I want to understand. You began making content once you arrived in China. Yes, I did. I had a small personal Instagram account just for myself and my friends. But I

But I had never really imagined that it was possible to have a social channel or to put myself out there like that. And it took me about four months after moving to China to start the channel. And a friend of mine suggested it and said, you know, you're having a lot of new experiences in China. A lot of people are interested in that kind of thing. Maybe you should share some of that. And

I think when I first moved to China, I was much more self-conscious about myself and expressing my thoughts and putting myself on camera. But I always would walk by the park by my apartment and see all the grandmas and grandpas dance in tango. And I'm like, okay, if they can do that, I can probably take a video of myself and talk about my life. So I think I was very honestly inspired by China.

the way that people just kind of be themselves here and don't really have a lot of self-conscious about it, apparently. And so then I started doing content and I wanted to share my experiences in that way.

Well, speaking of like damas, you know, all the people who dance outside and do the tango and all these other different styles. Have you ever joined in? Yes, once I did. There's a park by the IAPM mall just close to where I live. And on one of the Saturday nights and there was like a huge party.

all the different grandpas and grandmas and even younger people too. And once I just kind of like got in and just like went with one of them and went around, I was with a friend of mine too. So we, we danced a little bit as well. And it was just, it's just, that's honestly my favorite thing about China is those particular moments. Cause they just remind me of,

the joy and peace that a lot of people have when they are in China, especially the older generation. And I think it's just like a beautiful expression of humanity that these people just gather in parks just to exercise, to socialize and just to live peacefully. And I really appreciate that. So I definitely have joined in, but I never got it on video. You know, one of the content you made was about safety. You made one, I guess it was a few weeks ago about, oh, is it safe to come to China? I think that there's a...

misunderstanding in the United States about that. And a lot of people have the reason they don't come visit China or come to live in China, for that matter, is they think that it's a very scary place. Everything's in black and white, even even somehow the trees are grayscale and the skies are always gray. Can you tell us, do you feel that China is safe? Yes or no? Why? What was your experience like?

Absolutely. So I'll say that when I first arrived in Shanghai, my first night, I stayed in Lujiazui and I remember standing outside like in my hotel room and looking out and just being terrified. So I had a very similar kind of worldview when I first came to China, that it was a scary place, that there's a lot of concerns that you have to preoccupy yourself with it. And that all proved to be inaccurate for me personally. And I

I feel safer in this city and in this country than I have ever felt in

in America at all for a variety of reasons. But I think that there's a lot of misperceptions, understandably, about mainland China and the way things work here, the way the place looks, the way you might feel when you come here. And I experienced this with my friends in America and even my friends in Japan as well. They have similar concerns. So from my perspective, I felt safer here than I have in either place. And

There is a misconception about that safety that is sad and unfortunate. And it's the type of thing that you really just have to kind of rip the bandaid off and come and see it for yourself. Because you can listen to people like me or people like you and kind of hear that. But when you actually physically walk around and feel what it's like to be safe and to not worry about violence,

violence or worry about leaving your bike or leaving your laptop or your computer at a cafe. You don't really believe it until you do it. And I

I've seen a lot of people that come to Asia for the first time in places like Japan or Korea or China and experience that kind of safety. And your brain is not conditioned to accept that kind of thing in America because it just doesn't happen. You're sort of always on guard. You're always making sure your door is locked, making sure your laptop is safe. And you just get used to that and you sort of

believe that that's just the way the world needs to be. And it just isn't because there are hundreds of millions of people in so many different countries that do live in societies where you don't have to worry about that all the time.

And I really hope that people have the opportunity to come here and just experience it because you will get it when you walk around. Yeah, I would love to see more Americans not just come to China, but to visit countries all over the world because they're, like you said, in your learning experience of coming to Asia for the first time, there's so much we Americans are sort of closeted off from that we don't realize that's possible to rebuild our society in all kinds of different ways.

How do you get around? Do you have a car? Do you have a driver's license? Do you use public transportation? What is that like? So I don't drive a car. I drove a car for many, many years in LA and I've never been happier to not own a car. I think...

America has a very obsessive car culture that everybody has their own individual, you know, little box that they go around in. And ever since I moved to Asia, I never drove unless I was like on vacation in an island tropical place or something. And I love it. So actually my most primary mode of transportation around the city is the little rental bike. And I love the way it works in China because I've never seen this anywhere else where the bikes are just on the sidewalk.

