In a Very Chinese Time of My Life
On DeepSeek, dramas, supply chains, and the strange intimacy of geopolitical fascination.
I recently came across a meme that said:
"I'm in a very Chinese time of my life."
Like all great internet memes, it sounds absurd until you realize you know exactly what it means.
A very Chinese time of your life is when you suddenly find yourself doing things that would have made absolutely no sense to your past self.
One day you're using ChatGPT.
The next day you're comparing DeepSeek against Claude because the token pricing is suspiciously attractive.
One day you're watching Formula 1 highlights.
The next day YouTube is recommending a 45-minute documentary on Shenzhen manufacturing.
One day you're scrolling Instagram.
The next day you're emotionally invested in a Chinese billionaire heir pretending to be poor while his girlfriend's family humiliates him at dinner.
You don't know how you got here.
You don't know why you're still watching.
You only know that the man is clearly worth 40 billion yuan and someone is about to regret calling him a delivery driver.
The Chinese drama phenomenon deserves its own anthropological study.
The plots are ridiculous.
The acting is ridiculous.
The dialogue is ridiculous.
The subtitles are often held together by what appears to be pure determination.
And yet they are unbelievably effective.
Instagram keeps feeding me these clips.
A woman insults a man.
The man smiles mysteriously.
A second woman enters.
Someone gasps.
A luxury car arrives.
The subtitles become increasingly unhinged.
Suddenly twenty minutes have passed.
I have no idea what anyone's name is.
But I need to know whether Chairman Zhang reveals his true identity.
This should not work.
And yet it does.
Then there are the white guys.
You know the ones.
The internet has become full of them.
Some software engineer from Ohio is suddenly smoking cigarettes, learning Mandarin, discussing battery supply chains and posting photographs of mahjong tables.
He talks about Shenzhen the way previous generations talked about New York.
Somehow he has developed strong opinions on electric vehicle manufacturing.
His Twitter profile picture is black and white.
He probably owns a mechanical keyboard.
He appears to be having a wonderful time.
The weird thing is that all of this is happening during a period when China and the West seem to be drifting further apart politically.
Tariffs.
Trade wars.
Export controls.
Semiconductor restrictions.
Military posturing.
You would think these things would create distance.
Instead, they seem to be creating fascination.
The more geopolitical tension rises, the more China seems to occupy mental real estate in the imaginations of young people online.
Particularly young men.
And I don't think this is entirely new.
Americans went through something similar with Japan in the 1980s.
Japan was simultaneously admired and feared.
People worried about Japanese competition while reading books about Japanese management.
They feared Japanese industry while buying Japanese electronics.
There was anxiety.
But there was also fascination.
The two emotions often arrive together.
I suspect part of what we're witnessing is that China has become impossible to ignore.
For years the story was simple.
America innovates.
China manufactures.
America designs.
China assembles.
It was a neat story.
The only problem was that reality eventually stopped cooperating.
Now China isn't just manufacturing products.
It is producing things that people become intellectually curious about.
Cars.
Drones.
Cities.
High-speed rail.
Battery technology.
And now AI.
Especially AI.
My own descent into a very Chinese phase largely began with AI.
I remember looking at DeepSeek's pricing and assuming there had to be a catch.
There usually is.
Then I looked at the benchmarks.
Then I used the model.
Then I looked at the pricing again.
Then I looked at the benchmarks again.
Because surely one of the numbers had to be wrong.
The entire thing felt vaguely offensive to my understanding of economics.
How was this model so cheap?
Who was paying for this?
Was I missing something?
Was China subsidizing my startup ideas?
Naturally, I did what every responsible adult does when confronted with an existential technological question.
I opened the Terms of Service.
This improved my mood considerably less than the benchmark results.
Data stored in China.
Telemetry collection.
Broad data usage language.
The sort of legal document that causes you to sit back in your chair and stare at the ceiling for a few moments.
And yet.
The model was still good.
That was the problem.
If the model had been terrible, there would have been no dilemma.
I could have closed the tab and continued with my life.
Instead, I found myself doing mental gymnastics.
Maybe I'll only use it for non-sensitive tasks.
Maybe I'll use it through another provider.
Maybe I'll self-host it.
Maybe I'll just pretend I never read the privacy policy.
What struck me was how unusual this entire situation felt.
I have never read the Terms of Service for a screwdriver.
I have never carefully considered the geopolitical implications of a monitor.
I have never wondered whether purchasing a USB cable was helping reshape the global balance of power.
But AI feels different.
Because AI doesn't just help me do things.
It helps me think.
And trusting someone to manufacture your tools is very different from trusting them to participate in your cognition.
Perhaps that's what this meme is really describing.
Not an interest in China.
Not admiration.
Not fear.
Something stranger.
A kind of reluctant intimacy.
The realization that another civilization is increasingly showing up in your daily life in ways you never anticipated.
It arrives through AI models.
Through EVs.
Through weird billionaire dramas.
Through software.
Through memes.
Through endless videos about factories and supply chains.
And before you know it, you're sitting there comparing DeepSeek against Claude while wondering whether Chairman Zhang will reveal his true identity in Episode 47.
Which is how I know that I, too, am in a very Chinese time of my life.