What’s the best thing about living in China? China takes convenience to another level for almost everything you could want. And with it also being a cheap place to live, anything you want becomes even easier to get.
Arriving in China for me was like a simultaneous shuffle into the past whilst also feeling like certain aspects had pelted far beyond where we are in the West.
The innovations are nothing crazy by themselves, but they have been adopted so totally that that have become a vital cog in Chinese society.
In the West, paying through your phone is an option that hasn’t really taken off, bubbling away just beneath the ‘bothered threshold’. Almost universally in cities across China, be they international chains like Walmart or fruit vendors on the street, paying with your phone is not just an option, it’s what is expected.
Sending money to friends can be done instantly and as securely as PayPal without the convoluted trudge through online banking apps with their triple verification checks and what not. QR codes are plastered everywhere to help you order your food or drinks, sign up for discounts in shops, add contacts on social media, use rental bikes and pay for your metro ticket to name a few. Chinese cities are all but cashless, the result is that financial transactions are smooth, quick and easy for the vender as well as the customer.
WeChat and Alipay have enjoyed some benefits from being favoured by the Chinese government. This favour goes a long way. Adoption of this alternative payment occurred in an incredibly short space of time. In fact, the use of the phone as a wallet is assumed to the degree that actually using cash can be an inconvenience when the demand for giving change is so low. Some places don’t even bother stocking any as my mum found out trying to buy me a drink and being unable to due to their being no change in the building.
There is Didi, China’s answer to Uber but cheaper, faster and with more surveillance. Didi is every bit as reliable as Uber, cars are minutes away, every hour of the day and are cheaper than city taxis. A freak murder-case in 2018 was responded to swiftly by Didi. Overnight, all trips started being recorded for sound and all reviews are supplemented with specific questions related to the driver like ‘does the driver seem sleepy?’. The change was implemented so quickly that the company managed to tidy up their public image in no time at all.
Nothing too ground breaking so far, but the real winner is the phenomenon of Meituan and Elema. Two apps that perform the same function: ordering whatever you want to wherever you want it. Again, nothing alien from a Western perspective, Uber Eats has been building up in popularity, takeaway delivery driver services like Just Eat are a solid effort to bring convenience to spoilt society.
China has taken this concept to another level though. Littered throughout the city are thousands of yellow and blue bikes, each fitted with a large freezer box on the back. Each one able to hurtle itself to a restaurant, supermarket, shop, café, coffee shop or dessert shop right to your front door, if not within thirty minutes, then damn near enough.
Absurdly low delivery fees, order minimums and cheap food makes ordering out more appealing than cooking which many Chinese have more than welcomed into their lives. Young people who can cook are in the minority. Admitting to having any amount of cooking ability is met with surprise. It doesn’t end with takeaways either. No longer do you have to take the elevator downstairs and walk to the supermarket or corner shop at the bottom of the street, a scroll through the Meituan app and your shopping will also be at your door within half an hour. Ran out of beer? Have a bag of booze and snacks at your door at any hour of the night. How the driver can possibly carry your 5kg rice bags and beer crates is a mere afterthought by the time it’s sitting in your kitchen.
I fear that if this were in the UK it could signal the beginning of the Wall-E future of fat, round blobs bobbing in small pods with a line of buttons satisfying every possible animalistic urge that pops into our heads. It’s a wonderful innovation to experience, yet also one that has left a generation severely lacking in cooking skill as well as an abundance of disposable, plastic containers stacking up in landfill.
There are many conveniences strictly reserved for Chinese citizens that evade foreigners. Flying domestically without a passport is neat, being able to book tickets for anything online is sweet whereas I usually need to go to the little service window and splutter through a negotiation to get a ticket for myself. Then there are the numerous admin inconveniences that are all but impossible without the assistance of a bilingual local. China is convenient for me, but for a Chinese person it is a system built for you.
I don’t know exactly who, what or where people are being screwed over to keep this river of convenience flowing but those issues are swept clear out of view so for the average person, your phone is the key to the city and unlocks everything.
Unless of course you break, lose or can’t afford a phone. Then you’re done.