They're like not locked to anything. You can just drop it off pretty much anywhere, pick up another one and go and it's less than a dollar for like an hour to rent. So whenever I'm going around the city within a 20-30 minute commute, I always take a bike. To get to work, I alternate sometimes between taking a DD and taking a subway and the subway takes me about an hour, the DD takes me, you know, 30-40 minutes.

And by US standards, the DDs are quite affordable. But the public transportation is clean, efficient, modern, really inexpensive, and very, very safe. And compared to some place like Boston and New York, or especially Los Angeles, where the public transit system is not always the safest, you know, it could hopefully be someday, it makes a huge difference. So I think there's a lot of different options in Shanghai and safety is never a concern.

And as a Westerner, somebody from the States, just having that variety of options of how to get around just makes the city so accessible and a lot easier to explore and take so much stress out of just like daily commuting and getting from place. I saw that you were in, I guess it was Gwailine maybe in one of your videos recently.

Did you take an airplane or did you take the high-speed rail? To go to Guilin, I took an airplane, which traveling domestically in China has always been a pretty simple, efficient experience. But I did go to Suzhou actually this past weekend, and I did take the high-speed rail for the first time in China. I've taken the Shinkansen in Japan, and obviously a similar style transit system. And

It took me 23 minutes to go from Hong Chao in Shanghai to Suzhou. And I was just like, my brain was exploding. I was like, how do we not have this in America?

It just makes so much sense. And it's like going from New York City partway to Philadelphia almost. And in 23 minutes, and I was in first class, I even like did the app thing where you order and then they bring food to your seat. And the whole time I'm just like a five-year-old being like, what is this nonsense? How do we not have this? There's so many places, even between San Francisco and Los Angeles or New York and Boston and Washington, D.C. It would make so much sense. It would benefit society so much.

I love trains. I've loved trains in Japan and in China, and China's definitely didn't disappoint. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. You're listening to The Bridge. You know, I have to say this is a difficult issue because in the United States we have reasons that it

it's difficult to do that. Like property rights and different towns have different laws and different counties have different laws. And so building it is a huge red tape issue, really. My own theory, my own hypothesis as an American, because I want this too, is we should just go underground,

You know, we have all these highways, national highways and state highways all over the United States. We already own that land. That's public. Basically, it belongs to us in some way. We should just go under that like really deep and just dig it there. I don't know. Maybe it's going to take more time or maybe more Americans need to go to Europe and Japan and China and see what it's like, experience what it's like. And then they're going to be, you know, we need this.

There's another reason that I feel that it makes more sense in China. It's very densely populated. You know, a small town in China could be millions of people. So connecting it by high speed rail makes a lot of sense. Whereas a small town in America could be like 10,000 people. So connecting with high speed rail is actually less efficient. I don't know. I wanted an America between major cities, but I think it's going to take a long time before we get it.

It's kind of sad for us. Anyway, what is it like making friends in China? So personally for me, actually making friends in a variety of other places has been far easier than making friends in the United States. For me, I think naturally as foreigners in a place where you are very severely the minority,

it sort of heightens your willingness to interact with each other and find each other because you're like, "Oh, okay, you get it. You speak English, you're from this country, like, let's hang out and be friends." And so I find the foreigners that do live in places like China very, very open-minded and very open to making friends with each other. And

I've found a lot of great events in Shanghai. Obviously, it's a very international city, as you mentioned before, and a lot of the local Chinese people here, at least in the circles I exist within, tend to speak some English. So, for example, I went to an alumni mixer for a couple of different schools like two or three weeks ago, and I met like 20, 30 people. And it was just a really great, you know, exchange of WeChat. Maybe let's hang out. Let's go to this other event. Let's do something else.

And I think that openness to meeting people goes such a long way, especially for somebody who's introverted. Like I'm generally shy in my personal life. And so it takes a lot of energy for me to go and put myself out there socially and meet people. And yeah,

In Los Angeles, it's a very exclusive social culture where you have to know certain people to go certain places. And in New York City, there's just so many people and nobody has time for you. So in a place like China or in Shanghai, I just find it very open for, yeah, come on, like, come to this event or come to do this thing or we're open to everybody. I've just found such a more welcoming attitude towards new people here than I have anywhere in

there. Yeah, I get the same experience in Beijing as you're getting in Shanghai. Every Chinese person I see is like, oh, here, my my American friend, come here. And then they just immediately start talking to me. So I just it's a wonderful experience.

