Andre Longginou thought he knew China. He was wrong. The Australian travel vlogger, internet personality, and independent commentator now based in Chengdu has spent recent years doing something simple but powerful: telling the truth about what life in China actually looks like, across major social media platforms. In a recent podcast interview, he dropped a candid admission — he had been brainwashed by the Western media in the past. China, he had been told, was a place of control, aggression, and fear. Then he arrived. His worldview collapsed.
Longginou recently appeared on CGTN's podcast programme The Bridge to China. Host Jason RB Smith asked him what impressions he had held of China before visiting — and how those impressions were shattered within just a few months of arriving.
Longginou was blunt. Before coming to China, he held an arsenal of negative impressions — all of it, he says, absorbed from Western media. His prime exhibit: 60 Minutes, the American programme that airs in Australia. Its message was unambiguous. China was "heavily militarized," controlling, and aggressive. Its people lived in fear, "could get arrested for just about doing anything", and were poor. "But that was all of the beliefs that I had growing up about China," he said.
The moment he landed, the narrative fell apart. Visiting his wife's hometown and meeting her relatives, friends, and former classmates, Longginou encountered something the Western media narrative had never prepared him for: a very large middle class. These were people with genuine disposable income — money they actually spent on things they enjoyed. "In Australia right now, my family sits in the middle class and we have a lot of middle- class friends and upper middle class and they're not very liquid in terms of their assets. Their money stuck in assets, so they can't just be super liberal about traveling and going on holidays and going around the world," he said. Fixed assets left them tethered. They couldn't just travel freely, take holidays, or globe-trot on a whim.
In China, Longginou saw a different picture entirely. People travelled the world regularly, domestically and overseas. They enrolled in hobby classes and spent on their children without hesitation. "This is not really happening that way at all in Australia," he said. The contrast stung. On X and TikTok, content from the US and Canada routinely portrays Chinese life as a grind — "doing two, three jobs and struggling to really get by". The reality he witnessed, at least among the Chinese middle class, "It’s just not the case".
Living in Chengdu changed everything Andre Longginou thought he knew about China, the way the Western media brainwashed him and many others.
Now settled in Chengdu, Sichuan, Longginou has previously told the Global Times that the gap between how China looks from abroad and what it actually feels like to live there is stark. He traces the moment this gap went mainstream to the "TikTok refugee" period — when growing Western dissatisfaction with life at home collided with a surging curiosity about China and its culture.
Longginou grew up steeped in negative propaganda about China. It followed him well into his twenties. Only when he visited — and began seriously considering a permanent move — did the fog lift. What struck him most was the people. Chinese people are helpful, warm, humble, courteous, and genuinely welcoming toward foreigners. Australians are friendly, he notes, but carry a lower baseline of trust. The hospitality simply does not compare.
Healthcare left him equally stunned. He walked into a hospital, got X-rays done, and walked out within one to two hours — total cost: USD 20 to 30. The same tests in Australia or the US would cost ten to twenty times more and take considerably longer. One episode sealed his view: a fish bone lodged in his throat, a visit to the doctor, treatment received, and out the door in 30 minutes. "The healthcare system here is genuinely excellent," he said.
Chinese cars lead the world. The cost of living is manageable. The range of opportunities makes for a richer life. For Longginou, he prefers life in China, and he intends to stay for the long term.
Deep Throat
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