So I decide to introduce my servers to you. For now I have two servers, one in Hong Kong🇭🇰 and the other in United States🇺🇸. I hosts some fun things on them but usually I’ll use them to build proxy to go access YouTube and other foregn websites.

I can’t remember when did I start to play with Virtual Private Servers, probably arount 2021, during the pandemic, my parents said that: “Always stays at home can do noting but let you to play video game more”.

Why It’s Completely Wrong to Say That

Let me take you back to how it all began. At first, I was bored. The internet games weren’t cutting it anymore, and I find something more challenging. That’s when I stumbled across coding—Python and C++ —and discovered an AI called GPT through a forum.

It instantly caught my attention. I was hooked, learning more about it even during online classes (okay, I admit, my academics took a small hit 😅). However, trying to dive deeper into AI on Baidu or other domestic sites was a dead end. The information I needed simply wasn’t there.

That’s when I decided to explore beyond the Great Firewall (Don’t learn me to share it with others… it’s not very legal).

You see, China’s internet is heavily restricted, and accessing the global web is no small thing, although you can use the vpns on the application store, but who know if they were also collecting you rinformations or not? How to bypass this barrier became my biggest question, my curiosity and determination kept on pushing me started to research ways to break through. At the time, I had little knowledge about networking, proxies, or servers, but I was determined to figure it out.

I spent hours on forums, reading guides, and experimenting with tools. Eventually, I discovered Virtual Private Servers (VPS). These weren’t just a way to deploy your personal blog or host minecraft with your friends-it’s a solution to access blocked websites—they were the key to a whole new world. It felt like unlocking endless possibilities.

In 2021, I rented my first VPS. It wasn’t just for browsing the open web; it became a playground for learning. I started simple—setting up proxies like WireGuard or SOCKS. These solutions were fine at first but got blocked quickly. That’s when I shifted to protocols like VLESS and VMess, which were stable, efficient, and easy to learn.

Soon, I began hosting small projects, experimenting with coding frameworks, deploying my own blog, and even running AI models like GPT. Every step felt like a new milestone (Not when figured out that a small change in config file caused an error when compling openwrt).

During the pandemic, while many were busy watching shows or gaming, I was building. There were challenges—hours lost in configurations, servers crashing (yes, I once ran rm -rf /* 🤦‍♂️, blame my shark)—but these setbacks taught me patience and problem-solving.

Looking back, exploring VPS wasn’t just about breaking the firewall. It was about independence, learning, and creating. I stopped being a passive consumer and became a builder. This passion not only honed my skills but also shaped my perspective on technology.

Even my parents, initially skeptical, saw the value(See, it’s not just about games I told them thousands of times!!!). What started as “playing on the computer” turned into a foundation for my future in tech—a foundation I’m still building on today.