In America, I left a long time ago, 10 years ago, more. You recently came here. But it looks like to me, tipping culture has gone just insane, like in the United States. I mean, I don't have a lot of personal experience with how bad it's gotten, but you have. What's it like tipping in China by comparison? Well, there is no real tipping in China. And I started to realize this when I lived in Tokyo because it's almost disrespectful in Japan to tip. And in America, I think typically,

mostly like after COVID, there was this huge surge in just prices overall and everything. I remember before COVID, a hamburger was like $12. And then after COVID, all of a sudden it was like 22 or 25. And everything...

And everything just massively spiked in price. And then all the tipping just got completely out of control. So a lot of times, like you'll be asked to tip in coffee shop or in places that you would never really think traditionally to tip that you were paying for a service or you're just giving back to the servers or that type of thing. And then I noticed very intently, it used to be like 12, 15 and 18. Now it's like 18, 20 and 25.

And so just the proportion just all shifted up. And then even sometimes you can do the math and you can look at the bill and the numbers of the percent don't match the numbers of the value. So when it actually says 18%, the number underneath it doesn't actually always match.

represent 18% of the bill or it will be like including tax. So it's just, it's just, uh, I think it's just a reaction to, you know, wages being stagnant and tipped workers making so little money, which is all understandable from their perspective. Um, but I don't think Americans quite get how strange it is to the rest of the world that we do things this way. And,

And I think in a place like China, you just go to a shop, you go to a restaurant and you just trust, okay, they're getting paid a fair wage based on their working environment. And if I see something for 60 RMB on the menu, that's going to include everything and I'm going to get what you paid for. And for me, that just takes a lot of social stress out of going out, buying anything because you're not constantly like, okay, well, it was this, but then it's also a tax and then also a tip. And then by the time you leave, you're like, what did I just pay?

So I think I'd love every American to come to any country where they don't tip and experience it. And hopefully at some point in the future, we can get our friends in America to see the light and find a way to change it. Yeah. If we just had all the companies at once in the same time decide, okay, we're just going to pay like what's fair. Like so people can a living wage kind of situation, then tipping would become obsolete. Yeah.

You made a video, though, called America is a toxic ex-girlfriend. What do you mean? So it's an interesting video. I was a little fired up that day. But I think for myself, I've been in a toxic relationship before. Maybe you have, or I'm sure a lot of people listening have been in some way. And I think it's...

it's been a very interesting way to think about my relationship to America, like any relationship to something that's highly emotional, highly physical. And if you think of countries as kind of relationships, so sometimes you have a short summer fling somewhere. Sometimes you have a long committed marriage with a place. And I think for me, America, the,

We had a lot of kind of fights in the past. I felt very kind of gaslighted about my identity. I was much more unhealthy physically when I was there. I was not taking care of my body as much. And then when I left, it was kind of like,

oh, okay, so we weren't meant for each other. America's a great place. It's the right place for some people. But like any toxic relationship, what happens at some point, hopefully, is you realize, okay, we're not really meant to do this forever. And so it's like, okay, you go do you. I'm going to go do me. I'm going to go find someone else to fall in love with. And you're going to just keep doing your thing. And I just felt like America is just not the place for me, at least right now in this point in my life. And like any...

kind of toxic situation where you feel uncomfortable with the way something is treating you, the only thing you can really do is leave. And so, you know, I didn't feel as taken care of as I've felt in other countries. Healthcare, safety, as I've mentioned before, a lot of different aspects of sort of just being accepted and feeling safe in a society. And I've really found that in China. I've found that in Japan.

And it just wasn't the case in America. So we had an amical breakup. He's going to go do his thing and I'm just going to go on, live my life. And we're just going to

Let that be what it was. The next question I have is basically my own ignorance now, because in the United States you have things like Grubhub and other delivery services. When I left the United States 12 years ago, basically pizza was like the only thing you could get delivered. And in special circumstances, you could get the grocery store to deliver. It was really mostly for older people and stuff. But obviously that's all changed.

