Written by: Offshore Flow
"I'm out of money, 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, from Yunnan. This is not her first time having to interrupt her journey, return home, find a job, save money, resign, and then continue back on the road.
This time, she stayed exceptionally long in Chiang Mai and doesn't remember how many times she has exhausted her savings. She is curious about how other young people can 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 have had to leave their homeland to survive, venture east, or go south to seek a living. In the digital age, foreign lands have become the current young people's exploration of distant places and even daily life—a group of cross-national digital nomads has emerged.
With their backs against the highest peak in Thailand, Doi Inthanon, and the digital nomads wandering beneath this ancient city, they each have their own logic about survival and freedom.
The lie of restarting life
"I knew about Web 3 since high school, but my two internships during university were in internet companies. I found out that I didn't like the work pace of major companies, so I found a Web 3 company before graduation, and I've been here ever since."
Zoe, a Shenzhen girl born in the 2000s, is the youngest member I encountered in the Chiang Mai digital nomad community. She has a unique Southeast Asian islander’s tan and has already achieved the work-life balance that many people dream of, traveling and working with friends in Dali, Shenzhen, Chiang Mai, and Bali, sounding like a life trajectory only a white girl would have.
During more than half a year of traveling in Southeast Asia, Zoe is one of the few samples who took the first step in her career into digital nomadic life. More young people's goal is to escape from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen and rebuild their lives in foreign lands in Southeast Asia.
Before this, I saw more nomads who had gone through twists and turns; they were sometimes eagerly seeking exploration and sometimes passively waiting. Regardless, they just wanted to settle down in a foreign country.
This is quite different from the image of nomads shaped on domestic social media platforms.
Not about labeling the brave rebellion against meaningless 'bullshit jobs', but pursuing personal spiritual freedom, from then on enjoying sunshine, beaches, and the sea, achieving a life reset through digital nomadism.
It’s not about demystifying digital nomads; after a hurried resignation, traveling to see Cangshan and Erhai, exploring the world, suddenly realizing the meaning of life, publicly declaring that being a digital nomad is just a game of monetizing traffic, ultimately walking the old path of selling courses on Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
Just like Che Guevara wrote in his diary when he traveled across South America on a motorcycle: "I feel that I am not the same as I was when I set out." Digital nomads also have their so-called 'life moments.'
In the rickety Malaysian vessel rocking in the South China Sea, on a motorcycle weaving in and out of the shadows of the ancient city walls in Chiang Mai, in the back of a pickup truck speeding along the slippery roads near the equator. Every time I am in the hot, sticky air of the Southeast Asian wilderness, that familiar feeling of floating always comes, arriving unexpectedly at some moment during each unknown journey, then quickly fading away.
This makes many young digital nomads nostalgic and lingering.
Ferry in a Malaysian port
However, even in Southeast Asia, the trivial and helpless daily life is equally unavoidable.
The nomadic lifestyle is not a magic cure for life. In the relatively low-cost nomad city of Chiang Mai, friends often complain to me about the difficulties of establishing oneself overseas—because the client has delayed settling the payment, leaving only a few hundred baht during the hardest times, having to rely on borrowing to get through the crisis.
Australian Theravada Buddhist monk Damika said in (Good Questions, Good Answers): "Driven by fear, people go to holy mountains, holy forests, and holy places."
In the original text, this sentence lacks context; people may be trapped in their comfort zones due to fear of the outside world, but for nomads, foreign lands are not utopias; exploring outward is also a fear of the routine of daily life.
Young workers who have lived in cities are tired of the monotonous three-point-one-line life, everything oriented towards money, and a lack of meaning. They are anxious about the future, losing touch with the present; in Chiang Mai, where coffee and hobbies can be easily pursued, many nomads are also lost in their reversed daily routines, wandering between cafes and bars.
It can be confirmed that in the ancient city of Chiang Mai, where every five steps there is a floor and every ten steps a temple, the lifestyle of many digital nomads is also difficult to escape the shackles of survival itself.
Alcohol, tobacco, how many places have you been, how many impressive people have you met; superficial freedom cannot constitute the flow of life.
The monk and pagoda in local paintings
In 2021, international consulting firm MBO Partners conducted a survey titled (The Digital Nomad Search Continues), showing that most digital nomads do not maintain their lifestyle for more than three years.
Three years, this deadline is a curse for those confident adventurers who have mastered their youth.
Wilderness or track?
Compared to the bustling and crowded Bangkok, rainy season Chiang Mai, which sees fewer tourists, is another world.
