WHAT a difference two years can make in China. When I was last there in 2017, mobiles were not yet the engrossing gadget it was and WeChat was not yet the big thing that it is now. It was just for chatting among the Chinese, nothing else.
Now, despite Facebook still being restricted and thus you need a VPN service to access it, the Chinese have gone digital big time.
You can forget your physical wallet but never your mobile phone. It’s WeChat or AliPay. Even street vendors have their QR codes that you simply scan to pay.
The service is not that friendly yet to non-residents. Despite a blog saying that for as long as you have connected your foreign credit card to WeChat, then you might still not be able to use it for paying but you can receive yuans (Chinese currency) from your contacts that is so not true.
I followed every step to the letter, and confirmed that my card is now linked, with a blurb that WeChat accepts Visa and Mastercard. But when my Davao friend sent some yuans because I ran out on our last day, I cannot receive it. I can see WeTransfer in our chat, but it will ask me to input “my Chinese bank account”. Of course, I don’t have that.
There’s a way around it though. You look for a Chinese friend who has WeChat and cash and you ask your Davao friend to send the Chinese friend WeTransfer to his wallet, and your Chinese friend gets that into his account while he gives you cash.
I’m sure, when I return, I will be chuckling at how “difficult” it was at this time.
I’m sure in a few months or a year, all this will change as China prepares to go full 5G. They are more than capable. In the meantime, we wait for our flight home.
We’re boarding now and I’m trying desperately to catch some signal.
Google and its services is not that welcome here and I’m desperately trying to email this article using my Gmail. As we waited in line to board, I remembered, I have a Yahoo! email. Email sent.