Notes on AI, tools, and tech.
You can bind a US credit card to Alipay in about ten minutes. Whether Taobao accepts that card at checkout is a different question, and almost nobody writes about it. Every English guide I found on this is written for tourists. They answer one thing: how do I pay for dinner in Shanghai. That’s a … Read more
The $800 rule everyone quotes about shipping from China is gone. CBP suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for China on May 2, 2025. Every guide built around that number is answering a question that no longer exists. That isn’t why parcels get stopped, though. Most boxes that never arrive are stopped for what’s inside them, … Read more
You can import a Chinese car into the United States. You just have to wait until the 2040s. That is the honest arithmetic behind the 25 year rule, and it covers every electric sedan built in Shenzhen or Shanghai. Two-wheelers are a different story. An e-bike can clear customs next month, provided the paperwork is … Read more
Shipping from China to the US got more expensive for one reason, and it is not freight rates. The $800 exemption that let small parcels in duty-free is gone. Every package is now a customs event. That single change moved the cost of an ordinary order more than any shipping line ever did. A threshold … Read more