Your Shanghai Friends Will Leave. Build a Circle That Stays
Every summer, a chunk of your Shanghai circle flies home for good, and if that circle was built only from other newcomers, you start over from zero.
Good to know
- Good for newcomers and second-years who feel like they rebuild a social life from scratch every single summer.
- What you'll pay nothing but time. The friendships that last here are bought in months of showing up, not money.
- Watch out for a circle made only of other transient internationals. It comes together fast and empties first.
Why does everyone leave Shanghai in the summer?
Because the school year ends and a lot of contracts end with it. International schools here run an August to June calendar, and postings, packages and leases tend to be cut to the same clock, so June and July are when families and teachers pack up together.
You feel it as a wave. One friend's lease is up, then her husband's rotation ends, then the couple you met at their leaving drinks are suddenly the ones leaving. Expat writers have a name for it, the revolving door.
How long do most expats actually stay in Shanghai?
Two or three years is the common arc, which is short enough that the person who onboarded you may be gone before Shanghai starts to feel like home for you. The pool is not huge to begin with. At the 2020 census Shanghai counted about 164,000 overseas residents, foreign nationals plus people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, so when a summer wave leaves, the gaps are real and you notice them.
None of this means the connections were fake. It means a circle built only from people on the same short clock has an expiry date baked in, and rebuilding it every year is exhausting.
What kind of circle actually survives the churn?
A Shanghai circle survives the churn when it is built on depth instead of breadth, and seeded with people who are not going anywhere. A circle of forty acquaintances you met at three parties will not hold you through a hard winter. Six people who know your actual life will.
The quiet fix is to stop collecting only the newest and loudest crowd, the ones who are around and fun right now, and deliberately mix in people with roots. Roots look like a Shanghainese partner, kids in local school, a mortgage, a business, or a family that is simply from here. Those people are still around next August.
The four kinds of people a lasting Shanghai circle needs
A lasting Shanghai circle draws on four kinds of people: locals for whom the city is simply home, long-stay internationals who have already weathered a few summers, the rooted who are held here by a partner, kids or a business, and the anchor crowd from one standing thing you never skip. Think of it as a mix, not a headcount. When your circle leans on all four, one summer cannot empty it.
You do not need many of each. One steady local friend and one long-stay expat who has seen five summers will anchor you more than a phone full of people you met last month.
How do you build the friendships that stay?
You pick a standing thing and show up to it every week until the strangers turn into regulars. Depth is mostly repetition. The same faces, the same time, the same place, until someone remembers how you take your coffee. Chemistry decides who becomes a close friend, but frequency decides who gets the chance.
Choose an anchor with a fixed schedule. A weekly class, a team, a run club, a volunteer shift, a bar with a Tuesday quiz. The magic is not the activity, it is the recurrence, so the reformer studio or a Shanghai padel court works only if you keep going back. This is also where newcomers actually meet people who stick, far more than at one-off mixers.
Then get local at the smallest scale, your lane. The fruit seller, the barista, the ayi, the neighbour who waters her plants at seven. Learn their names. That web of small, rooted faces is what quietly turns a posting into a place that starts to feel like home, and it is the part that never leaves in July.
So should you even bother if you are only here two years?
Yes. Even a two-year posting deserves real friendships, you just choose which kind to invest in with open eyes. If you know you are here for a short posting, do not pretend otherwise. Build a warm, generous transient circle and let it be a good season with an end date. Grieve the goodbyes and keep moving.
If you are staying, or you honestly do not know, invest the other way. Fewer people, more locals, more of the rooted, and one anchor you refuse to skip. The honest downside is that this path is slower and quieter. You will watch the new arrivals have the loud, easy fun while your deeper friendships take a year to warm. Skip it only if you truly do not mind starting over each summer.
Wang Bo wrote 海内存知己，天涯若比邻, with a true friend anywhere on earth, the far horizon feels next door. The ones who leave stay yours; the work is finding the ones who stay.
How do you make local Chinese friends in Shanghai as an expat?
Start where locals already spend their evenings rather than at expat mixers. Join something locals also do, a badminton group, a hiking WeChat thread, a mahjong table, a dance class. Then learn even rough Mandarin. It quietly changes your role, from a guest to be hosted into a person they can actually talk to.
Is it normal to feel lonely as an expat in Shanghai?
Completely normal, especially in the first year and every summer after a wave of departures. Loneliness and homesickness here are usually a stage, not a verdict on you. Almost everyone who now seems effortlessly settled went through the same flat months first, and most say the feeling faded before they could explain why.
How do you deal with expat friends leaving?
Feel it, then keep the channel open and stay building. A goodbye is not a failure of the friendship, it is the shape of this life. Keep the good ones by voice note across time zones, and pour the freed-up energy into your next-tier friendships here rather than waiting for the same crowd to reassemble.
Where do long-term expats hang out in Shanghai?
Less in the churny nightlife and more in standing communities, neighbourhood cafes in Xuhui and Jing'an, sports leagues, running and cycling crews, parents' groups, and hobby clubs with their own WeChat threads. They tend to trade novelty for regulars, which is precisely why their circles survive each summer.
How long does it take to feel settled in Shanghai?
For many people the turn comes somewhere in year two, once the admin is handled and a few relationships have gone deep. It is less about months passed than about anchors gained. Most people cannot name the day it happened, only that at some point the city stopped feeling borrowed and started feeling like theirs.
Words, maps and research by the Choice Shanghai team. Please credit us and tag our 公众号 if you share.
