Xiaohongshu? Red Note Guide for TikTok Refugees

Hey! All TikTok refugees. Welcome to the Xiaohongshu community. As the dreaded January 19th finally comes, TikTokers are going crazy now. Xiaohongshu(Red Note) has soared to the top of the US and many other countries’ App Store free app rankings. For those who are not familiar with this app, this blog provides a comprehensive Xiaohongshu(Red Note) guide, hope you have fun here every day!

Xiao Hong Shu Meaning

Xiao Hong Shu is a Chinese social media platform especially popular among the younger generation. The 3 parts can be both together as “Xiaohongshu” or separated as “Xiao Hong Shu”, or even the abbreviation “xhs” is acceptable, in either uppercase or lowercase. In Chinese, it is written as 小红书, means “little red book” literally, or “Red Note” figuratively.

TikTokers use TikTok, and YouTubers live stream on YouTube. On Xiaohongshu, users are called “hóng shǔ”, a name was given because it sounds almost the same as “hongshu” in “Xiaohongshu”, but with a different tone. “hóng shǔ” refers to a vegetable — the sweet potato, this is also why the Xiaohongshu emojis look like this way. So, welcome to the Chinese social media world, my dear sweet potato.

What Can You Do on Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu offers features no less than TikTok, perfect for all TikTok refugees to stay long and forever. Here are what you can do on Xiaohongshu(Red Note):

• Share Content: Photos, live photos, videos, and even live streams are allowed in Red Note.
• Discover Content: You can discover anything you like in Xiaohongshu, the powerful algorithm will find out what you want and form your circle.
• E-Commerce Shopping: When finding something you like, you can purchase products directly from the posts.
• Engage with the Community: One of the biggest fun of Xiaohongshu is to engage with the local community. Post a photo, or leave a comment, countless enthusiastic netizens will come to “help” and make you LOL.
• Showcase & Sell Products: You can also sell the products yourself. However, it can be a hassle to figure out how to charge and ship them.
• Join Challenges: There are also challenges to join in Red Note just like that in TikTok and Instagram.
• Bookmark Posts: You can use Xiaohongshu as another Google, where you can get answers to all your questions and bookmark them for later use. For example, what to wear, how to cook, where to travel, nail arts, etc.

How to Make a Xiaohongshu Account

Now, let’s move to how to start your journey. Follow these steps to make a Xiaohongshu account:

Step 1. Search for “Xiaohongshu” or “Red Note” on the Apple App Store or Google Play, then download it.

Step 2. Open the app, and choose a login method. You can log in with your phone number, WeChat, QQ, Weibo, or Apple ID.

Step 3. If you choose to register with your phone number, you need to certificate with the code sent to your message.

Step 4. Now you can create your profile and bio, and start your journey.

Notice:

1. If you failed to receive the verification code, please wait a few moments and try later.

2. Be careful when setting your profile picture. Xiaohongshu allows for only 3 times change within 7 days.

3. When setting the country code before entering your phone number, choose “美国“, which represents the US.

For people from other countries, here’s a quick table for your reference:

Chinese	Represents	Country Code
澳大利亚	Australia	+61
加拿大	Canada	+1
英国	UK	+44
法国	France	+33
德国	Germany	+49
荷兰	Netherlands	+31
克罗地亚	Croatia	+385
瑞典	Sweden	+41
塞尔维亚	Serbia	+381
爱尔兰	Ireland	+353

How to Use Xiaohongshu in English

By default, the language of the Xiaohongshu account should be consistent with the system language. If it’s not, follow the steps below to change the app language of Red Note to English.

Step 1. Navigate to “我” in the right-buttom corner.

Step 2. Tap on the gear icon to enter settings.

Step 3. Select “通用设置“ in the second place.

Step 4. Tick “English” and tap the “保存“ in the upper right corner.

How to Translate Red Note Chinese Comments

I bet you must be distressed and can’t understand what Chinese people say in their posts or your comments. Copying and switching to a translation app every time is quite troublesome. Here are some ways you can do it more conveniently.

1. Image Translation

Instead of copying each comment and pasting it for translation, you can take a screenshot of the page and translate the image each time.

2. Use the Xiaohongshu Web Version

Xiaohongshu offers a web version on “www.xiaohongshu.com”, where you can log in with the account you created before and start browsing. Then, enable your Google Translate extension. Each time you are curious about what people say, just select the copy and click the Google Translate icon pop-up, and you’ll get the translation right on this page without switching.

3. Use Shortcut

This method is found by a TikToker named @chinese_harun_halal_life. Works only for iPhone users yet.

First, search for “shortcut” and rename it as “translate”.

Then, search for “translate” and select “Translate Text”.

Third, change the “text” to “Clipboard”, and set the languages to “Chinese” and “English” respectively.

Fourth, search for “result”, and select “Show Result”.

Images from @chinese_harun_halal_life

Then, go to “settings accessibility” of your phone, choose “Touch”, and toggle “AssistiveTouch”.

Last, on the same page, choose “Long Press” > “Translate”. Now every word you copy to your clipboard will be translated on the same page.

Images from @chinese_harun_halal_life

Meanwhile, Red Note is testing its new translation features right now, please be patient and wait for the good news. However, you need to understand that the translation always fails to convey how amazing the original Chinese meaning is. The best way to understand it is to learn Mandarin! Such perfect timing.

Alternative Methods to Cope with TikTok Ban

If you only want to stay in Xiaohongshu temporarily, here are some other options you can choose to stay connected with your community.

1. Get TikTok Unblocked with X-VPN

Since TikTok is banned in the US. You need to re-download the TikTok app from another country. For example, Canada. To make this happen, you can either change your App Store country, which may lose your existing services, or create a new one directly. Check TikTok unblocking methods here.

The best VPN to unblock TikTok is X-VPN. With more than 8,000 VPN servers across the world, you can easily change your location to other countries and unblock TikTok successfully. In addition, as an industry-leading VPN service provider, X-VPN provides a fairly satisfactory speed to scroll through TikTok videos without buffering.

3 Steps to Unblock TikTok in the US:

Step 1. Download X-VPN to your devices.

Step 2. Uninstall your TikTok app. Change your App Store/Play Store country to re-download it.

Step 3. Connect to an X-VPN non-US server. Open your TikTok app, and register a new account to log in. Please do not use the previous account registered in the US.

Tips: If the above steps don’t work, please remove your SIM card or just turn off eSIM.

2. Move to Instagram

Instagram shares similar features to TikTok, despite the suck Reels. I mean, who genius made long press pause, and tap to mute? Anyway, if TikTok is banned in the US, Instagram is still an impressive option to gather the local community.

3. Opt for Lemon8

Lemon8 is another platform developed by ByteDance, the same company behind TikTok. It allows users to share and discover content conveniently just like TikTok does.

Conclusion

Xiaohongshu has become quite lively and interesting recently because of TikTok refugees. For those who are not familiar with this app, hope this guide can help you get used to it. Red Note is really a warm and interesting platform where anyone can learn Mandarin, haha. If you plan to leave there one day, there are solutions for that too. Don’t forget to enable X-VPN and get out of that place successfully!

FAQs