So how would you explain to someone both in China and the United States the differences and similarities between home delivery? So I think for me, the variety of stuff that you can get delivered in China is uncomparable to

to the United States. I think you can get things delivered from Amazon in a couple of days, maybe same day delivery from a place like Target, but you can't get very specific things at very inconvenient times as you can in China. So for example, I made a video about I ordered a hard drive at like 10 o'clock on a Sunday night and it was delivered within an hour. And it just blew my mind that that was even possible. So I think

China just has this breadth of the kind of things that you can order socks from Muji and get it delivered in an hour. Just random stuff. And then I think the price point is something that's hard to kind of compare. And in the States, if you're going to order something from Grubhub or DoorDash or something like that, it can easily run you $40, $50, even $60 for like a meal, a drink, a side, that kind of thing. And

So even when you adjust for wages between two different places, Shanghai and Los Angeles, for example, maybe it's like three times. You can get a very high quality meal delivered in Shanghai for five or six dollars that you just couldn't get for 18, 20 dollars in Los Angeles.

economics don't work the same way and the quality doesn't work the same way as well. And so what that does for the way you eat and the way that you have access to food as a foreigner, but even as a local person who's lived here and makes a local living wage, I know a lot of people who are local that work with me at work or just friends, and they are able to order food delivery and medicine delivery, a lot of things all the time. And so you do kind of get very spoiled in China when you just need...

screwdriver or you need some medicine or you want some mango and it's 11 o'clock at night and you can just get fresh cut mango delivered for $3. I couldn't get fresh cut mango delivered for $10 in Los Angeles. And there's just different levels of accessibility and options that you can get in China that is just not comparable to anywhere else in the world.

Hey, everyone. This is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. You're listening to The Bridge. You know, I have to say I've also become very spoiled because in China, there's many Valentine's Days. There's four or five of them. I'm married.

And so there's all these different couples days that pop up and I never know when they're coming because there's so many. So I'll be at work sometimes. They'll say, hey, what did you do for this? It's today. Oh, no. So I just opened my phone. Flowers delivered within 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Instantly, it's like, OK, problem solved. Very easy. I want to talk about cash.

Again, this has changed. I'm imagining in the United States, when I left the United States 12 years ago, we used cash and credit cards occasionally. And usually those were for bigger items. But I'm imagining it's changed and there's all kinds of advancements. How would you compare cashless society in the United States to what you've experienced here in China?

So I think, as you said, in the past 10 years, it definitely has shifted towards more of a card-centric culture in America. I think cash is still used. I think most places that you shop tend to be bigger, big box stores, Target, gas stations, or Walmart, that kind of thing. So in those places, you typically will pay with card.

In China, I have never once made a transaction with cash. The only cash I have ever held in my hands was a red packet from red envelope from Chinese New Year. And I still have it. I don't know what to do with it. So I got it and I was like, oh, this is what it looks like. That's fun.

Because everything you purchase or every transaction you make, even with small flower vendors in the park, you pay by QR code on Alipay or on WeChat. And I think the ubiquity of that type of payment

is just really unparalleled. And it has an extra kind of level of magic to it here because you just genuinely know you never need the card. And leaving your house in America, yeah, you should probably bring your card with you in case you need to make something. Or maybe they'll have Apple Pay you can pay with tap. But in China, every time I leave my house...

I just have my phone. Oh yeah, I don't need it. I can pay for everything on the phone. And that just makes it very accessible. It makes it dangerous because you can spend money very easily, but it just changes the way you move through the city, move through the society because everybody is just kind of coordinated in one spot and you're not making sure that you're only paying on certain cards or you're, this has alley pay, this needs cash. And I think it actually,

must help the business culture here too because it gives everybody the accessibility of mobile payments to get paid in a lot of different ways you can pay your friends back and forth and it must make it really easy to do business because so many people have access to getting paid you know you

You mentioned bring only your phone out. It reminds me, I don't know, seven or eight years ago, I used to have a wallet. I still have it, I think. It's in a drawer somewhere. I just don't even look at it. You don't need one at all. You don't have a wallet in China. No, I mean...

