Issue #5: Why I'm Building English Websites from China

May 2026 · 8 min read

I'm an ICU doctor in Chengdu, China. I save lives during the day. At night, I sit in front of my computer and build English-language websites with AI.

I don't know how to code. English is my second language. I have zero experience in web development, SEO, or marketing. Every single line of code on this site was written by an AI assistant — I just told it what I wanted and kept iterating.

This is the story of why I started, how I'm doing it, and what happens next.

💥 The Trigger

It started in February 2026. A colleague mentioned that some people were making money from "English niche websites" — small sites targeting very specific topics, optimized for Google search, monetized with ads. The idea sounded absurd at first. I'm an ICU doctor in Sichuan. Why would I build English websites?

But the thought stuck. I started researching. I found stories of people making $500, $1000, even $5000 a month from small sites they built themselves. Most of them weren't professional developers either.

Then I found a post about using AI to build websites. Someone had built a 30-page site in one weekend using ChatGPT. That's when the idea clicked.

🤔 The Struggle

I spent two weeks just thinking about it. My day job is demanding — ICU shifts are 12+ hours. I have a family. When would I even find the time? And where would I start?

I didn't know HTML from CSS. I didn't know what a domain was. The word "SEO" sounded like a sneeze. Every time I opened a tutorial, I'd hit a wall within 10 minutes. The jargon was overwhelming: backlinks, canonical tags, schema markup, server-side rendering.

But then I realized: I don't need to learn all of this. I just need an AI that can do all of this.

🔥 The Honest Reason

Let me be real with you. The honest reason is money.

ICU doctors in China don't make what you think. It's a stable job with respect, but the financial ceiling is real. I have a family to support, a future to plan, and a feeling that there has to be something more.

I don't want to sell courses. I don't want to sell templates. I want to build real assets — websites that generate income while I sleep, while I'm at the hospital, while I'm living my life.

🛠 How I Actually Started

First site: a bilingual Chinese food guide (food.eastculture.top). Topic: Sichuan cuisine, because that's what I know. I used DeepSeek to write the content, ChatGPT to help with code structure, and GitHub Pages for hosting (free, no server cost).

The whole process took about 3 evenings. Cost: $2 for the domain name. Zero for everything else.

Second site: a travel guide for China (travel.eastculture.top). This one was harder — more pages, more data, more structure. But the AI handled it.

Third site: a disposable email service (aichatmail.one). Fourth: a women's fitness site (FitHer, in progress). Fifth: this site itself.

Total cost so far: about $10 in domain names. Total earnings: $0.

📊 The Numbers (First Month)

I'm going to be brutally honest here:

• Sites built: 5
• Live sites: 4
• Google indexed: 2
• Daily visitors: less than 10
• Revenue: $0

Terrible, right? But here's the thing — I don't expect anything in the first 3 months. Every niche site builder I've read says the same thing: Month 1-3: build. Month 4-6: wait. Month 7+: maybe see something.

I'm in Month 1. I'm building.

💬 Honest Take

Is it worth it? I don't know yet. But I know this: every evening I spend on these sites is an evening I'm building something of my own. Not someone else's dream. Not a hospital shift report. My own thing.

And that alone, for now, is enough.

— Kuang Shan, ICU doctor & amateur website builder