The Chinese Migrants of Chiang Mai
Voices from a new diaspora
DECEMBER 14, 2023
All throughout my travels in Chiang Mai, I’ve been meeting Chinese people. From the bar stool of one of Chiang Mai’s infamous jazz bars, where an older Chinese man enthusiastically recommends me a beer, based on his seven years of living here; to the Chinese mom and her kid in the back of a shared taxi, riding into a suburban neighborhood that looks like it was lifted out of California; to the uncle and his adult cousin at the weed bar, faces pink, nervous but excited to try weed for the first time. People who have left China — to make a new life or to escape an old one — are everywhere.
I started interviewing people: ones that had made Chiang Mai their home, ones that were scoping it out in the thoughts of moving here, some that just wanted to leave China. This feeling of movement, of being squeezed out economically, of wanting more — it’s not a dissimilar feeling to what a lot of millennials are feeling in the world. But China, of course, has its particular reasons for people wanting to leave. The tightening of censorship, the disillusioned post Covid controls, the lack of jobs — 1 out of every 5 young people is unemployed, a record high — or the insane work expectations if you do have a job, has left many wanting out of an exhausting and unpredictable life. In Evan Osnos’s recent piece in The New Yorker, “China’s Age of Malaise,” the historian Geremie Barmé proposes a provocative question: “What do you do with an economy that can’t deal with unemployment created by mismanagement? What do you do with people who feel their lives are aimless? They don’t have a system that can cope with the forces they’ve unleashed.”
Why leave China? I’ve been curious, and asking people.
What I learned is: these people move. They move to countries that will take them, that will let them stay on visas, and they build new dreams, communities, hopes. They bring their kids.
Over two weeks in Thailand, I talked to them, recorded our conversations, and inspired by Liao Yiwu’s The Corpse Walker and Violaine Schwarz’s Papers, created a mosaic of voices for this essay. The excerpts from our conversations have been translated from mostly Chinese recordings, condensed, and anonymized.
China is such a huge country, you can’t generalize about individual experiences. But the vibrant people I met gave such voice to the multitude of factors that pushes one to leave home, one of the country’s biggest populations that is growing more closed by the day, even recalling its pandas back home — and all the minutiae and anxieties, the calculations, on how to be a young Chinese person and live freely in the world.
PART ONE
Why leave China? I’ve been curious, and asking people. Some answer shyly and turn pensive, taking their time to find the right words. Some are in conversation with others, and their answers overlap with a rising velocity, as they grow indignant or frustrated, their words energizing each other.
“Did you hear about that girl who died of overwork at Huawei, at her desk? I don’t even want the money anymore!”
“I’ve stopped paying into my Chinese pension/social security. Everyone’s getting fired!”
“It’s too ya in Beijing. Portugal, Ireland, Africa…I don’t care where, I just have to leave.”
“I don’t want my child to go through China’s intense academic system. Ha, all the international schools in Chiang Mai are Chinese now.”
“Once you’re 35, you’re unwanted by companies in China.”
“Why do Chinese people have to work this hard?”
“Did you know that in Dali, 372 people were arrested in one day for smoking weed? They showed up at your house and forced you to pee.
There’s a whole term for it on Internet forums now. Runxue – meaning, the school of run.
How to run away.”
PART TWO: LEAVING
If you’re a Chinese passport holder, it’s not so easy to leave the country and settle somewhere else. For those who study in America, the post-college H1B visa lottery is scarce and unpredictable. Some Asian countries put up extra Covid barriers for those coming in 2022, raising discrimination claims, and visa wait times for Chinese people, given the sheer number, can be long.
From my hotel room in the outskirts of Chiang Mai, I’m watching a farmer on his motorcycle, straddling the edge of a rice paddy field, when I see a young Chinese couple make their way out of a van with their bags. Excited for new guests, I approach. We sit down at the communal Thai hotpot dinner together, glasses of moonshine on the table. Wendy — 37, bangs with a charming crooked smile — is a magazine editor in Beijing. John, 30, used to be an architect. They’re in Chiang Mai for vacation, and they’re also looking to run. We fall deep into conversation, as the sky turns purple and then a deep indigo.
EXT. RICE PADDY HOTEL, CHIANG MAI
WENDY: I’ve been learning French on Duolingo for a year! We’re thinking about going there.
