Young Chinese digital nomads "lost" in Southeast Asia

Author: Offshore Flow

"I’m out of money and ready to go back to find a job."

On the streets of Chiang Mai in the early morning, Jian looked up at me and said. Jian is 25 years old and from Yunnan. This is not her first time having to interrupt her journey, go back home, find a job, save money, quit, and then continue back on the road.

This time, she has stayed in Chiang Mai for an unusually long time and doesn’t remember how many times she has run out of savings. She is very curious about how other young people manage to travel while also making money.

After all, in the philosophy of most Chinese people, survival is more important than faith, and travel is just a spice sprinkled on survival.

Throughout history, people in ancient narratives have always had to leave their homeland for survival, venturing eastward or going south to seek a living. In the digital age, foreign lands have become a quest for the current young people, even a part of their daily lives—thus, a group of cross-border digital nomads has emerged.

Backed by Thailand's highest peak, Doi Inthanon, and the digital nomads wandering beneath the ancient city, they have their own logic regarding survival and freedom.

The Lie of Restarting Life

"I learned about Web 3 in high school, but during my two internships in college at internet companies, I found that I didn’t like the work pace of big firms. So before graduation, I found a job in a Web 3 company, and I’ve been here ever since."

Zoe, a post-2000s girl from Shenzhen, is the youngest member I met in the digital nomad community in Chiang Mai. With her Southeast Asian islander-like tan skin, she has already achieved a work-life balance (WLB) that many people dream of, traveling and working in places like Dali, Shenzhen, Chiang Mai, and Bali with some friends in the community. It sounds like a life trajectory that only a white girl would have.

During her more than six months of travel in Southeast Asia, Zoe is one of the few examples I encountered who stepped into the digital nomadic lifestyle as her first career move. More young people aim to escape from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to rebuild their lives in the foreign lands of Southeast Asia.

Before this, most nomads I saw had gone through many ups and downs. They were sometimes eagerly exploring and sometimes passively waiting; regardless, they just wanted to settle down in a foreign land.

This is quite different from the image of nomads shaped on domestic social media platforms.

They are neither labeled as brave rebels rejecting "bullshit jobs" in pursuit of personal spiritual freedom, nor do they find themselves basking in sunshine, sand, and sea, achieving a life reboot through digital nomadism.

Nor is it the so-called "disenchantment" of digital nomads, where after hastily quitting their jobs, they travel the world, suddenly realizing the meaning of life, and then publicly declare that being a digital nomad is just a game of monetizing traffic, ultimately returning to the old path of "selling courses" on platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu.

Just like Che Guevara wrote in his diary while traveling across South America: "I feel that I am now different from the person I was when I first set out." Digital nomads also have their so-called "life moments."

In the rickety Malaysian ferry swaying in the South China Sea, on a motorcycle weaving through the changing shadows of Chiang Mai's ancient city walls, and in the back of a pickup truck speeding along the slippery roads of tropical cloud forests near the equator. Each time the familiar feeling of floating hits me as the hot, humid air of Southeast Asia rushes in, it arrives at some moment during each unknown journey, only to quickly fade away.

This makes many young digital nomads linger and yearn.

Ferry at a Malaysian port

However, even in Southeast Asia, the trivial and unavoidable daily life is equally hard to escape.

The nomadic lifestyle is not a panacea for life. In the relatively low-cost nomad city of Chiang Mai, friends often complain to me about the difficulties of establishing themselves overseas—because the client has delayed salary payments, leaving them with only a few hundred baht at their poorest, forcing them to rely on loans to get through.

Australian Theravada Buddhist monk Damika said in "Good Questions, Good Answers": "Driven by fear, people go to sacred mountains, sacred forests, and sacred places."

In the original text, this sentence lacks context; people may be stuck in their comfort zones due to fear of the outside world, but for nomads, foreign lands are not utopias. Seeking the outside world is also a fear of the mundane routine.

Young workers who have long lived in cities are tired of the monotonous life of working from point A to point B, where everything revolves around money, and they feel a lack of meaning. They are anxious about the future and lose touch with the present; in Chiang Mai, where coffee and hobbies are easily accessible, many nomads also muddle through their days in a reversed daily routine, wandering between cafes and bars.

It can be confirmed that in the ancient city of Chiang Mai, where every five steps leads to a temple, many digital nomads' lifestyles are also hard to escape the shackles of survival itself.

Alcohol, tobacco, how many places they have been, how many impressive people they have met—superficial freedom cannot constitute the flow of life.

Monks and pagodas in local artwork

In 2021, the international consulting firm MBO Partners conducted a survey titled "The Digital Nomad Search Continues," which showed that most digital nomads do not sustain their lifestyle for more than three years.

Three years—this time limit is a curse for these confident adventurers who believe they have mastered their youth.

Wilderness or Track?

Compared to the bustling and crowded Bangkok, the rainy season in Chiang Mai, with its few tourists, is another world.

