Leaving the fairly simple interactions of Mandarin untranslated was (a) impressive in that it didn’t seem to affect the story if you didn’t read pinyin and (b) annoying in that each time I slowly sounded out the words, I never got some secret easter egg.
I vacillated between I don’t want to be here; everything is better here; I would never live here; I would never live anywhere else but here while in hong kong, and north carolina, and, well, every other place I’ve visited. Fun to see characters that did the same.