Are the old days here again? The number of foreigners in my city has crashed, how about where you are?

There used to be three types of  foreigners, around here anyway.  Training school English teachers, public school English teachers, businessmen and international students. 

Covid locked the country shut for three years and pretty much ended the traveling businessman. I haven't seen one in forever. 

The double rectification ended the English training schools. 

Around here, "international students" means Africans that are getting training as doctors as a part of China's soft power initiative. The plan is they'll go back home, achieve positions of influence later in life and be favorably disposed to China. They mostly stick to the university town down south and never showed up much in the city even back in the day. 

Not that there were ever more than a few thousand foreigners here to start with in a city 19 times the land size of Chicago and with 7 million more people, but it seems it's almost back to the old days when we all pretty much knew each other.

All that's left are a few foreign managers, the public school English teachers and a very small number of oddballs like me. 

We had a pre-Christmas get-together last week with a turkey and everything and I was struck by how there were only 20 or so people there. In the old days it would have been packed. 

I remember hosting parties for our American holidays and getting raided by other nationalities. They'd hear we were having a shindig, show up, eat our food and leave. Not that I really minded, but that's stopped happening. 

One positive aspect of this is that all the bad foreigners got cleaned out. Druggies, those who looked down on the Chinese, losers who dated their students, overstayers and general  riff-raff.

I'm going to start going to Hangzhou once a week or so soon so that'll be nice to get out and see something besides Wenzhou. 

What's it like for everyone else in the rest of China?

hmm I was there for about 4 years then i left for 3 almost 4 years. i am coming back now so i will see!

I'm seeing foreign tourists starting to come back to Beijing. For the last few months, every time I go to the pub (in BJ hutongs) I meet tourists or people traveling here on a business trip, from a wide variety of countries. Without exception, the first timers have all told me they have been having a great time and the place is different to what they expected. Post covid even a year ago, same pub, I rarely met any tourists. 

I don't know about people living in China, but from my observation of China-related areas, it seems to me that the number of European visitors to China has increased significantly since visa-free travel was allowed.

It went down for a decade, crashed during COVID and now is slowly recovering. The trend is positive, with more people coming, so thats good. If we will ever get back to the old days, who knows, but maybe.

If China is definitely capable of one thing at all times, it is the ability to change.

On 12/23/2025 at 10:29 PM, vellocet said:

I'm going to start going to Hangzhou once a week or so soon so that'll be nice to get out and see something besides Wenzhou. 

 

If you want to see even more foreigners head to Yiwu .
 

On 12/23/2025 at 10:29 PM, vellocet said:

What's it like for everyone else in the rest of China?

 

The foreigners I've met in Beijing are mainly older 40+, many with a wife and kid tying them down to China. I have met 0 fresh grads from the US that aren't teaching english or in a masters/phd programs. I did meet a few people my age from the Middle East working at embassies though. Hopefully the K visa becomes available and brings more people like me.

On 1/14/2026 at 10:31 AM, ez said:

older 40+, many with a wife and kid tying them down to China.

Myself and a number of my friends are definitely not "tied down by wife", we want to stay here! I would not have married a woman who wanted to leave here.

Ran into more travelers this past weekend, at first it was a novelty to see foreign tourists return, now it's becoming a bit tedious to answer their same questions about apps, Great Wall and 北京烤鸭😂

That's the problem with Beijing, it has about as much to do with China as Washington DC does with the rest of America. 

The unsavory government/journalist  types that infest the foreign population  don't help, either. 

Used to be that men would come here ,find an English-speaking bar girl, foreign trade company staff or assistant teacher at their school, marry her and get her a green card and disappear forever. Happened to several couples I know. 

The saddest one is a white/Jewish Canadian couple,  they have two Mandarin native speaking  kids but no path to permanent residency. One day when their Canadian school runs out of students and  closes  they'll have to move back to a country none of them remember.