How I Got Claude Code Working from Hong Kong (Without a CS Degree)

Claude Code changed everything for me. There's just one problem:

I live in Hong Kong. And Claude doesn't work here.

No workaround link. No helpful error message. Just… blocked. The best AI coding tool on the planet, and my entire city is on the wrong side of the firewall.

So I found a way in.

A VPN. A crypto debit card. And now I run Claude Code every single day from my apartment in Kowloon.

This is exactly how I did it.

Quick Check: Who This Is For

This is for you if:

• You're in Hong Kong (or another geo-blocked region)
• You want Claude Code specifically
• You don’t have a software engineering background

I'm a financial planner, not a developer. I learned all of this by talking to AI and breaking things until they worked.

If I can set this up, you can too.

Why Claude Is Blocked in Hong Kong

Anthropic restricts Claude access by region. Hong Kong is one of those regions.

What that looks like in practice:

• Your card gets rejected when you try to subscribe
• Claude.ai won’t load properly
• The claude CLI just stalls or fails

It's not a bug. It's policy.

And it's not just Claude. A lot of the best LLMs are still blocked or half-available here. Gemini is starting to open up, but it's not fully there yet.

If you want the best tools today, you have to go around the wall.

Step 1: Get a VPN (Pick Taiwan)

You need a VPN. Any reputable one works:

• ExpressVPN
• NordVPN
• Surfshark