Ladies have their bags. Maybe they have some kind of person there. I don't know. But men just don't carry that. You just have maybe keys, maybe not because we have facial recognition and fingerprint IDs and punch codes for doors sometimes. Maybe keys, but the phone. And that's it. That's all you really need in China. I use my watch to tap the subway system. I think I could do it with my phone, but I just prefer the watch. So it's just very, very, very convenient.

And then you don't have all these like pockets full of stuff every time you go out.

You know, while it is a huge thing for a man, it's a gigantic package. So it's one less thing. You came to China for the first time, you said 18 months ago. Back when I first came to China, it is true in 2012, 2013, 14, 15, 16, that the skies were in fact gray often. And there was a great deal of air pollution. It was terrible, fully honest here. But for me, probably since 2018, 19 and moving forward, it's gotten better right now.

I don't know what it's like in Shanghai, but man, that is like the best blue sky I've seen in like a week. And it's just absolutely resplendent here. Most of the time, you know, when I say most of the time, I mean, 29 days out of 30. It's really nice. What is your experience been? You probably heard like on CNN as a younger person. Oh my gosh, the skies in Beijing, they're all gray and terrible. When you arrived 18 months ago, what was your experience like?

This is a really important issue, I think, because this is an understandable perception that people have based on how they have heard the news about China in the past couple of decades. And in my experience, in the past year or so, I haven't really noticed that big of a difference between Shanghai and Los Angeles. Los Angeles, you always kind of get like a haze. And there's been days in Shanghai where you see a lot more blue than you ever see in Los Angeles.

And I think in Los Angeles, you always kind of have this like thin film of dust that's just on everything. And naturally because of the air pollution from all the cars and just the way that the city is situated. And so in my experience, maybe as you say, there's like a couple of days a month where there's like gray sky sometimes because it's weather sometimes because it's, you know, a result of pollution or something like that. But even this morning, I just went for a run this morning and the sky was just like perfect iridescent blue. And, um,

I think it's understandable that people have that perception. I think the reason that it's weird for people is it's hard to conceive that a country could fix that big of a problem in such a short amount of time. Things in America take a very, very long time to happen and to change. And

China had a lot of these challenges with pollution for a very long time and very recently, but so quickly, it seems that it got fixed to a huge degree and is getting better and better every year. And for me as an American, it's hard for me to think, like, how could you possibly fix a problem like that that quickly?

But things just happen very fast in China. And that can fix really big problems very, very quickly. And I think that that just makes it

really special environment to fix big problems. And because they are able to do that, they can fix them and then you move on to the next thing. And so I think a lot of Americans who listen to the news and pay attention to China in the 90s and 2000s or around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, there was a big controversy about pollution there. And it's just changed. And it's the responsibility of the news in America, obviously, to

report that accurately, but I think it's something that you can't really experience until you physically come here and then you see it and then you realize, oh, it's actually pretty nice. It's not the way I was told it was. So I hope people will continue to experience that more, but for me personally, I've never worried about the pollution or really experienced it in a negative way. You know, it used to be necessary...

A lot of expats, let me just put it this way, used to have air purifying systems in their homes. If you didn't have one, I didn't. People were like...

What's wrong with you? Like, you need to get one right away. You know, it's like a whole different period of time. What do you think about Chinese food? Obviously, is not like we experience in the United States. It's something completely different. What have you been your favorite Chinese foods that you've enjoyed since you've come here? And how does it compare to U.S. Chinese food? I think one of the biggest things that I've I've learned about China, and it's going to sound kind of stupid to say, is just the massive scale and the diversity within China.

in terms of food, in terms of language, in terms of just individual cultures of cities and provinces. And a lot of people just think of, oh, Chinese food. But for people who live in China, you don't ever say, oh, let's go get Chinese food to somebody. It's like, oh, let's go get Sichuan food or let's go get Xinjiang food or let's go get, you know, Guangdong food and Cantonese food. And

There's so many different types of Chinese food that I don't think people in America really kind of perceive, just as there are so many different dialects of Mandarin that you can speak and that are spoken in so many different places. So I think that diversity is fascinating to me. I think for me, being in Shanghai, I have to say Xiaolongbao is like...

amazing staple of food to have, of course. Spent a lot of time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen and Zhuhai in the Guangdong area, in the south, and having all the different varieties of dim sum. And then I was just in Suzhou and the Suzhou noodles with the little shrimp was my absolute favorite. Just like ate the whole thing. And then there's this amazing kind of like orange pickled fish that is just like presented beautifully. And so I actually really liked Suzhou food as well. So

