Teaching in China? Set Up Your VPN Before You Fly

If you are moving to China to teach, install a VPN on every device you own and log in before your flight, because the websites that sell VPNs are blocked inside mainland China and you cannot easily set one up after you land. Google, Gmail, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram and most Western news sites do not work without one. For a teacher, that means your lesson plans, your video calls home and often your bank's security emails stop working on day one. Our pick is NordVPN, for reliability in China specifically.

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What Is Blocked

The list moves, but as of this writing the following are inaccessible from a normal Chinese connection:

Google. Search, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Maps, Calendar, Photos, the Play Store. All of it.

Meta. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger.

YouTube and most Western video platforms.

Most Western news. The New York Times, BBC, Reuters, the Guardian and many others.

Wikipedia in most languages.

Discord, Slack, Signal, Telegram and many messaging apps.

Some app stores and update servers, which is why your phone can stop updating.

Local equivalents exist for all of it. WeChat replaces WhatsApp, Baidu replaces Google, Bilibili replaces YouTube. You will use WeChat daily whether you like it or not, because that is how your school communicates and how you pay for lunch. But local equivalents do not help you reach the accounts you already have.

What Breaks for a Teacher

This is not a question of missing your social feed. These are the things that actually stop a teacher's week from working.

Lesson plans in Google Docs. If your planning, worksheets and slides live in Drive, you lose them the moment you connect to the school WiFi. Plenty of teachers arrive with three years of materials in a Google account and discover this on Monday morning.

Video calls home. FaceTime works in China. WhatsApp video, Google Meet and most alternatives do not. If your family uses WhatsApp, the family group goes silent.

Banking two-factor authentication. Many banks send login codes by email. If your email is Gmail, you cannot receive the code, so you cannot log in to your bank, so you cannot pay a bill at home. Banks that use an authenticator app are fine. Check which yours uses before you leave.

Job hunting. LinkedIn's access has varied over the years; our own jobs board is reachable, but many recruiter tools, application portals and Google Forms are not. Your next contract search happens through a VPN.

Your phone. Android phones bought outside China rely on Google services for updates and many apps. Without a VPN, some apps stop working entirely. iPhones are less affected but the App Store's regional behaviour changes.

Professional resources. Teaching sites, YouTube explainers, Reddit threads about your grammar point, the ITTT platform if you are still finishing a course. Gone.

Our teaching in China guide covers the rest of settling in; this is the one item you cannot fix after arrival.

Why "Before You Fly" Is Not Optional

The websites of the major VPN providers are blocked in China. The app stores that distribute their apps are often blocked or regionally restricted. So the practical sequence is:

1. Buy the subscription from home.

2. Install the app on your phone, laptop and tablet.

3. Log in on every device and confirm it connects.

4. Download the offline configuration or backup servers if the provider offers them.

5. Turn on auto-connect so it starts with the device.

Do all of that before departure. If you land without a working VPN, your options are borrowing a colleague's connection to download one, or going without until your first trip to Hong Kong. Neither is fun.

Also install a second, different VPN as a backup. Blocking is dynamic and even good providers have bad days; two providers means you can switch when one stalls. Many teachers keep a cheap second option alongside their main one.

Why NordVPN

We considered the main providers on the criteria that matter in China: does it connect reliably, does it keep working through the periodic tightening, and is support responsive when it does not.

NordVPN scores well on all three, and its catalogue entry on our site lists mainland China reliability as a specific benefit. It has obfuscated server options designed for exactly this environment, apps for every platform you are likely to carry, and a large enough server pool that you are not fighting for the same handful of working endpoints. It also encrypts your traffic on the shared, usually unencrypted staff-room and cafe WiFi you will be using, which is a separate benefit that applies anywhere.

Prices change constantly with promotions, and the long-term plans are much cheaper per month than monthly billing. Check the current price on their site. A two-year plan bought before a one-year contract usually still works out cheaper than paying monthly.

One warning: performance in China is never as smooth as at home. Expect to switch servers sometimes, expect a slow evening during politically sensitive weeks, and expect the occasional day where nothing works. That is true of every provider. The difference between good and bad ones is how often it happens and how quickly they recover.

Making It Work Day to Day

A few habits separate the teachers whose VPN "never works" from the ones who barely think about it.

Use the obfuscated or China-specific setting. Standard protocols are the ones that get throttled first. NordVPN and most serious providers have a mode built for restricted networks; turn it on and leave it on.

Pick nearby servers. Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea usually give the best speeds. Connecting to a server in your home country is only worth it for banking sites that check your location.

Keep a list of servers that worked. When one stalls, you want the next candidate in seconds, not a search.

Expect the school network to be worse than your home connection. Many schools run their own filtering on top of the national one. Mobile data on a local SIM is often more reliable than school WiFi for VPN traffic.

Update the app whenever you are outside the mainland. A trip to Hong Kong or Macau is the moment to pull the latest version, because updates can be blocked inside.

None of this is difficult. It is just easier to learn in advance than at 7am on a Monday.

A Note on Local Rules

China's rules on VPN use are not simple. The state licenses some VPNs for business use, blocks most consumer providers at the network level, and has periodically penalised individuals in specific circumstances. Foreign teachers using a VPN for email and video calls is extremely common and the norm among expats, but we are not going to tell you it is legal or illegal, because the honest answer is that it depends on how, where and when, and the situation changes. Read up on the current position before you go, be discreet, and never use one for anything you would not want your employer to see.

The same applies, in a milder form, in the Gulf, where some VoIP services are restricted and a VPN is commonly used to restore WhatsApp calls. Check the local position there too.

Before-Departure Checklist

- VPN purchased, installed and logged in on every device.

- Backup VPN installed.

- Auto-connect enabled.

- Lesson materials downloaded from Google Drive to a local folder, and a copy on a USB stick.

- Bank 2FA switched to an authenticator app where the bank allows it.

- Family told that WhatsApp may be unreliable and FaceTime or WeChat is the fallback.

- WeChat installed and verified before you land, since verification sometimes needs an existing user to vouch for you.

- Password manager synced offline.

Do that in the week before you fly and your first Monday in a Chinese classroom will be about the students rather than your internet connection. The visa side is covered in our Z visa guide.

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