AMY: Why France?
WENDY: We’ve always liked it there! We like that France went through a revolution. England feels too conservative, Germany too…politically correct. Ha! French people seem more independently driven by their thoughts. But Chiang Mai is nice too, honestly.
“But now, bookstores, festivals, nightclubs…they’re disappearing.”
AMY: What were the reasons why you feel like you have to leave? How long have you been here?
WENDY: John has lived there all his life...
JOHN: Well. I was born there. Why leave? Well, I don’t like it anymore, eh.
Wendy laughs.
JOHN: I don’t like it there anymore. Like in a relationship, you realize there are some things you can’t endure. In the beginning, on the surface, maybe things are ok. But in your innermost being there are issues, and what’s been burying you arises. Three years later, five years later…what’s been burying you…This feeling of this is not where I belong. So you decide to leave. Really leave.
WENDY: Our lives have changed. I graduated college in 2008, in Beijing. Back then, you could really call it a cultural city. It could never match up to Berlin, or New York City, but there were always interesting things happening. This is important. This is why Beijing engaged me. But now, bookstores, festivals, nightclubs…they’re disappearing.
And even if you want to avoid politics, or talking about it…your life is controlled by politics, anyway. Every part of it. From the movies you can watch…and as a journalist…
JOHN: You can hardly say anything.
WENDY: Right.
JOHN: Once Xi Da Da said he was going to rule forever, 2018 forwards, things got…stupider. I had a friend immediately decide to leave. At the time, we hadn’t really decided if we wanted to, yet. But we always knew a life abroad would be better for us than life here.
AMY: When did your friends leave?
JOHN: Our friends left at a better time, when politics was smoother and less obstacles. Now it’s harder.
So here’s the thing. We have a flat in Beijing. If we can sell it, the money would sustain our lives in France quite comfortably. But the motherfucking problem is, how do we get the money out of China? It’s so hard.
You can’t just wire transfer out of China. If you’re a Chinese citizen, you can only transfer out 50,000 USD a year. The government wants to keep money in China, and they’re cracking down pretty hard…before, there were these underground networks...
It’s harder to sell a property in Beijing now. And if we don’t sell, it’ll be harder next year.
WENDY: It’s harder and harder, but those networks must still exist… We have to figure out how to leave..to be students? To apply to something? Or…
JOHN: We’ll find a way…How did your Chinese friends in Thailand do it?
AMY: Education visas! They take language classes every week.
WENDY: So easy! Really?!
AMY: Will you try to be a journalist in France?
WENDY: Not sure. I don’t know French well enough. But well, I’ve always wanted to sell Sichuan noodles! A little van on the street. Two chairs.
AMY: So you guys are going to totally change your lives.
WENDY: Yes. Of course, I could sell noodles and write at the same time.
JOHN: Maybe I’ll get into animal rights.
PART THREE: THE NETWORK STATE
While other countries may restrict Chinese tourists, Thailand heartily welcomes them. China became the major source of tourists to Thailand a decade ago, with 11 million visitors in 2019, accounting for 27.6 percent of all arrivals. The pandemic decimated Thailand’s tourism industry, and followingly, their economy. Thailand is now wooing Chinese people with something rare: easy ways to stay in a country only a three-hour flight away, including, most recently, visa-free entry for five months.
A panelist makes a joke about being a “refugee from China” and everyone chuckles.
Along with this, another population of people are moving here: digital nomads, engaged in Web3 and crypto. Many of them are from Dali, China’s answer to a hippie Colorado, where crypto grew enormously until the government started cracking down on it.
Any talk of crypto tends to provoke eye-rolls in me, but what I noticed spending a few days with the Chinese community in Chiang Mai is of a decidedly different flavor: more philosophical. At a Bitcoin conference, attended by 80 percent young Chinese, there’s discussion around transhumanism, the independence of cyberspace, and creating in person co-working and living communities. A panelist makes a joke about being a “refugee from China” and everyone chuckles. At a time where young Chinese millennials are looking for new ways to structure their lives and communities, it was intriguing to see how the decentralized ethos of crypto provides a unique tool for young Chinese to not only re-imagine how to work, but how to live.
After the conference, I chat with Nola (30, petite in a bright orange dress) who moved from Dali to Chiang Mai with her partner to start a crypto co-working space, and their collaborator Link (20s, round eyeglasses), who is visiting from Dali.