Riding a motorcycle, within an hour's drive in any direction from the ancient city, one can see rolling green hills dotted with dark, tranquil ponds. By evening, the noisy roar of engines quiets down with the setting sun, and all that can be seen are large clouds above. If lucky, the stars will reveal themselves behind the clouds blown away by the mountain winds. This is why Chiang Mai has always been regarded as an ideal place for meditation and retreat.

Jun'an, over thirty, moved from Dali to Chiang Mai last year. He and his workplace are hidden in the mountains of Chiang Mai's countryside.

Foot of Doi Inthanon

Strictly speaking, Jun'an is not a typical digital nomad, as his profession does not require the internet.

From the perspective of urban dwellers, Jun'an and his work might experience absolute freedom—he is a practitioner of body, mind, and spirit.

He takes his students into the wilderness to play guitar, blow the didgeridoo (a traditional instrument of Australian Aboriginal tribes, one of the oldest instruments in the world), dance, and sing spiritual songs. In a loft filled with Southeast Asian tropical vibes, he sets up idols, lights incense, and prepares various herbs, guiding people into a "spiritual journey."

Jun'an is a music teacher from Dali. Whenever he needs a bit of freshness in life, he comes to the rainforests of Southeast Asia and the mountains of Chiang Mai. He then becomes a representation of wilderness and freedom in the eyes of others.

"Will these connections of body, mind, and spirit make your real life better?" My question was rather utilitarian.

"Well, indeed they will," Jun'an pondered for a moment. "I have a clearer idea of what I want. For example, most of the people who come to our spiritual ceremonies are foreigners. My current goal is to hope that more Chinese people can experience the spiritual world."

Many participants in the ceremonies are founders and investors from domestic tech companies and people from the Web 3 industry. "Everyone generally feels good; over 80% of them would come again."

The connection between body and spirit may transcend class, but participating in body-mind-spirit courses has its barriers—each session starts at 10,000 yuan. In Chiang Mai, the per capita GDP in 2021 was about 135,991 baht (approximately 28,000 yuan).

One core reason why the digital nomad lifestyle appears relatively free is geographic arbitrage, earning US dollars and renminbi in the blurred lines of different worlds. Jun'an's life and career in the relatively low-cost Chiang Mai are indeed getting better, just as he hoped.

Outside the Web 3 industry cluster, the life of digital nomads is not as pleasant as imagined, especially for those whose professions are not well-suited for remote work and want to transition to become digital nomads.

Jian, who has traveled abroad multiple times, meticulously calculates her daily living expenses. She looks for various purchasing opportunities and inquires about other nomads' income channels.

When the accommodation price at Mad Monkey (a well-known budget hostel chain in Southeast Asia) exceeds 300 baht (about 60 yuan), she immediately opens accommodation apps to find alternatives. She controls her daily meal budget within 100 baht and hardly participates in popular activities in Chiang Mai, such as elephant conservation or watching Muay Thai matches.

Local band performing for flood relief

Another example of a relatively smooth transition is A-Lian, who quit her job at a domestic internet giant.

On social media, one important theme of A-Lian's self-media channel is exploring how digital nomads around the world make money to support their global nomadic lifestyle.

"I self-studied Web 3 development for over a month, quickly learned the front-end trio and REACT, blockchain development, Solidity development, and listened to industry podcasts, participated in online conferences, and kept up with the news. I started a few simple projects on GitHub and carefully wrote my LinkedIn profile. I thought about joining a community first, doing some simple projects to accumulate practical experience, and then gradually transitioning to a new job. Unexpectedly, I was able to chat directly with the founders. Maybe my sincerity moved the big shots. By the end of August, I got the opportunity to enter the industry and join a project team. Everything started from 0 to 1, beginning as an intern."

By the pool with rippling water, under bright floor-to-ceiling windows, nomads like A-Lian each guard a table, facing their work tools, typing away at their keyboards in a quiet yet urgent atmosphere, reminiscent of a study room in a university library during exam preparation.

If digital nomads from China coming to Chiang Mai carry some East Asian depth and story-filled faces, the white residents who have long lived in Chiang Mai exude an unmatchable sense of relaxation. Traveling to Southeast Asia and flying to Australia on a Working Holiday Visa (WHV) seems to have become a trend for young people from Europe and America to navigate their exploratory youth.

Foreign backpackers with Chinese tattoos on their backs

I know a French guy named William, who occasionally takes on remote part-time jobs while receiving unemployment benefits, allowing him to wander around Malaysia and Thailand for half a year without worrying about gaps in his employment history; an Australian punk guy who works for two to three months each year and then rides a motorcycle he bought in Laos to travel around Southeast Asia for the next six months; a New Zealand girl I met at a Chiang Mai hostel who doesn’t worry about retirement issues at all, even though she has never worked or paid personal insurance, she can receive her pension without any deductions when she retires.

