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Co-working space in Shanghai WITHOUT monthly payment

in Shanghai, China by @katrin | 2yr 2yr | 0 comments

Daily/hourly pass needed.
Can’t work in normal café because having client’s laptop for security reasons, can’t use open networks. Working for R&D. Also laptop is so huge it doesn’t fit normal cafe environment because it’s far from discreet.

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Where can you do cheap laundry in Shanghai?

in Shanghai, China by @levelsio | 4yr 4yr | 6 comments

My hotel is charging like 500RMB ($7USD) for a t-shirt, haha. So I need to find a cheap laundry place a la Thailand, here in Shanghai. I’m in the Jing’an area. Anyone knows?

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@lia9255 | 4yr 4yr

Try Laundrytown. They offer free pickup and delivery. I think the rate for “wash & fold” is 25RMB per kg. They operate in several cities in Asia including Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Tokyo, Singapore and KL.

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Ah you may find that a bit tough at Jing’an hotel I’m afraid, it’s an upmarket part of town and as you’ve definitely noticed Shanghai’s a different world than Thailand.

There are lots of hole in the wall dry cleaners scattered around the place who should do you a load of laundry for around 50 yuan or less. Ask a local to help you find a 洗衣服店 xǐ yīfú diàn literally ‘clothes wash shop’ not sure if that’s the perfect Chinese but it’ll work.

Otherwise the classic traveler’s trick of washing 'em in the sink then leaving them to dry.

Good luck, and welcome to the the Hai!

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@levelsio | 4yr 4yr

Thanks Nathan! That’s awesome, I’ll use that text to ask

Are you in Shanghai now too? I love this city

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Cheers! Yeah been based here for exactly 1 year. I’m in the French concession. Are you around for long?

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@levelsio | 4yr 4yr

Yes! Until the 17th, just extended cause it’s too fun here

I’ll message you.

Very useful site this is, aye

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Absolutely - whoever founded this site must be a genius

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941

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How do you use Facebook and Twitter in China? Due to the firewall blocking them?

in China by @leona | 5yr 5yr | 4 comments

Morning guys!
I just landed in Beijing few days ago and a bit freak with my gmail and social media channels, apparently the Google product is blocked (I didn’t know it forehead) so does others- Facebook, Twitter or other product.
My friend told me to use Zenmate but again, I couldn’t enter it.
By now while I’m typing I have tried all sorts of solutions which others recommended to me and so far, it doesn’t work… :(…
I hope you guys could help me with some tips and tricks…
Thanks a lot!!!

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@juliohr | 5yr 5yr

Hi Leona,

When I lived in Beijing I used WiTopia. It was pretty good and they have a 30 days money back policy. So you can subscribe and cancel if you are staying for a short period. Astrill was an alternative and quite popular among the expat community in Beijing. Honestly, I was the only one using WiTopia among my friends there.

PS: you can also drop fb and twitter and use their version renren and weibo heheheheh

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@endtagster | 5yr 5yr

Hi Leona,

If you need to use the Internet extensively in China, especially for getting work done, then the best solution would be getting a reliable paid VPN account. I use VPN every day in China and a lot of people I know do the same thing. The price would be around $10 per month, but in my opinion it’s definitely worth it (Just think about how much time you would waste on struggling with the Internet otherwise).

Please note that although there’re a number of VPN providers to choose from, not all of them work well in China. Some of them are completely blocked as well. To find out which VPNs work well in China, I’d recommend this website:

https://www.vpndada.com

It’s a VPN testing site based in China. They test VPN from China and recommend reliable ones to be used in China. Here’s a list of VPNs recommended by VPNDada:

https://www.vpndada.com/best-vpns-for-china/

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@pashley | 5yr 5yr

A rather good forum site for foreigners in China
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/
The admins are a bit cautious in weird ways. Auto text replacement gets rid of various phrases that might be searched for or might provoke the Great Firewall. Any mention of “VPN” or “virtual private network” becomes “very passable nicety”. Search for that to find the posts relevant to your problem

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@nickdanforth | 5yr 5yr

You have to use a VPN, which unfortunately, is very hard to download once you are already on the ground in China.

I recommend VyprVPN from about 6 months of personal experience. You can’t access their main website from China, but you can access https://www.goldenfrog.biz to download the installer.

