Though I'm pretty sure at this point Google Drive is not available in mainland China (same with DropBox), just a head's up!

Though just FYI, dropbox is not currently accesible in mainland China.

Yes, excellent advice!

I found a pair of jeans from Gap that I had bought senior year of college (2005). The cut is kind of wonky for today’s styles, but the quality of the jeans is mineblowingly better. Also I’m about the same size, as I was in 2005, but apparently I’m now three pants sizes smaller.

UGH. The “featherweight” thing drives me bonkers. I’m supposed to buy a 40 dollar tee and layer it over three other 40 dollar tees?

FWIW, I was really, really stupid when I lost my passport. I got overcofident since I had been traveling and working in China for a few years at that point. I've never couch-surfed, so I don't know how trustworthy people can be. Stay safe!

Good question!

Traveling internationally, always pack photocopies of your passport and visa (if you need a visa). And keep scans photos of it on your laptop, smartphone, iPad, thumb drive, or whatever technology you have with you.

When I worked in China most recently, I was over 30 and single (female). People seemed a bit sad for me, and nobody tried to fix me up. I would joke I was a shengnu (leftover woman) and that would usually break the tension. Still, people would often tell me I should moved back to America to find a husband, because…

In China I sort of liked the candidness, but also unnerved me sometimes. One of my students complained about being pressured to lose weight by her friends because she was the "fattest one in her dorm room." (Eight to a tiny dorm room, UGH) She was not even remotely overweight. :\

These days that's only true for the old people in the countryside. Most Chinese ladies under 50 want to be thin, thin, thin.

In modern China that's not really true anymore, though. Most of the people who think plump is desirable are old ladies in the countryside. My boss was a 40ish educated women.

The first time my old boss in China met me in person, she said "You're fatter than you looked on the Skype!"

Overall I think the post is only "saved" by the fact the answer to this question is "First World White People", which probably makes it a shitty question to begin with.

Though, to be fair, it's a stereotype held by people all over the world. Maybe it's our pop culture or whatever. Euro expats I met there had the same preconceptions about Americans.

Exactly, I'm not OUTRAGED at this topic, it just makes me uneasy, because it has the potenial to get weird (and racist) very fast.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "Female PUA" but it's a weird topic if you've traveled extenstively in non-White countries, and are trying not to be an asshole about it. It's slighly less offensive for White people to talk about getting laid in various countries in Europe, but that assumes the post was aimed…

As a white woman who lived in China for years, this topic always squicks me out. The white guys who go to Asia to get laid are the creepiest white guys of all time. (I know, #notallwhiteguys (or even most, honestly), but you know THOSE GUYS when you meet them.) I don't want to be the female version of THAT GUY.

I dated a 30 year old when I was 19, because I was sooo mature... All of my friends hated him. When we broke up one of my friends told me bluntly “men have the maturity level of the women they date, not the other way around.”

Lost Girls by Kolker is excellent. It covers sex workers murdered by a possible serial killer in Long Island, but is respectful to the victims and treats them as people.