A World Unlocked by Xiaohongshu
Urgent Dash: The H1-B Visa Crisis of September 2025
On September 19, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting H1-B work visa holders.
The order would:
- Impose a $100,000 application fee on H-1B applicants living outside the United States
- Take effect September 21, 2025
Panic Among Visa Holders
Lawyers at major U.S. companies—especially Silicon Valley tech giants—quickly sent emails to visa-holding employees:
> Return to the United States before midnight September 21 or risk being refused entry or losing your visa.
The responses were frantic:
- From Paris: One traveler on vacation left friends behind to fly home immediately.
- From Tokyo: Another bought a ticket for their mother and rushed back to the U.S.
- From China: A family visitor went straight to the airport.
Itineraries tore apart. Jobs and legal residence in the U.S. suddenly became their only urgent destination—a place nominally "home," yet forever foreign.
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Social Media as Historical Record
A century from now, these personal emergencies may be part of U.S. immigration history—documented not just via oral history, but curated via Xiaohongshu (Rednote) posts.
This group—half-jokingly calling themselves "H1-B slaves"—shared their globe-spanning dashes online, creating a striking real-time archive of Chinese professionals rushing to beat a "closing gate."
Observers included:
- Fellow H1-B holders in Silicon Valley
- Chinese-Americans with green cards or citizenship
- Chinese diasporas in Canada and Australia
- Mainland Chinese residents
On Xiaohongshu, discussion flowed as shared empathy—not division.
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One — Bella Saratoga & Xiaohongshu’s Local Influence
Bella Saratoga is an Italian restaurant in Saratoga, a quieter town in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Unlike neighboring tech hubs (Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose), Saratoga feels more “white,” steeped in history and local charm.
First Visit
- March, 11 a.m. — mostly empty seats
- Soon, Mandarin chatter filled the room; by noon, the restaurant’s vibe resembled a local Chinese hotpot spot
The server remarked: "Never seen this many Chinese people here—what’s going on?"
Likely answer? Xiaohongshu recommendations.
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Milk Tea Case Study
A shop named Tearamisu, later Alma Dessert, offered discounts for posts getting enough likes:
- TikTok: 150 likes
- Instagram Reels: 100 likes
- Xiaohongshu: 50 likes
Clearly, Xiaohongshu likes carried higher perceived value—a testament to the platform's reach in Chinese-speaking communities worldwide.
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Two — October’s Tech Buzz in SF
October was unusually lively:
- SF Tech Week (Oct 6–12) — backed by VC giant a16z, any group could host entrepreneurship events
- TechCrunch Disrupt — a global startup battleground
Xiaohongshu Presence
Attendees posted extensively:
- Sharing ideas and startup discoveries
- Promoting their own events/projects
These posts offered local, vivid details impossible to get from Twitter’s high-level thought leadership.
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Why It Matters
With over 50% of AI professionals in Silicon Valley being Chinese, Xiaohongshu is a key cross-border connector.
Notable fact: NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang monitors public sentiment about the company on Rednote—it shapes how customers, regulators, and tech talent perceive NVIDIA.
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Three — Rednote’s “Mad Writing” Trend
“Mad writing” is humorous, collage-like, absurdist text creation—a form of emotional release now a shared social currency.
One current trend: My Uncle XXX (parodying Maupassant's My Uncle Jules), producing bizarre character mashups like:
- My Uncle Musk: Taiwanese family dreams of going to Mars
- My Uncle Diffusion: Parents are GAN and Transformer, dreaming of compute upgrades
- My Uncle Who Got Drawn: U.S.-based, H1-B approval email is the family’s prized heirloom
Authors hail from across China and the globe, making “mad writing” one of Rednote’s most transnational memes.
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Four — “One Day in the World” Campaign
Back to September 19, 2025:
Xiaohongshu launched One Day in the World, amassing 4,000 submissions from 44 countries and 232 cities.
Examples:
- Someone rushing back to the U.S. to beat the H1-B deadline
- Typhoon experiences in southern China
- A birthday marked with a toothpick “candle” in jujube cake
- Cultural observations from travelers in China
The furthest recorded post: Shanghai → Guadalajara, Mexico (nearly antipodal on the globe).
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The Future of Cross-Border Narratives
This campaign is a blueprint for preserving everyday life across continents—connecting strangers through mundane or extraordinary moments.
Today, AI-driven tools like AiToEarn官网 make it possible to:
- Generate and publish content across Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, and X
- Analyze engagement via AI模型排名
- Monetize across multiple audiences in real time
In an interconnected ecosystem, the One Day in the World ethos can flow seamlessly across communities—ensuring every small story finds its audience.
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In short: Whether you’re documenting the chaos of visa deadlines, the humor of “mad writing,” or snapshots of a global tech scene, platforms like Xiaohongshu—and AI-powered publishing tools—are redefining how everyday narratives travel between cultures.