I did try a variety of Sichuan food. That's definitely an adjustment as an American with a little bit more of a fragile stomach than some of the Chinese people out here. So if you're coming to China, just be gentle with the Sichuanese food. Go slow. But I think that for me, it's just endless to try so many different types of Chinese food here. And I think back to my

hometown, there was a restaurant called like Shanghai food and we would go get lo mein from the Shanghai food in Lexington, Massachusetts. And now I like live in Shanghai. It's just hard to compare because American Chinese food is just not quite represented. It's sort of tinted to fit the palate of Americans, which is normal. But I definitely prefer the like native Shanghai food.

Over what we have in America. You know, I had the same experience with South Korean food. I went to South Korea, I moved there for a year and then I moved back to the United States. And then I was like, Oh, I want people to experience this. So I brought some of my friends to a Korean restaurant. And then I was like,

this isn't Korean food. I didn't want to say that too loudly because they were third generation Koreans working at the restaurant, but it was not the same. And so it was very strange. I think that's probably true of most kinds of foods. When they move between cultures, they change considerably, probably local ingredients too. And like you mentioned, the difference in palate. Where have you been in Asia? Let's start with Asia first, because you mentioned Japan. But what other...

cities, countries, beautiful beaches have you been to? I've spent a lot of time in Japan, in Tokyo and Osaka. Okinawa is one of my favorite places to go for a beach, for sure. I have been to Bangkok for a couple of days, which is really fascinating for me to experience that. I've been to Indonesia and Bali a little bit. I've been to Taipei, which is an amazing city. And then

and then Hong Kong I spent time in and Macau and then parts of the southern part of China in Zhuhai, Guangdong and Shenzhen which is really great and then I was just in Guilin and I have a long list of domestic travel to do I still need to get

get to places like Harbin to go see the ice festival and to Jeongja-je, which is such a beautiful mountain area. So I've been to kind of a short smattering of places in Asia, but I have a short list of domestic mainland Chinese places to go. And then I still need to go to a place like Korea

Cambodia, Laos, parts of Southeast Asia. I want to go to Singapore. I've never been there as well. But that's one of the great parts about living in Shanghai specifically is that you are a three-hour flight from so many different places. And traveling domestically in China is so easy because of trains and planes, obviously. But just traveling

It's very different from America where, you know, you go three states over and the culture is not that different. The food's not that different. The language is not that different. But you go from Shanghai to Korea to Japan to...

Thailand, you know, eight hours to Australia even. And you are in such a different cultural, culinary and social environment. So you just have such variety to pull from. And I have such a long list. I have to continue to take time off to get everything. I'm going to ask for a selfish reason, not because of the actual show. I want to visit Macau. It's the last place in China I've not been to. What was Macau like? What did you experience there? So Macau was actually the very first place

region of China that I have ever visited. And I went there for a week, two and a half years ago. And I was fascinated by it because it's just such an interesting melting pot of different cultures because you have Portuguese, you have Mandarin, you have English.

And half of the city is this huge, opulent, like metropolis of casinos and hotels and luxury shopping and so many different kind of modern experiences. And then you have all the Portuguese forts and all of the old historic town. And it was just this really great kind of

a melting pot of different things coming together. And it really kind of instilled in me this understanding that history is really important in the way that countries develop and the way that regions develop and places and cities. And so I was just fascinated by how the history of that city brought it to what it is today and how you can have so many different things coming together. And also just the scale of Macau too, because I think like

three or four times as much money goes through Macau as goes through Las Vegas in terms of a gaming capital of the world. And then you just realize like, oh, China's huge. Like there's just so much money and there's so many people on this side of the world

And I think in America, we have a very North American centric worldview that this is the center of the world. And in a lot of ways, it's not. There's so many other people in the world than the 300 plus million people in America. So I definitely recommend anybody to go to Macau. They got great shows, great food.

