A guidebook
for a country
worth more than a brochure.
Pavilion exists because the English-language internet about China is, with rare exceptions, either fifteen years out of date or a brochure. We are trying to make a third thing.
The country has changed enormously since the last definitive English-language guides were written. Visa policies, payment infrastructure, the medical and educational systems, the cities themselves — all of these have shifted in ways most foreign-facing content hasn't caught up with. Meanwhile, the new content that exists is largely commission-driven: tour operators, OTAs, affiliate sites whose recommendations are tilted toward whoever pays the most.
We are trying to write the version a thoughtful friend would write you. That means current. That means honest about cost and quality. That means written by people who know the country from the inside, with editorial standards drawn from the kind of long-form journalism that takes its subject seriously.
Dr. Zhang Zhiyu
PhD · Founder, Conflux Labs Ltd
Dr. Zhang Zhiyu is a soft-matter physicist with research training at Brown University and UC Davis, and a PhD from the City University of Hong Kong (Liang Dai's group, polymer physics).
His academic work has focused on active polymer dynamics, with first-author publications in Macromolecules and co-first-author work in Microbiology Spectrum. A paper on machine-learning-generated knotted polymer and protein structures is currently under minor revision at Communications Chemistry.
He now builds AI products under Conflux Labs Ltd, a UK-registered company. Pavilion is one of the products under that umbrella, alongside PopWiz (AI fashion photography software) and private research tools for monitoring emerging topics across public platforms.
Pavilion essays signed by Dr. Zhang reflect his personal opinions. Editorial articles are produced by the Pavilion team using public sources, reader questions, and research signals, then edited for accuracy.
How we work.
1. Source disclosure.
Every Pavilion article ends with a sources note. If a number appears in our writing, we tell you where it came from. If we paid to access information, we tell you that too.
2. Quarterly updates.
Articles about visa policy, payment systems, and prices are reviewed at least every three months and updated when something has changed. The "last reviewed" date is shown on each article.
3. Clear commercial boundaries.
Pavilion's newsletter is currently free. If we introduce paid city-friend matching, sponsorships, affiliate links, or other commercial relationships later, we will disclose them on the relevant page.
4. No commission-driven recommendations.
We do not accept percentage-of-procedure commissions from medical providers. We do not describe student city friends as licensed guides, and we separate editorial recommendations from any future matching service.
5. Direct corrections.
If we get something wrong, we fix it on the original article and note the correction at the bottom. We don't quietly edit and pretend it never happened. For now, subscribe to the newsletter and reply to any issue if you spot one.
Conflux Labs Ltd.
Pavilion is published by Conflux Labs Ltd, a private limited company registered in the United Kingdom. We also operate PopWiz (AI fashion photography software) and private research tools. During the temporary launch, the simplest way to reach us is to subscribe to the newsletter and reply to any issue.
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