Riding a motorcycle and driving less than an hour in any direction from the ancient city, one can see the rolling greens covering the mountains and fields, occasionally dotted with dark, serene ponds. By evening, the noisy sound of engines will quiet down with the twilight, and all that can be seen are large clouds above. If lucky, the stars will emerge behind the clouds blown apart by the mountain winds. This also makes Chiang Mai always regarded as an ideal place for meditation and seclusion.
Thirty-something Jun'an moved from Dali to Chiang Mai last year. He and his workplace are hidden in the mountains of the outskirts of Chiang Mai.
At the foot of Doi Inthanon
Strictly speaking, Jun'an is not a typical digital nomad because his profession does not require the internet.
From the perspective of city dwellers, Jun'an and his work may experience absolute freedom—he is a practitioner of mind and body.
He leads his students to play guitar in the wilderness, blow the didgeridoo (a traditional Australian Aboriginal musical instrument, one of the oldest instruments in the world), dance, sing divine songs, set up idols in a loft filled with tropical Southeast Asian vibes, light incense, and prepare various fragrant herbs, guiding people into a 'spiritual journey.'
Jun'an is a music teacher in Dali; whenever life needs a bit of freshness, he comes to the rainforests of Southeast Asia, to the mountains of Chiang Mai. He then becomes a representative of wilderness and freedom in the eyes of others.
"So will these mind-body connections make your real life better?" My question was quite utilitarian.
"Well, it does." Jun'an pondered for a moment. "I have a clearer idea of what I want. For instance, most people who come to our spiritual ceremonies are foreigners, and my current goal is to hope that more Chinese people can feel the spiritual world."
Many participants in the ritual experience are founders, investors of domestic tech companies, and people in the Web 3 industry. "Everyone generally feels good, and more than 80% of people will come again."
The connection between body and mind may break through class barriers, but participating in mind-body courses has a high threshold—starting at 10,000 yuan each time. In Chiang Mai, the per capita GDP in 2021 was about 135,991 Thai baht (approximately 28,000 RMB).
A core reason why the digital nomad lifestyle seems relatively free is geographical arbitrage, earning US dollars and RMB between the blurred lines of different worlds. Jun'an's life and career in relatively inexpensive Chiang Mai are indeed getting better 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 very suitable for remote work and want to transition to become digital nomads.
Jian, who has traveled abroad many times, carefully manages her daily living expenses. She looks for various purchasing opportunities and asks other nomads about their money-making channels.
When the accommodation price at Mad Monkey (a well-known budget hostel chain in Southeast Asia) exceeds 300 baht (about 60 RMB), she immediately opens accommodation apps to find alternatives. She controls her daily food budget within 100 baht and almost never participates in popular activities like elephant conservation or Muay Thai matches in Chiang Mai.
Local band in Chiang Mai performs for flood relief
Another example of a successful transition is Alian, who resigned from a major internet company in China.
On social media, an important theme of Alian's self-media channel is exploring how digital nomads around the world make money to support their global travel lifestyle.
"After self-studying Web 3 development for more than a month, I quickly learned the three front-end tools and REACT, blockchain development, Solidity development, and listened to industry podcasts and attended online conferences, keeping up with news, doing some simple projects on GitHub, and carefully writing my LinkedIn profile. I thought of first joining the community and working on some simple projects to accumulate actual project experience, then slowly transitioning to another role, but unexpectedly, I could directly chat with the founders; perhaps my sincerity impressed the big shots. At the end of August, I got the opportunity to enter the industry and join the project team, starting from scratch as an intern."
By the pool with rippling water, under the bright floor-to-ceiling windows, nomads like Alian will keep their own tables, facing their work tools, burying their heads in typing, the quiet and urgent atmosphere resembling a study room for exam preparation back in university.
If digital nomads coming to Chiang Mai from China carry some East Asian people's unique depth and story-filled faces, then the white people living in Chiang Mai have an unmatchable relaxed demeanor. Traveling in Southeast Asia and flying to Australia on a WHV (Working Holiday Visa) seems to have become a trend for young Europeans and Americans to spend their exploratory youth.
Foreign backpackers and Chinese tattoos behind them
The French guy I know, William, takes unemployment benefits and occasionally takes remote part-time jobs, not worrying about the gap year spent wandering in Malaysia and Thailand for half a year; the Australian punk guy works for two to three months a year, then rides a motorcycle bought in Laos, traveling around Southeast Asia for the next six months; a New Zealand girl I met at a youth hostel in Chiang Mai doesn’t have to worry about retirement issues; even if she has never worked or paid personal insurance, she can receive pension payments without any difference at retirement.
Chiang Mai has both trendy shared spaces on Nimmanhaemin Road and low, old, dark rooms near Ping River, just like Westerners holding high exchange rate currencies, working in Western high-benefit companies, completing their 'geographical arbitrage.' Digital nomads from different cultural strata in Chiang Mai also have their own wilderness and trajectory; it's just that some were born in what others see as 'the wilderness.'