you know obviously great casinos and hotels and that kind of thing um if you're interested in that but um just as a historic city i just found it really fascinating how small it is and the unique placement of it so definitely would recommend but that was my first um

experience in any part of China. You mentioned domestic travel itinerary. Where haven't you been that you would like to go and why? So I definitely want to go to the north to a place like Harbin. And partly because I've heard, and this is just firsthand hearing, that they love to eat

so much food because when you're so cold all the time, apparently you need a lot of food. And food is one of my great loves. And I just like, I eat like I'm a 12 year old boy. So I think for me, like a place like Harbin, obviously I want to see all the beautiful nature that's up there as well. But there's like certain places like that, that I want to go to experience the food. And then I really want to go to Inner Mongolia. I want to go to parts of Xinjiang just to see the mountains and all the majestic scenery. And then I,

I really want to go to Chongqing and Chengdu to see such massive metropolises and how can 36 million people live in one spot? That is just a concept that is hard to fathom. And when you put that many people in one place,

Even in one metropolitan area, you know, New York is at most eight. Multiply that by four. You're just like, what? So those are the two kind of like big cities that I definitely want to go to. And then a long time on my bucket list has been Dali in the southwest. I just hear it's very beautiful and peaceful and calm. So those are kind of the top parts of my list right now. I have been to Beijing. It's a great city.

And I love that area as well. But there's also a lot of places kind of around Shanghai, like Suzhou was on that list. I went last week and then Hangzhou and taking a train within two or three hours because it's so fast to so many different places. I want to go to Qingdao. There's just so many places. It's just so big. So I'm going to have to like be specific about it. But that's a quick, quick kind of list.

Well, it sounds like if you hit Chongqing, you probably, I'm guessing you've been to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. So that means that you will have been to all of the big cities in China. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chongqing is something. I mean, you've not been to Chengdu or Chongqing. No. Wow. You know, I go to Sichuan food here in Beijing. It's pretty good. But you go to the Sichuan food in Sichuan. Wow. It is something else.

You know, actually, when my wife and I first arrived in Chengdu, we got out of, I think it was the train and we had all of our bags with us. And we were so eager to have real Sichuan food that we didn't go to the hotel and leave our bags. We brought all of our luggage with us and went to a restaurant and had the food first.

And I think we were burned inside for like a couple of days, but it was worth it. It was so delicious. I've heard, I've heard like, if you're going to go all the way there, just go for it, eat the food and deal with the rest later. I saw one of your videos this morning. I, cause I was just surfing show hung shoe and you popped up. It knows the kind of content I like watching. And so you did a video about no noise or no street noise. Could you tell us, what do you mean?

So I think for me, one of the most noticeable differences about the city of Shanghai is how quiet much of the streets are. My family's from New York City, so I spent a lot of time there. Boston, obviously Los Angeles. And to me, just in my own personal experience, I think Chinese cities in general feel very, very quiet to me. And I felt that in Shanghai, in Suzhou, in Zhuhai, in Beijing even. I know the traffic in Beijing is...

infamous, but still just to me, it just feels so quiet. And I know there's a lot of reasons for this. There's different laws about honking your horn. You know, partly it's because of electric cars. Partly it's just because people tend to be quieter here in a lot of ways. And I think for me, it just creates such a unique atmosphere.

environment when you're just moving through the city because it just feels very peaceful when you're in this massive metropolis and with so many people in Shanghai you think there's a perception that it's always really busy and bustling and it probably was more so like that you know farther back in time as I've heard I've never experienced that but to me as a foreigner and as an American who's spent a lot of time in New York City you go in Times Square you go in

many parts of Manhattan there's horns there's noises it's just so cacophonous there's just so much noise and activity and I know a lot of people like that but for me Shanghai is quiet and peaceful compared to that and so it feels like there's no noise to me because it's like there's nobody screaming there's no horns there's no giant mufflers there's no motorcycles like it's so quiet so

So it's just a feeling for me of what it kind of tricks my brain into just thinking I must be in like a suburb right now. I'm not in a big giant 30 million person city. This is weird. Yeah, I think you're probably geared a little higher than me because for me, I like Beijing, Shanghai, these big cities. I like to visit them and experience the light and the color and the sound and all of this. But for me, it's a little intense.

I actually prefer like a smaller Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha, almost a new first tier city because they're like the big city, but the tenor is just a little lower. And that's more of my vibe right there. Yeah. I'm from San Francisco. For me, Beijing, you know, San Francisco is only 800,000 people. So it's actually kind of like by China's standards, a tiny town.