INT. CHIANG MAI CO-WORKING SPACE
Nola stands up and takes the mic at the front of the room.
NOLA: A year ago, many people talked about a book Network State. Actually this book inspired us to build this whole place. This is the first event we’ve created for this community. Welcome everyone to our first party, enjoy today’s dinner!
Long tables of Chinese millennials, with a smattering of Westerners, clap. People chat animatedly about their projects.
NOLA : We moved here from Dali, China a year ago. China got too stressful! It’s about your creative spirit, about being human.
AMY: What made you interested in crypto?
NOLA: I used to live all over — China, United States, South America. And the smart people around me, the engineers, they all started paying attention to crypto. The first time I heard about bitcoin I thought…wow! This is going to start a revolution. It’s going to create a new narrative. We started a few blockchain startups, I moved away from producing and journalism.
LINK: Yes, it opens the possibilities for narratives. You can use tokens, game theory, to believe in a thing. The code becomes the mechanism.
I’d organized a decentralized web3 event in Dali last year, called Summer of Wamo, after the tiled cats you see in the alleys.
NOLA: And about 200 volunteers came on to realize this idea.
LINK: We promised nothing, but we wanted to make Web3 happen in Dali. A few thousand people came! But due to government regulations, we couldn’t actually hold the conference.
NOLA: But you know what’s exciting? People came anyway, and self-organized their own little meetings, on the streets and in cafes, to think about crypto and build future possibilities! It became this self-generating thing. Completely autonomous. People stayed for longer–some are still there today! Mostly from China.
This couldn’t have happened in a place like Hong Kong. It’s too regimented there.
Why are we in Chiang Mai? We think it's the next Dali. Actually, it’s going to be bigger than Dali. It has the capacity to have what happened again!
LINK: There are three things for a city to host something like this. Yes, accessibility to the place is the most important. That everyone can easily get there, visa-wise. Then, affordability. The third is community.
AMY: What makes you feel crypto is so central and important? To change, to organizing?
LINK: It’s difficult to find an easy answer…it opens the possibilities for narratives. I actually played with Bitcoin in 2012, when the price was very low. Back then, people understood Bitcoin differently. We understand it’s a technology and the way it uses game theory to create a narrative…that we can create information called a token. And if we believe this token has value, then slowly the price will go up.
Why did Bitcoin take off? It created a robust narrative.
NOLA: Today’s DAOs [Decentralized Autonomous Organizations], one thing they’re really trying to figure out is how to organize. How to get consensus. In the history of mankind, people have tried all these systems; one person, one vote; republics; dictatorships — we’ve tried all these things. In the past, you’d spend hundreds or thousands of years experimenting with these systems, trying to see if they made sense, and iterating. Now, we can adjust much faster, we can tweak.
AMY: And you really live here now, Chiang Mai is your home?
NOLA: Yes! My dog from China is arriving in a few weeks. You’re welcome to stay at our house anytime!
In the car ride over to the banquet that I share with a few of the conference guests, they talk animatedly about their start-ups, environmental change, and a group called 706. When I ask what 706 is, there’s an air of mystery — hmm, good question! What is it, really?
Here’s an excerpt from an interview with the founder of 706, Fangrong Wu, in 2021, on the platform Young China Watchers.
“706 is a wake-up call for Chinese society to rethink what young people want and need. Young people are in desperate need of a self-contained community like 706 that offers them a space to discuss social issues openly, collectively achieve self-actualization, collect broken pieces of themselves and create a self-identity.”
These youth spaces, that provide co-living quarters as well as public space for salons, discussions, and arts activities for people to make friends and connections, appeared in cities all over China after its inception in 2012.
At dinner, I sit across from Layla, who has short hair and a punky spirit. We watch as a vlogger does a breakdance on stage and everyone claps. I find out that she’s a member of 706, that she’s actually helping caretake the space right now. She invites me to check out the space the next day: a nondescript hostel building, with a lobby, a large communal kitchen, and several mattresses to each room. Sunlight and greenery abound. Post-pandemic, it looks like 706 has gone global.
INT. 706 SPACE, CHIANG MAI
LAYLA: I’m here to work on my feminist storytelling platform. We already have an in person space, and now I’m looking into using web3 to build an online platform.