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Co-working space in Shanghai WITHOUT monthly payment

in Shanghai, China by @katrin | 2yr 2yr | 0 comments

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519

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Where can you do cheap laundry in Shanghai?

in Shanghai, China by @levelsio | 4yr 4yr | 6 comments

My hotel is charging like 500RMB ($7USD) for a t-shirt, haha. So I need to find a cheap laundry place a la Thailand, here in Shanghai. I’m in the Jing’an area. Anyone knows?

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519

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@lia9255 | 4yr 4yr

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Ah you may find that a bit tough at Jing’an hotel I’m afraid, it’s an upmarket part of town and as you’ve definitely noticed Shanghai’s a different world than Thailand.

Otherwise the classic traveler’s trick of washing 'em in the sink then leaving them to dry.

Good luck, and welcome to the the Hai!

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@levelsio | 4yr 4yr

Thanks Nathan! That’s awesome, I’ll use that text to ask

Are you in Shanghai now too? I love this city

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Cheers! Yeah been based here for exactly 1 year. I’m in the French concession. Are you around for long?

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@levelsio | 4yr 4yr

Yes! Until the 17th, just extended cause it’s too fun here

I’ll message you.

Very useful site this is, aye

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Absolutely - whoever founded this site must be a genius

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625

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Anyone Else in China?

in China by @nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr | 12 comments

Hi Team,

I’m totally new here so forgive me if I’ve made some horrible faux pas by asking a question so soon

I’m a kiwi but have been a digital nomad for over three years now, and have spent the last year or so in China, currently in Shanghai.

Are there many other digital nomads in this part of the world? Most of the international friends I’ve made locally are students or corpo expats, I’ve not come across that many entrepreneurial / nomadic types here - the visa and internet issues certainly make this understandable, though the country very much rewards long term travel.

Would be curious to see if there are many other like minded folk here?

Cheers,
Nathan

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@fredperrotta | 4yr 4yr

Hi Nathan,

From experience, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have a lot of expat/DN entrepreneurs manufacturing or sourcing locally. I’ve met a lot of people through Enter China.

I’ve visited both cities a fair amount over the past few years. Shenzhen seems more livable and diverse. If I had to pick one for a longer-term stay, I’d go with Shenzhen.

Hope that helps. I’ll be back in China in mid-November.

-Fred

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@jodie_taylor | 4yr 4yr

I was in China - Shanghai and Shenzhen this year just for a few weeks for a business thing. I’m not aware of any specific DN scene in China. However, in Shanghai there are many expats so I would suggest looking up expat groups and teachers. I met up with a friend whilst there who’s a teacher and she gave me the lowdown on expat scene there. I think it would be easy enough to integrate so long as you were planning to stay a few months as opposed to a few weeks.

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Thanks Phil! I definitely agree with your comments on Shanghai and actually have the same plan re moving to South East Asia next year and getting a bit more nomadic (ie changing home every couple of months rather than every year). Thanks for the tip re meetup!

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@fippu82 | 4yr 4yr

Hi Natahan,

I was such a corpo expat in Shanghai for two years before leaving to South East Asia and becoming a DN a year ago. I must say I found the (international) internet too weak to stay there and work online. Besides that, I also wasn’t that happy there (air pollution was one of the biggest issues for me). But that wasn’t your question. Just wanted to suggest checking related groups on meetup.com. I found some entrepreneur meetups and attended one or two. Was quite interesting, although not many of the members were nomads as such (there might be some though and it comes the closest to the nomad scene that I find in SEA).

Good luck,

Phil

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@hmur | 4yr 4yr

Hi,

I’m a DN in Beijing, though I run an all-remote startup rather than lifestyle business. I do like the city life here, and I’m just starting to connect with the local startup scene. I haven’t run into other DNs, but I don’t use coworking places. I just know students (since I studied Chinese for a semester here). I’m aware of the corpo-expat types, but don’t know any.

If it exists, there’s a wechat group for it! So keep asking around

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@pashley | 4yr 4yr

One good web resource for foreigners in China is Raoul’s China Expat Saloon. Nothing specifically for nomads, but lots of long-term residents & some good advice. I’ve left China and am no longer a regular, but you may see the odd post from me, user name ‘Pashley’.
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Thanks Pashley, I’ll check it out

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@meiyi_tara | 4yr 4yr

Hi Nathan!

I’m Chinese and I grew up in a city near Shanghai. I recently left the US after living there for 5 years. I’m back visiting my family for a couple of months. I’m a newbie digital nomad, still exploring different options. I’m curious to know if there are other DNs in the area as well

Kindly,
Meiyi

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

你好 Meiyi!