So when I'm here in Beijing, I feel just overwhelmed. It's like, oh my gosh, like it's so intense. I just want to go inside somewhere. But I mean, not sound, you're right. I think it's quieter. I just mean like the intensity and like the, you know, you mentioned at the beginning of the show,

how people are all go, go, go, go in Shanghai. I find that all of the big cities in China are like that. You know, they're engaged in competition and they're, they're engaged in production and, you know, artistic vibes coming out of them. The work is,

vibe is coming out of them. When I go to a smaller city, people seem to walk at 90% of the speed. It's okay. We're going to get there someday. We don't need to rush. But the big cities here, I just feel like you're from Boston. Your family's from New York. You lived in Los Angeles. I think that your tenor is a little bit higher than mine. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And it's just in my own personal experience, it feels like that. But even just walking down the bunds,

To me, it's still so quiet. It's so... Everybody is peaceful. And, like, it's just... Compared to Times Square, like, it feels...

leisurely to me. So yeah, to me, just my bar, it must be much, much noisier compared to many people. But, you know, I think it's just still remarkable to me how quiet many parts of Shanghai are. But I guess I need to go to some of the smaller cities as well. I think after you go to Dali, we should do another interview because Dali is like the opposite. It's just everyone is like, we don't care if we even ever get there. Yeah.

It's completely the opposite. One of the things that this show attempts to do is to not just inform people in the West about the reality of life in China, but also to encourage them to come here. Probably not for work. That's a big commitment, but to visit at least. So for our American brothers and sisters, why should they visit China?

Or why not? I'll sort of frame this in the context of how I felt about it, because I think there was a wave of interest in Japan over the past 10 years or so, once Instagram kind of really took off and people started discovering what Japan was like. And what I would say, our friends in America, is I think that that moment is happening for China right now.

I think that there is a big wave of new information, especially in the younger generation on social media, about what China is really like. And so I would think of it that way, is that 10 years ago, there was this big push, oh, we got to go to Japan, we got to go to Tokyo and experience all these individual things about it. And it's something you never imagined. And I think that that same moment is happening for China. So I'd say that the safety thing, it's totally understandable that you feel that way, but

Like I've mentioned a couple of times in this conversation before, things have just changed so much from what maybe your parents have told you about China, what you've heard in the news in the past couple of decades. And that's okay. And you...

Can just come here and experience it for yourself. Because it doesn't really matter at a certain point. Whatever it tells you. You will always believe your own experience. And so talking to people who have made the jump. And come and made the trip. Is a great way to start. And I think that there is such...

Cultural vibrancy in China, that there's such great, beautiful nature, obviously amazing food, so much variety in terms of the places you can go. And I think that you will definitely be pleasantly surprised at the price point from an American perspective on what you can get out of your vacation if you do come here. So that's a big selling point for sure is that you really actually start calculating the cost of

It's intimidating to spend that much on a plane ticket to get here from Los Angeles or New York City. But once you get here, the Chinese version of Uber is maybe $10 anywhere to really get around much of the city. Food is relatively inexpensive for Americans. And shopping, obviously, you can get really great products and clothes and all that kind of stuff. So I think...

Just get your butt here and then you will be able to really maximize your dollar in terms of your vacation money, the budget that you want to spend. And I think that it will just open your mind too because it's such a hot topic in so many different areas of life in America. And I think that if you are scared of something in any part of life, the best thing you can do is just go straight for it and try to figure it out.

And I think if you've been apprehensive about China, just go. Like, what's the worst that could happen? Like, maybe you'll fall in love with it. Maybe you won't like it. But like any other place, you only know if you do it. And I think there's a lot of really amazing benefits to trying it and seeing what it's like and listening to folks like you and checking out what it actually looks and feels like. The people on social media were actually on the ground is the best way to kind of

distill it down to, you know, the truth of the matter. And so I think once you do that and actually, you know, take the jump and go there, you're definitely going to be surprised and I think you're going to love it.

Sounds like wise advice for people who want to learn more from Garrett Parrish. You can find him on TikTok and Instagram at The Foreigner Life. And you can find him on Xiaohongshu in the West and also in China at Foreigner Life with KnowThe. So in the West, out of the, Xiaohongshu, KnowThe. Thank you so much for your time, Garrett Parrish. Thank you so much, man. It was great to talk to you.