When people see my life on Xiaohongshu, they think I’ve made it. The city skyline framed by my floor-to-ceiling windows. My espresso machine glowing softly on its marble counter. A photo of my Moka pot beside a dog-eared copy of Atomic Habits. It tells a story. Just not the whole one.

I’m 32. I work in product at a startup in Jing’an and rent the 42nd-floor unit of a building shaped like a quartz crystal. My rent is ¥14,800 a month—more than half my take-home pay. There’s a pool downstairs tiled like a hotel in Bali. The lobby smells like jasmine and bleach. The security guard greets me like I live here.

Technically, I do. But I know it’s not mine.

I started posting my life during lockdown, mostly to stay sane, partly to stay visible. At first, it was just snapshots—my view, my matcha routine, my Muji sheets fluffed just so. I didn’t set out to perform wealth. But curation has a logic of its own, and I got good at it. My posts started trending. The comments came:

“Dream girl energy.”

“Wife material.”

“Shanghai elite.”

Here’s the truth: I rent this place. I lease my weekend car. The Loewe purse I post with? It was a gift—used, and from an ex. None of it feels fake. But none of it feels real either.

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There’s a word we use in Chinese: 面子—miànzi. Face. It means image, reputation, presentation. In Shanghai, it’s gone digital. Our faces are filters now, and our homes are stage sets.

Most of the girls I know are doing this too. Renting glassy apartments, lighting them like influencers, posing like lifestyle YouTubers. We say we’re just passing through—until the IPO, until we’re head of product, until marriage—but it becomes the only version of ourselves we know how to maintain.

A recent China Youth Daily report said over 70% of people in first-tier cities like Shanghai are renting, many under pressure to look like they own. One TikTok scroll shows it all—custom closets, perfume shrines, pantries stocked like Muji showrooms. You’d never guess we’re living paycheck to paycheck.

I know girls who host dinner parties in apartments where they can’t paint the walls. One friend has a full Dyson hair setup—but takes the metro to work to save on Didi rides. Another won’t invite dates over because she’s scared he’ll realize she doesn’t actually live alone.

We are stylish, educated, independent—and exhausted from pretending.

—

I wasn’t born in Shanghai. I’m from Wenzhou, where my parents ran a hardware stall. They wanted a boy but got me—and gave me the name Chenhao, which means “great success,” anyway. I earned a scholarship, got into Fudan, and carved a career for myself in tech. My mom still tells her friends, “My daughter’s in a high-rise now.”

She’s not wrong. Just not completely right either.

When I visit home, she scrolls through my Xiaohongshu and says, “You live like a celebrity.” I smile. I don’t have the heart to explain how small I sometimes feel in this life I’ve arranged like a showroom.

At night, I sit by the window, cup of tea in hand, watching the lights on The Bund blink like a machine. I think about what it means to be successful here. Is it this view? This silence? This ache?

Shanghai is seductive. It gives you ambition like a drug. But it’s also a city where people vanish overnight—downsized, burned out, replaced. And still, we chase that image: the marble countertop, the glowing skincare shelf, the soft luxury of not quite belonging.

There’s a phrase I once heard:

“富得像个租客” — “Rich like a renter.”

It means we’ve learned how to look wealthy without owning anything. We pour ourselves into the fantasy—and it never pours back.

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Sometimes I fantasize about leaving. Renting a cheaper place with personality, or even getting roommates again. Somewhere I don’t have to hide the clutter or dim the lighting just right. But when I imagine posting less, showing less, being seen less—I freeze.

Because what if I disappear?

This version of me—the curated one—is also the one people like. Brands DM me for collabs. Men slide into my inbox with emojis. Even my boss noticed. She said I “present well.” That’s how it works here. Your feed is your résumé.

And so I stay.

What do I want?

Maybe peace. A home that feels lived-in, not staged. A morning that isn’t optimized. A self that isn’t performative. But even as I write this, I’m hyper-aware: this, too, could be content. The confessional is just another filter.

Shanghai teaches you to monetize even your loneliness.

But tonight, I’m letting the tea go cold and the city breathe without me. Maybe that’s enough.

Written with Love by Zhang Chenhao