Great to hear from you and welcome back to China.

Although Shanghai is a thriving expat city, I haven’t gotten a sense of it as much of a digital nomad hub. Cost of living is pretty high compared to other Asian cities, internet is not great and the visa issues can be complex… despite this though I’ve found it more than worth it! As @nickdanforth mentioned above I feel that there are more DN types around Beijing, certainly most other freelance writers I know in the country are based there.

You must have an interesting perspective on this as a local, having grown up here but spent many years in the US.

Cheers!
Nathan

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@meiyi_tara | 4yr 4yr

你好 Nathan!

I’m glad you’ve found the DN experience in Shanghai rewarding despite all the challenges! It’s interesting to hear that there are more DNs in Beijing. I wonder if it’s mainly because they’re drawn to the long history of the city?

Indeed, coming back to China has been an interesting experience. Over the years my Chinese got a bit rusty, now it’s coming back quickly, but after having lived here for 2 months, English is still my primary language, it’s still the language that will jump out of my mouth if I react to things subconsciously. I have experienced quite some counter-cultural shocks but I’m finding the balance between cultures now. Jumping the line, fine; lack of personal space, fine; chaos, that’s fine too. I am awestruck by the progress this country has made in infrastructure and technology, but I’m also deeply concerned about its rising nationalism and racism and its lack of diversity. It’s been an interesting experience

Kindly,
Meiyi

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@nathanthomas | 4yr 4yr

Thanks for the reply Nick! How did you find Beijing as base?
Almost every foreigner I know who lives there seems to love the place, but again that’s mostly expats / students instead of ‘nomads.’

Daily life here is pretty good for ‘digital nomad’ style work compared to other Chinese cities I’ve visited, great cafes (and let’s be honest, bars) to work and write from, and finding a tolerable wifi connection is normally possible. Certainly an expensive place though, so my next destination will probably be somewhere cheaper

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@nickdanforth | 4yr 4yr

Hey Nathan!

My wife and I aren’t currently in China but we’ve spent about 6 months in Beijing on-and-off over the last couple years.

Would love to check out Shanghai, just haven’t gotten around to it yet! Hear there’s a decent co-working scene there and it looks like a sweet city for daily life.

Might try to come scope it out for a couple weeks later this year!

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Post review

To increase honesty, reviews are anonymous. You can only add one review per city or it replaces/edits your old one. Reviews with URLs or emails are removed. If you're writing about data being wrong, please don't do it here as it'll be removed but leave feedback in the bottom right of the frontpage.

Shanghai is a giant city and your experience really depends on a few factors like:
1) where you live in the city
2) do you speak basic Mandarin
3) do you make nice money
4) do you have to use the internet

If you can afford to live in Jing'an or the French Concession, you can live a fashionable metropolitan lifestyle like you would in New York City. There's amazing food (Asian, Western and fusion). You'll be surrounded by entrepreneurs, artists, fashion designers and models. Many of whom do speak English.

It gets better if you speak basic Mandarin though. You don't need to care about the characters. Just learn to speak, that's important enough. The nice thing about Mandarin is China is so big everyone has an accent, so for Chinese it really doesn't matter so much that you have one too.

Depending on how and what kind of money you make, your experience also changes. Like most places in Asia, English teachers are the lowest rank in the hierarchy of foreigners here. Chinese know. But if you're an entrepreneur, even (or especially) an online one, that's high regarded. The problem with working online here is obviously the firewall which can make it very difficult. I've heard good stories about Shadowsocks which seems to work better than regular VPNs.

The recent China vs. America tensions are in fact making people slightly more hostile against Western foreigners. But remember this is Shanghai, it's a metropolitan city, they're usually much less xenophobic than out in the country. Mostly Shanghainese are happy to embrace foreigners, become friends with them, as long as they speak Chinese. And as long as you invest a lot of time. Just popping in and out like a nomad isn't necessarily going to work so well with Chinese. Relationships are long-term.

1 year ago

Be wary of LIES, lies everywhere.

Lies like when a local restaurant tells you it uses clean filtered water. Assume that you will drink polluted water once in a while. It does not only include bacteria but also heavy metal. Drinking bottled water ? The most popular company, Nongfu, was caught using wrong norms years ago. Too many people were boycotting so they changed the traditional red bottle... and removed the English name.

Lies like when they told you the internet speed using local servers. Local internet is actually not that bad, but since you would never use Baidu, Bing or any other unblocked search engine, then your VPN will throttle much of your speed and freedom. Add to that the fact that 2-3 times a year, a political meeting happens and they totally CUT all VPN access.