The narrative of any person is not only derived from themselves but also from the history and culture behind them.
As French writer Éric Pommier said: "This place I have desperately tried to escape: a social space I have deliberately alienated, a spiritual space that served as a counterexample during my growth, yet is still an integral part of my spiritual core, my hometown, no matter how I resist."
A unique Buddha worship at a temple in Chiang Mai
Acknowledging that certain cores continue as an inseparable part of the mind and body may be the first lesson for digital nomads heading to foreign lands.
Returning to the real present
"The endless monsoon rains may transform otters back into whales." This is a sentence by Malaysian Chinese writer Huang Jinshu, as the ancestors of whales evolved from fish that came ashore but returned to the sea for various reasons; their close relatives are otters.
The rain in Malaysia is like a giant whale returning to the depths of the ocean repeatedly; Chiang Mai's rain is filled with the rhythm of life. After each rain, the greenery outside the window appears more vibrant, and the ancient city wall becomes a bit thicker.
Xiaojia can be seen as a 'river otter' in Chiang Mai, with her first job in her hometown being a bank teller, a stable civil service job, living a day-to-day life 'onshore.' "My daily work is just helping the elderly apply for cards to receive pensions, and I can fully imagine what the future will look like."
So, Xiaojia chose to return to the sea.
Diu Man Island in the rain and the South China Sea
"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, the workload was quite relaxed, and gradually I became familiar with the industry and started doing it myself."
Xiaojia has moved away from her initial junior customer service position, gradually being able to take on some cross-border projects and also working remotely. With more freedom in money and time, Xiaojia wanders in digital nomad communities in Anji, Jingdezhen, Dali, and then in Singapore, Penang, and Chiang Mai.
After choosing to become a digital nomad, Xiaojia's work and life have improved, so when she suddenly decided to return to work in her home country at the end of the year, it surprised those around her, "I can take a senior management position when I return, and this position can connect to some resources through the company’s platform; the projects I currently have in hand won’t be thrown away." Xiaojia looks excited.
However, for most people, the vague feeling of being happy at work has been gone for a long time. Now, people easily feel impatient with the present daily life, believing that a better life must be in the future. In the end, in one dry and stagnant night after another, they drop their jobs and lose friends, looking around in confusion.
ENJOY THE LIFE Chiang Mai street graffiti
Young people's spiritual mentor Xiang Biao says that Chinese people are living a suspended life; it doesn't matter whether one can enjoy life in time; what matters is the moment when the future may collapse.
Xiaojia is a counterexample. For her, being a nomad is not the main line of life; it is just a way of life she chooses proactively.
People who have lived in cities for a long time have an exaggerated imagination of the nomadic life, just like the line from the movie (Into the Wild): "Undoubtedly, 'being unbound' can always make people feel excited and happy. Because accompanying it is the escape from history, oppression, rules, and those tiresome obligations and responsibilities. The so-called absolute freedom."
People cannot always be surging and passionate; ultimately, everything will return to the average.
Lotus flowers in the moat of Chiang Mai
But for Xiaojia, when she chooses to jump back into the sea from the shore, it means a 'young whale' can migrate from a warm tropical breeding ground to the polar regions to feed.
Having seen young people come and go, the community organizer Zi Yi never cares where the newcomers come from, what they do, or where they are going. She hardly pays attention, believing that the community will naturally embrace all kinds of people.
The gamers left a brand new PS5 here, and soon someone contributed (Black Myth: Wukong) (Elden Ring); Lao Ai, who does the shisha business, bought two sets of shisha equipment to satisfy cravings, making the evening 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 in Chiang Mai can decorate flower beds, courtyards, and other decorations to their liking, with hidden surprises in public spaces.
Playing (Black Myth) in the community
"Let's see what it will become."
In addition to collaborating with various nomadic communities like DNA, NCC, 706 Youth Space, Shanhaiwu, and Wawcat, Zi Yi also plans to incorporate some feminist communities next. "I don't want to label the guesthouse; it's still the community itself that welcomes any normal human being."
Nomads are fluid, including the community itself; some have left but still want to return, while others are still here without any particular reason.
"The people who are suitable for the nomadic community have unknowingly stayed here for a long time."
At the foot of Suthep Mountain, Chiang Mai University
As the rainy season in Chiang Mai was about to end, also one week after Jian left Chiang Mai to return home, I asked her if she found a new job; there was silence on the other end of the phone.
"Wish me to become a digital nomad soon."
"You don't need much money."
"It's enough to support oneself while wandering."