I quit my corporate job in Guangdong province. They treated me nicely, but what was I doing, working until 10pm every night just to make them a profit?
I started hearing about crypto. Invested in some, didn’t make money. The market went bear. But I found a new community of people…706.
A Chinese couple enter the lobby and sit at a table nearby. LAYLA nods at them. Another guy comes in, with take out, and sits at another table to eat.
LAYLA: It was started by philosophical and humanities types, but they’ve either been silenced or left the country and now…it’s something different.
Now we talk a lot about the possibilities of technology. But it’s not all crypto people who come stay. There are v-loggers, yesterday we had a beautician.
What’s magic about it is…like I don’t know that guy. Or that girl.
Points to the couple.
We don’t know each other's jobs, backgrounds, or anything like that. But we all can just talk about philosophy, life, teach each other things in workshops. We have sovereignty.
I created a little space in Guangdong province with friends. We offer workshops on things like period awareness, we also have places to stay. If people are in a tough situation financially, we offer work and board — we have two recent graduates right now, who couldn’t find enough income, staying with us. We have a small library, with screenings, daily activities.
I’m here to learn about how others make sustainable communities in Chiang Mai. Business models.
And I want to interact with people of different cultures, thoughts…like the women’s brunch I went to last week here. There were expatriate women from all over the world, and I had to practice my English.
But honestly, I’m exploring. Sometimes I don’t know…what I’m doing here.
Pauses.
There’s a women’s circle talk later this week. Do you want to join? It was started by my friend, Hardee.
What strikes me is how Thailand’s porousness — the fluidity of entries and exits due to the comparatively lax visa processes compared to other countries — mean that while some can stay and enroll their kids in school here, some may go back to China after a long visit, carrying new ideas and experiences with them home.
PART FOUR: THE WOMEN’S CIRCLE
I arrive at a cafe started by Cindy, a young 22 year Chinese girl (romper, demure) and her Thai business partner. The decor is cheerful: pothos plants crawl the walls, a mix of scenic postcards from Europe and life slogans (“Happiness depends upon ourselves!”) are arranged in a grid with craft tape, with a few Chinese calligraphy scrolls besides them.
There’s an intriguing mix of people at this women’s circle, held weekly by Hardee (40s, dyed short hair, fast talker). Layla is here, as is Nancy (30, motherly, tunic), a social worker in China, who is visiting, and Tricia (20s, silver edgy jacket, dark eyebags), who just quit her job in Shenzhen.
What strikes me is how Thailand’s porousness — the fluidity of entries and exits due to the comparatively lax visa processes compared to other countries — mean that while some can stay and enroll their kids in school here, some may go back to China after a long visit, carrying new ideas and experiences with them home. And in this case, it’s Chinese feminism being discussed in Chiang Mai, while feminist and LGBTQ+ groups are being increasingly suppressed in China itself.
I walk in and the discussion is in full swing, over steaming bowls of green curry and tall glasses of Thai iced tea.
INT: CINDY’S RESTAURANT, CHIANG MAI
NANCY: Psychological abuse isn’t included in the Chinese legal system, that’s why it’s hard for women to get those protections!
LAYLA: Well, we can’t change the definition in China, because we can’t vote!
They laugh.
HARDEE: Besides, when a woman is trying to flee her husband, and shows up at a family member’s house, that husband will just show up.
LAYLA: I have this youth space, and I want to open a room that’s a safe place for women in trouble to go to. But, how do I organize this and distribute the info online?
A moment of silence as the women muse on this.
NANCY: Maybe it can only be word of mouth, for now.
HARDEE: Amy, welcome, glad you could join us! Do you have any questions, or things you’d like to discuss?
AMY: I’m actually curious why you started this women’s discussion group in Chiang Mai, and how you got here!
HARDEE: I was lonely! During Covid, I had a hard time making friends. It’s great you are all here now, during Covid there was no communication or people coming, but now a lot of people have come. Before Covid, I went to Japan on vacation for two weeks and then watched the TV about the epidemic and I thought, we shouldn’t go back. The airfares were then very expensive. Here, I also read the media reports in Taiwan every day, I get to read all the English news, and I thought… we shouldn't go back.