Lies when you try to know the air pollution and the weather agency chose not to update the air quality index to play with the averages. It's still unhealthy but it got A LOT better these last few years.

Lies like when you just try to know how many people live in Shanghai. Between 25-35 million people (depending on if you include migrant worker and nearby Suzhou soon to be connected by the same subway) means you get access to lots of stuff. Delivery is one (electronics, food). Subway is ridiculously cheap and modern. Taxis (just replace Uber by Didi) is also awesome and quite cheap.

Lies like when you read my review and count as many bad points as good, but you still get Chinese people asking you why you hate China so much...

Surprisingly expensive compared to many other places and there is a major language barrier for most western folks. You often end up hanging out with other nomads or expats for sanity.

It's expensive to drink, and it's not really to make many local friends and very few speak English or any western languages.

The internet is the killer for most folks and China is slowly closing down all the VPN connections from the commercial services, so it's getting harder and harder to find a way out for things like Gmail or even Google searches and even when it does work, it's really unpredictable.

Some of the hotels and workspaces have always-on VPN connections to Hong Kong for your internet handoff which eliminates the blocking and is a big help, but this is usually at a cost that is passed on to you.

I like Shanghai, but I find it very "showy". People want to make it clear if they have money, so you see lots of flashy cars, expensive clothes and "be seen" places. It's also amazing that you can go to a great restaurant and the table next to you will have six people sitting in complete silence because they are all on their phones.

As others have said, you need to figure out a way to get Alipay or Wechat pay money on your account so you can pay for things. Even people selling vegetables in the market have a QR code so you can pay them with your phone.

Didi is the local uber-like take service, and you can use western credit cards with it on your phone, and it's pretty cheap by western standards. Public transportation is good and cheap, too.

Cool place, but not inexpensive unless you are out a way and a serious language barrier and a bit of indifference to customer service or dealing with westerners in general.

I also want to share that no matter where you are in China, the fucking GFW is going to ruin your internet experience to max

MOST IMPORTANT for a digital nomad is the internet connection, the speeds are great BUT BEWARE THE GREAT CHINESE FIREWALL even if your download speed is 100mbps, for ANY non chinese site the speed will get limited and will come out to be smth like 12-15 mbps LOL YOU NEED VPN ALWAYS for blocked sites (e.g. google, google maps, facebook, youtube, telegram, whatsapp etc) and it won't save you if you gotta work because even if the site is not blocked the speed will be ridiculous because of the aforementioned.
Shanghai is cashless, you have to get a chinese bank account to load your wechat pay or alipay but you can still use these wallets for receiving money from someone else & be able to pay with it. it's just that you can't withdraw anything or load it with your own money if you don't have a bank account. but you can use some online services that will give you wechat pay/ alipay rmb for visa/mastercard usd for example.
the air is really bad, you may not notice it right away(unlike in ho chi minh city because of the bikes), but give it a couple of weeks and it'll kick in. i haven't gotten sick once for 2-3 years and once i got to Shanghai i got sick (coughing, sore throat etc.) multiple times in 6 months, always coughing up something.
i do miss Shanghai now, but what drove me away was pollution and the complete lack of people's manners (e.g. smb will spit next to you inside a building or in the elevator- they say it was way worse before, like spitting in a conference room during a meeting - and you never know where that is gonna land; shoving, pushing, lack of respect for personal space&queues). but hey, that's not my culture, who am i to judge.
the good things are the online shopping with next day delivery, you really don't need to leave your appartment at all, Shanghai being cashless, there's a lot of money going around if you wanna set up your own business. what happens in chinese parks in the morning is also pretty dope, everyday i'd pass through a small park next to my house there'd be people doing tai chi, some girl getting trained to fight with some kinda sword, old ladies dancing with large fans, a guy playing a flute, some pensioners dancing waltz or smth similar...and that's just your regular tuesday!
there's a camera for every 2 people in the country so it's very safe, they solve crimes fast. supposedly.
there's always smb staring at you in a 10m radius if you're a cute eastern european girl, which i haven't experienced in other countries in asia or otherwise.

I do not think Shanghai is a good work place due to GFW and bad PM2.5.

