I came to China long before cellphones, the invention of the internet, or the arrival of vending machines. As such, I'm a bit stuck in the old ways, when I had to carry wads of cash in order to pay my rent, which was usually paid in six-month installments. It was not unusual to see friends and colleagues toting shopping bags stuffed with neatly wrapped stacks of cash down to the real estate office or bank to cover rent or other expenses. Paying bills, such as the electricity bill, meant queueing on certain days of the week during certain hours at the local office.
Most of us had cleaners not primarily to clean, but to stand in lines to pay our bills while we sweated out our regular jobs. If I wanted to call from my mother-in-law's flat to anywhere in the city, I had to persuade the building switchboard operator to place the call, stating that it was not a call made for frivolous purposes. God help me if I wanted to do anything truly spectacular, like call my parents in the US! That involved a trip to a building downtown where I had to fill out paperwork and pay in advance for a precious three-minute call. I was lucky enough to score a cellphone around 1998 and life became much easier.
Now I can't live without my cellphone. I mean that. I do everything on that phone: internet capability has meant I can check my bank balance, find where I am on the map, search online for cheap tickets, or order a taxi. This is truly remarkable: but what gives me ease is an app called WeChat. WeChat is king. WeChat is all. WeChat is the bringer of life, or at least my life: with it I can message friends, place a voice call, or even video call. I can search for new friends, post pictures, message, and videos on Moments, and see what friends and acquaintances are doing as well. My favorite official accounts keep me informed about what's happening in the city - where's a good restaurant? Which cinema has an English-language film? Where do I register my dog? Check WeChat. Something written in Chinese? Use WeChat to translate. Need to order groceries? Use WeChat. WeChat's Mini Programs now has a feature that translates all of those restaurant menus into English. Granted, some of the translations could use a bit of refinement, as I find myself ordering nachos, quesadillas, and coconut water with the stellar names of Corn Flakes, Beef Max Cheese Scone and Fresh Coconut Hell, but that's a little semantic confusion when I can have KFC deliver Sniff Chicken Traditional or Cheese Sauce Tender Beef Fort Super Meet OK4 Sets delivered straight to my door.
However, like any other wonderful new invention, there is a dark side to WeChat. For example: so many people use WeChat (and Alipay too, to be fair) that most of us don't carry cash. In fact, some of my friends haven't carried cash in several years, which has led to some heart-stoppingly awful moments when they go to pay at a store and realize their phone is out of power. No power, no phone, no money. What if you hit the limit on how much you can spend on WeChat and find yourself screaming frantically while digging through your purse for a credit card to ring up your purchase at the foreign grocery store? This scenario is more likely to happen toward the end of the year, when We- Chat inexplicably informs you that you can no longer transfer money. What if you forget your phone, or you do what I did one birthday and accidentally drop it into the toilet, rendering it both useless and laden with horrific germs until it can be disinfected and dried out? I can't even order a taxi without having a working phone and enough money in my WeChat wallet to cover my ride. In a safe country like China, I never worry about someone lifting my wallet or my phone, but I have a far greater worry, that I will be somehow locked out of WeChat and unable to order food, a taxi, or spend money again. I have chills just thinking about it. Let me order some hot soup to help me recover from that thought... hey, where's my phone?
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