It is a tote bag from the propaganda poster museum in Shanghai. The pic depicts the strong Sino-Soviet friendship at the time! Those ones are really sad in hindsight.

here is a but of info I just found on it through google, may be a reactionary source, not sure.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/chinese-soviet-propaganda-posters/

eta: yup, reactionary source lol.

The big stuff in the middle is mostly from the propaganda poster museum in Shanghai, the lighter/matches were from a souvenir shop in Hanghzhou, most of the Mao stuff/hats/magnets were from random trinket/souvenir stores in the various cities I visited, the red paper cutout art of famous commies was from a random art stand in Shanghai. Little red books (one English, one Chinese) was from a cool book store in Zhujaijao.

lol, i connected through S.Korea and i was a bit nervous having that North Korea mag in my carryon bag.

That one is chill as fuck, it says ‘Nothing is impossible’ in Chinese with a pic of Bin Laden and the smoking twin towers in the background. Got it from a random souvenir shop in Hangzhou.

here is a close up:

Yup, it really is refreshing to be in a country where not only is Marxism not some huge boogeyman, but is actually revered and taught as something to be proud of. Especially when that country is absolutely thriving and doing much better than every single country in the west.

I dunno, I’m not a drinker and from what I’ve seen there doesnt seem to be a big drinking culture here either unlike much of the west?

I’ve travelled to the EU a bunch and no it doesn’t. There’s not a single city in all of Europe (or the anglo world for that matter) that compared to the top tier Chinese cities.

Filled out a lengthy online form, printed it out along with some visa pictures and went to the consulate to apply, it took two days for them to approve it and they gave me a 10 year multi-entry visa.

I heard that before i came here, but so far all of them have had toilet paper, including the ones on the train (which also have the in ground toilets which I love!)

Yes, Guilin is a 3rd tier city and parts of it reminded me of my home, Tehran (in a charming, nostalgic way), but there were tons of infrastructure and housing construction going on, it was relatively clean (especially compared to US cities), and felt very safe and not to mention absolutely stunning geography.