Chiang Mai has chic co-working spaces with a touch of bohemian charm on Nimmanhaemin Road, as well as low, old buildings with dark rooms near Ping River. Just like Westerners holding high-exchange-rate currencies working at high-tech welfare companies, completing their "geographic arbitrage." Digital nomads from different cultural strata in Chiang Mai also have their own wilderness and tracks, but some people are born into what others see as "wilderness."

The narratives of any individual are not only derived from themselves but also from the history and culture behind them.

As French writer Éric Chevillard said: "This place I once tried hard to escape: a social space I deliberately distanced myself from, a spiritual space that served as a counterexample during my growth, is also, no matter how I resist, still a part of my spiritual core—my hometown."

Unique worship in a temple in Chiang Mai

Acknowledging that certain cores continue as an inseparable part of the body and mind may be the first lesson for digital nomads heading to foreign lands.

Returning to the Real Present

"The endless monsoon rains, the otter may once again transform into a whale." This is a sentence by Malaysian Chinese writer Huang Jingshu, because the ancestors of whales evolved from fish that came ashore but returned to the sea for various reasons; their close relatives are otters.

The rains in Malaysia are like the giant whale returning to the deep sea, while the rain in Chiang Mai is filled with the rhythm of life. After each rain, the greenery outside the window becomes more vibrant, and the ancient city walls grow heavier.

Xia Xia can be seen as a "otter" in Chiang Mai. Her first job after graduation was as a bank teller in a small city in her hometown, with a stable career and a monotonous life "on the shore." "My daily job is to help elderly people with their cards and pension withdrawals; I can completely imagine what the future looks like."

So, Xia Xia chose to return to the sea.

Diaoman Island and the South China Sea in the rain

"At that time, cross-border e-commerce was very popular, and my English was good, so I applied for an English customer service position. The boss was a foreigner, and the workload was quite relaxed. I gradually got familiar with the industry and started doing it myself."

Xia Xia began to move away from the entry-level customer service position, transitioning from earning hours to gradually taking on some cross-border projects and also taking on remote positions. With more freedom in money and time, Xia Xia wandered through digital nomad communities in Anji, Jingdezhen, Dali, and then to Singapore, Penang, and Chiang Mai.

After choosing to become a digital nomad, Xia Xia’s work and life improved, so when she suddenly decided to return to work in China at the end of the year, it surprised those around her. "I can take a senior management position back home, and this position can connect me to some resources through the company's platform. The projects I’m currently collaborating on won’t be abandoned." Xia Xia appears enthusiastic.

Most people, however, vaguely feel that it has been a long time since they were this happy with their work. Now, people easily feel impatient with the present and believe that a better life must be in the future. In the end, in one dry and stagnant night after another, they abandon their jobs and lose friends, looking around in confusion.

ENJOY THE LIFE graffiti on the streets of Chiang Mai

Young people's spiritual mentor Xiang Biao says that Chinese people are living a suspended life, where it doesn’t matter whether they can enjoy the moment; what matters is the moment when the future may collapse.

Xia Xia is a counterexample. For her, being a nomad is not the main storyline of life; it is merely a way of life she actively chooses.

Urban dwellers have excessive imaginations about the lives of nomads, just like that line from the movie "Into the Wild": "Undeniably, 'being unbound' always brings excitement and joy. Because accompanying it is the escape from history, oppression, rules, and those tedious obligations and responsibilities. The so-called absolute freedom."

People cannot be surging with excitement all the time; in the end, everything will return to the average.

Lotus flowers in the moat of Chiang Mai

But for Xia Xia, when she chooses to jump back into the sea from the shore, it means that a "young whale" can migrate from the warm tropical breeding grounds to the polar regions to forage.

Having seen many young people come and go, the community leader Ziyi never cares where the people entering the community come from, what they do, or where they are going. She hardly pays attention; she believes the community will naturally embrace all kinds of people.

A gamer left behind a brand new PS5 here, and soon someone contributed "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Elden Ring"; Lao Ai, who runs a shisha business, bought two sets of shisha equipment to satisfy cravings, making the nightly shisha sessions a fixed program in the community, even the shisha master has been passed down to the fifth generation; local staff in the community can decorate gardens and courtyards according to their preferences, with hidden surprises throughout the public spaces.

Playing "Black Myth" in the community

"Let it become what it will."

In addition to collaborating with nomad communities like DNA, NCC, 706 Youth Space, Shanhaiwu, and Wacat, Ziyi also plans to incorporate some feminist communities next. "I don’t want to label the guesthouse; it’s still the community itself. It welcomes any normal human beings."

Nomads are fluid, including the community itself. Some people have left but still want to come back, while others have always been here without any particular reason.

"Those who are suitable for the nomad community unknowingly stay here for a long time."

Chiang Mai University at the foot of Suthep Mountain

As the rainy season in Chiang Mai is about to end, and a week after Jian left Chiang Mai to return home, I asked her if she had found a new job. There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone:

"Wish me to become a digital nomad soon."

"I don’t need a lot of money."

"Just enough to support my wandering is enough."