166
I came back to China after being in the US for 10 years and just want to chat about stuff
(lemmy.world)
Sooo... yeah! I don't really have IRL friends to chat about this so I figured I'd make this post. Didn't want this to be super consequential like hosting an AMA or anything since it's just me going back to where I was born but yeah
A few funny observations and maybe conversation starters:
- Everything I read in the US seems to talk about how China is simultaneously a futuristic paradise and an authoritarian hellscape... both seem fairly overblown. There are a lot of public transit and the food is amazing though
- The rumors are true, in China they really use Wechat for everything. Wechat is used for payment (almost no one uses credit cards or cash), booking tickets, ... and all of these are tied to your national ID and your face recognition. It's a bit terrifying
- There are sooooo many ads everywhere! Heck my parents' apartment building has an ad billboard right in the elevator, and this is apparently the norm. On the app store the Microsoft Edge browser literally got a 5-star rating and was praised for not running ads... it's that bad.
- My god the internet is atrocious compared to the US, and having to do half of the stuff I need to with a VPN doesn't really help. It's so bad that I was missing my Gentoo days of compiling packages from source...
- I thought there would be a ton of anime stuff, especially since I had the impression that Mihoyo games (the company that developed Genshin Impact, Honkai series, etc) is a topic of national pride... I think I have made a mistake. I have met three cosplayers just walking on the street so far though, so the culture definitely is there
- I like rhythm games and I'm delighted to find out there are maimai DX cabs everywhere, this thing is impossible to find in the US. Haven't found SDVX or IIDX cabs, or even CHUNITHM cabs though... Also China apparently has their own Pump It Up clone (not DDR, PIU) with four more outer arrows. Imagine the five PIU step keys and four more outside...
- Lemmy.world is somehow not blocked by the Chinese internet firewall. Not that I feel safe browsing Lemmy with the type of posts I make... On that topic, my own little web domain isn't blocked lmao I can still use SearXNG as usual
The app payment is rather common in Asia, particularly in South East Asia. Here in Malaysia we have various e-wallet thing to chose from, and we scan the QR to pay in physical shop. The QR, which we called it National QR, works across all apps and even bank app so they have to get creative with retaining people in their ecosystem. We basically leap into cashless payment and honestly i think it's awesome. SEA is working together now to make the ewallet usable cross country, like the one i use, i can use the exact app in China, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau.
My sister frequently went to china and one thing she noticed that some area will not accept cash, so you will need to do your homework if you wanna travel there.
I tried setting up an alipay account and a WeChat pay account abroad, it just doesn't work, I don't think you can even deposit money
Nope, you have to have local bank account to make a deposit, which mean you have to be a citizen. There's some service where they can deposit money into your account and they take a cut, but i'm not sure where to look for.
That's really cool! Honestly, IT and privacy issues aside, I do think being able to pay everything via one app is extremely convenient. Of course personally I have some gripes with that "one app" being owned by a very evil Chinese company in China's case but... yeah
Yeah i guess that's the reason people are uncomfortable with it, but for us we got multiple choice, or even use banking app to do it.
I think Alipay also an option, though i'm also not sure whether there's any other alternative for them.