Recently, international residents and travelers to China have been sharing candid videos of daily life, such as late-night snack runs, laptops left unattended in cafes, or fruit vendors napping beside open stalls, which have helped popularize a term online: the "Chinese sense of safety". Their unscripted moments offer a message to potential visitors that coming to China is safe.

Maxine Sharples, now in her 30s, first came to China as a nervous student two decades ago. Since January this year, she has lived in Hainan province.

"I'm not anxious. I'm curious," she said on a Friday night in the provincial capital Haikou, as she walked alone past street vendors and students.

For Sharples, her sense of safety is a feeling that reveals itself in small acts, such as when she eats alone, rents a shared bike, or catches the last high-speed train of the night.

"That was another kind of safe," she said. "Not just protection from harm, but the freedom to be spontaneous."