‘Are you like us?’

A standard English textbook in China asks students to compose a letter from someone called Li Hua to their British friend Allen, inviting him to a music festival. When the US ban on TikTok briefly came into effect earlier this month, nearly three million ‘TikTok refugees’ signed up to the Chinese app RedNote (Xiaohongshu). Many of them were asked by Chinese users if they’d received a letter from Li Hua.

RedNote was one of the first apps I downloaded when I moved to Beijing in 2023. In some ways it’s more like Reddit than TikTok, offering not only an endless scroll of aspirational lifestyle visuals but also access to an online hive mind with answers to such questions as how to apply for a visa or how to manage a break up.

Unlike on Douyin (TikTok’s closest Chinese equivalent), it’s possible to register on RedNote without a Chinese phone number. Many of its content creators are Chinese living abroad, sharing their experiences. But thanks to its translation function, rolled out the day after the TikTok ban, this is the first time that many ordinary Chinese and ordinary Americans have had direct conversations, unimpeded by the Great Firewall: I need a VPN to access Instagram, YouTube and Google in China, and some Chinese websites are geo-blocked when I leave the country. The conversations have continued even though Donald Trump has granted TikTok a 75-day reprieve. Chinese friends have told me it feels like going back to the early 2000s, when there were more friendly interactions on blogs and forums, and less trolling.

In the beginning, existing users called on newcomers to pay a ‘cat tax’: post a picture of your cat. Those without cats were asked for a ‘dog tax’ or an ‘abs tax’. Students asked for help with their English homework. Users shared the prices of things in their home cities, with receipts. Pictures of their everyday meals. Videos of city views. Offers to ‘ask me anything’ have profilerated.

So have questions. ‘I just worked six days in a row, nine or ten hours a day in manufacturing,’ one American user wrote. ‘Does this happen in China also?’ Another: ‘Do you guys suffer generational trauma like we do here in the USA?’ A Chinese user wrote: ‘Many young girls in China are reluctant to have children or get married. Curious what young women in America think about having children or getting married?’ A lot of the questions were variations of ‘are you like us?’

RedNote rolled out a new slogan: ‘share, connect, love’. A minority weren’t on board. Some took up using Classical Chinese when they didn’t want TikTok refugees to understand their posts. (Translation apps haven’t yet mastered this language that every Chinese student learns in middle school.) Others raised an eyebrows at the largely warm welcome given to Americans on RedNote, given their own less than positive experiences abroad. ‘About TikTok refugees … It’s complicated,’ one Chinese user said. ‘Do you remember what names they called you as an international student?’ A user in India meanwhile wrote: ‘Chinese have so many misconceptions about India and its culture and history. I feel like crying and hands are hurting after replying to so many comments.’

I was reminded of the moment in 2020 when the discussion app Clubhouse was released, and Chinese Mainlanders and Taiwanese took it in turns to speak on cross-strait relations. I joined a room of Cantonese speakers from Guangdong and Hong Kong to talk about the 2019 protests. Clubhouse was soon blocked by the Chinese authorities, and its critics called it an elitist echo chamber (in its first year the app could be downloaded only by iPhone users).

Beijing’s official response to TikTok refugees on RedNote has been far more relaxed. The People’s Daily compared the influx to the ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ of the 1970s, when games of table tennis eased political tensions between the US and China, and even to Nixon and Khrushchev’s ‘kitchen debate’ at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. But discussions on RedNote have largely stayed out of politics and within China’s red lines. There are posts from Americans asking Chinese netizens about their thoughts on Bernie Sanders, but I haven’t yet come across a Chinese equivalent. Business accounts are now marketing to the new audience. Even official government accounts have joined in: one police bureau has released a series of explainer videos with English subtitles, on such subjects as how to keep safe at Spring Festival or how to spot spies.

The new arrivals may not all stay on RedNote. Advertising rates for influencers in China are far lower than in the US, so the big influencers may soon find they have no commercial reason to hang around. But RedNote’s algorithm has been pushing the TikTok refugees’ content. The novelty of new faces hasn’t worn off yet for Chinese users, who are genuinely curious. New users see their posts go viral. It’s no surprise some of them are proclaiming they prefer RedNote to TikTok. They don’t want to leave Li Hua’s party yet.