I don’t want my kid to go through the Chinese school system. She’s in the international school system in Thailand now. I mean, now it’s all Chinese kids in the international schools! One mom I met, she was considering putting her kid here but realized it was all Chinese and then left. Haha.
When I had a kid… I got pressured to having sex without a condom. I just went with it. If I knew more about feminist rights, I would’ve been more empowered to say no.
NANCY: We really need more sexual education in Chinese schools. They have it in America, right?
AMY: I did put a condom on a banana in 6th grade, at my American school in Hong Kong.
All the women laugh.
TRICIA: I quit my job in Shenzhen end of April, and came here in June. I can’t even see a computer screen now without feeling traumatized. My work hours were insane, the overtime culture is not subtle. It’s overt. If you leave early, you’re asked to meet with your boss. And I even told my boss, shouldn’t it be a good thing if I’m efficient, if I get a task done early? But the boss said, well if you finish that task, you can do the next task, the next task…I don’t even have time to go to the bathroom. Because if a task is marked four hours, and if you haven’t finished, then…
HARDEE: Wow, This is crazy! This is even more exaggerated than things that happened in our generation. Our generation, things are ying xing yi dian… I feel tired just listening to this!
TRICIA: This is why I refused the money, don’t want it anymore, and just left. For my life.
The women all make sounds of affirmation.
HARDEE: (sighs) Why do we have to work so hard? We’ve been influenced by seeing how other countries do it. They can have relaxing, happy lives in Europe, Chiang Mai. Why do only Chinese people have to suffer?
AMY: Have you ever thought about immigrating somewhere else?
HARDEE: American taxes are really high, I’ve heard. And not great welfare benefits.
AMY: Yes, the welfare kind of sucks.
HARDEE: Ha, sucks! My kid loves the word sucks. Yeah, I would love to try Europe, they have good social security net there. American visas are too hard.
CINDY: My parents think I’m in Germany finishing my degree, but actually I’m here, running this restaurant cafe.
ALL WOMEN: Haha, what?!
CINDY: I just like working for myself, I love the weather here, and I’ve always wanted to open a cafe! Yeah, on WeChat I usually just post some background photos of Germany…
HARDEE: “I do what I want to do.” For a woman in China, that’s so radical.
LAYLA: I’m not really like Cindy, in the way that she knows what she wants and goes for it. I try out things, and through experience and sometimes frustration, I start to know what I don’t want…and I cross out, cross out.
China has issues in so many ways, but I don’t think these issues are isolated to just China. All countries have problems. But I think it’s just that, you know, we live in China and it’s particularly obvious to us, these problems. If we were born in the United States, we would also think that their problems there are very obvious.
Women nod in agreement.
LAYLA: And another thing. Last night, I suddenly felt this feeling of…gratitude. Do you guys know about the war in Myanmar? And Sudan? There are wars in both countries. It’s disastrous. We are lucky.
HARDEE: Speaking of, have you seen the videos on Xiaohongshu? Women coming into Thailand to…experience male strippers and dancers!
Everyone laughs.
HARDEE: Has anyone tried it before?
NANCY: No, but I scroll the videos a lot. Ha!
AMY: Were you surprised there were so many Chinese people here in Chiangmai?
CINDY: There’s so many Chinese everywhere in the world!
HARDEE: A lot of young people here, yes. And Web3. I mean, I don’t understand any of that stuff, but there’s more and more of those people here. I found them through 706.
AMY: Do you think young people in general want to leave China?
CINDY: Not everyone…some people just want to come out and experiment, play a bit. But to really move out to find a job…that’s different. I’d still like to go back to Sichuan eventually, my family is there.
LAYLA: Yesterday at Free Bird cafe, we were singing, and Lucy behind me was playing with that kid…and then I see that there’s a meeting room, a second hand store for the business, and a kid’s playground! So the way she made this community, it’s complete: there’s job training, learning culture, and she’s made a place for family and that kids can come. And people, the community, bring their kids too and watch them together. They are bringing up the kids together.
NANCY: It’s so important.
LAYLA: It’s so important. But the co-working and co-living communities we’re making…we’re assuming everyone is single. We ignore all these things.
LAYLA smiles.
I find that building women’s communities makes me happy and fulfilled.
✺ Published in “Issue 11: Parties” of The Dial
Photo by Supanut Arunoprayote (Via Wikimedia, CC BY 4.0)