Hold on. I was in China in September and used fb where we were, Beijing and Xian with no issues. I sent and received texts and emails too. I did not use a VPN. I have Verizon and paid about $10.00 per day for calls, text and data as per my plan in the US.
Right, if you are surfing the web while roaming on a foreign SIM like you did, there is no need for a VPN as nothing gets blocked. The GFC only affects you when using a local SIM or on wifi which means that locals servers are being used.
