VPN blocked?

Doesn't matter Beijing or Shanghai or wherever you move to in China.  It happens every now and then if there's some important government meeting going on. If you can't live without western social media for a few days every so often then maybe you should rethink where you want to live and work. Otherwise like the rest of us you just deal with the inconvenience and wait until it gets back to normal.

Here you are - Fly right over the great firewall of China

https://www.groundcontrol.com/one-touch-flyaway_001.htm

Just use the vpn called Astrill, it works year round and has the best speed!

VPN isn't always blocked - it usually works just fine, but it sometimes doesn't.

For example, it was working just fine yesterday and has been working for several weeks; but it isn't today. For the service I use, it usually takes them a day or so to even notice, and longer to produce a 'fixed' client (not sure what they actually do to 'fix' the issues).
It's also annoying, btw, that only some VPN servers work. It does vary over time, but not much. So, you might well not be able to use a VPN server in a specific country, if that is something you wish to do. TBH, it's enough that it just 'makes the internet work', from a non-Chinese point of view, of course.

You mentioned banks...I've never had any problem using a bank's web site. Actually, most web sites work; it's really just social media and anything Google that don't, the latter (Google Search, specifically) is the thing I find most painful. You might have a problem with GMS phones ("Google Android" rather than AOSP) - eg Google Play. My phone doesn't use GMS so my phone works the same everywhere

However, I have to say that not all internet connections in China have the GFW restrictions applied - almost all, but certainly not all[1]. So, if you know of such a service, then you should sign up before you move. I suspect it depends on your home country if the service is available there. The one I have costs money (not a huge amount), and has a bandwidth limit (per month). I don't know if it is the only one, but it might be (which is why I'm not going to mention the name of the company).
Of course, VPN also costs money (well, ones that have any hope of pretending to be reliable), so if it is an option for you, it's worth considering which solution provides more utility and only using one.

[1] TBH, I don't know how they work, technically, but i suspect the service utlises its own VPN solution to a location in your home country.

@OmyGod I moved here three years ago just before the Covid 19 outbreak. Thank God. I use ExpressVPN and PandaVPN and both work well on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Price of ExpressVPN is a bit of higher than the latter one.

Many VPN nodes are very small, you can try [link moderated], although the price is a little higher, the feedback from netizens who have used it is better.

@Jornuts tru that