2 years ago

If you need wechat pay, find a Chinese friend as exchange some cash for digital yuan in the wechat wallet

Too many people to live a good life here

Shanghai isn't cashless for foreigners. It's near impossible for foreigners to use WeChat Pay or AliPay

⭐️ Overall Score	3.48/5 (Rank #127) 254 reviews
👍 Quality of life score	Good
👶 Family score	Okay
💵 Cost	😙 Affordable: $2,086 / mo
📡 Internet	😡 Slow: 2Mbps (avg)
😝 Fun	Great
⛅️ Temperature (now)	🥶 Too cold: 13°C56°F (feels 12°C54°F)
💦 Humidity (now)	💦 Damp: 74%
💨 Air quality (now)	🌱 Good: 64 US AQI
💨 Air quality (annual)	😐 Moderate: 87 US AQI
👌 Safety	Great
🎓 Education level	Medium
💰 Income level	Low
❤️ Liked by members	👍10 likes vs. 👎4 dislikes
🙊 English speaking	Okay
😤 People density	🤨 Busy: 13k ppl/km² (9x9m)
🚶 Walkability	Great
✌️ Peace (no pol. conflict)	Okay
🚦 Traffic safety	Bad
🏥 Hospitals	Great
😄 Happiness	Okay
🍸 Nightlife	Great
📶 Free WiFi in city	Great
🖥 Places to work from	Great
❄️ A/C or heating	Good
😁 Friendly to foreigners	Great
🗯 Freedom of speech
🤚🏿🤚🏻 Racial tolerance	Good
👩 Female friendly	Great
🌈 LGBTQ+ friendly	Bad
🎅 Startup Score	Okay

🌍 Region	Asia
🚩 Country	China
⏱ Average trip duration	10 days
📡 Internet speed (avg)	2 Mbps
⛅️ Weather (now)	🌧 13°C 56°F + 💦 Damp (74%) = feels 12°C 54°F
💨 Air quality (now)	👍 64 US AQI 🍃 good
💨 Air quality (annual avg)	😐 87 US AQI = 🚬 / day
🔌 Power	230V 50Hz
🧔 Best neighborhood to stay	French Concession North East
🚀 Upcoming neighborhood	Pudong North
🚕 Best taxi app (in country)	Didi
🚑 Travel medical insurance	Safetywing
📱 Best wireless carrier	China Unicom
💸 10 CNY in USD	USD 1.54
🏧 Suggested ATM take out:	CNY 1,000 = USD 154
💸 Tipping	No
💳 Cashless society	💵 No, cash only (esp. for foreigners because WeChat is very hard to set up)
💻 Best coworking space	Sandbox3 (free)
💻 Best alt. coworking space	Agora Space
☕️ Best coffee place	See + Saw
☕️ Best alt. coffee place	Baker & Spice
🏪 Best 24/7 coffee place	Cafe 85ºC
🚰 Safe tap water	🚫 No, not drinkable
♻️ Return rate	14% of visitors return
📸 Visitors per year	7,201,200 visitors
📸 Tourists now	138,011 tourists
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Population	24,000,000 people
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 GDP per Capita	$8,126 / year
😤 Population density	🤨 busy: 9x9m (81m²) per person
👫 Gender ratio (overall)	👨 53% 👱‍♀️ 47%
👫 Gender ratio (young adults)	👨 56% 👱‍♀️ 44%
⛪️ Religious government	Non-religious
🏠 Apartment listings	Smart Shanghai
✈️ Best short-haul air carrier	Spring
✈️ Best int'l air carrier	Air China
🏥 Best hospital	ParkWay Health China

💵 Cost of living for nomad	$2,086 / month
💵 Cost of living for expat	$1,486 / month
💵 Cost of living for family	$3,607 / month
💵 Cost of living for local	$1,030 / month
🏠 1br studio rent in center	$695 / month
🏢 Coworking	$191 / month
🏨 Hotel	$948 / month
🏨 Hotel	$44 / night
🏠 Airbnb (1,001 listings)	$1,828 / month
🏠 Airbnb	$60 / night
🍛 Dinner	$5
🥤 Coca-Cola (0.3L)	$1
🍺 Beer (0.5L)	$5
☕️ Coffee	$4

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Shanghai

Co-working space in Shanghai WITHOUT monthly payment

Where can you do cheap laundry in Shanghai?

How do you use Facebook and Twitter in China? Due to the firewall blocking them?

Co-working space in Shanghai WITHOUT monthly payment

Where can you do cheap laundry in Shanghai?

Anyone Else in China?

200 remote workers in Shanghai now, of which 1+ members checked in (some members are set to private)

Members who have been here