This stuff is infuriating on multiple levels
TL;DR:
- Restaurant only accepts orders made from the app
- Restaurant "mini" app is 200 mb and I had a sim card with 500mb/day
- When you finally get to pay, they must "verify you're a human" with an otp code sent to your phone number
- For saving money they don't send the otp code via SMS but via WhatsApp, which is blocked in the country
- Restaurant doesn't accept cash
- Restaurant doesn't accept credit cards
- Restaurant only accepts payments from a local app that requires id verification with passport scanning
- Taxis need to be called with an app
- In order to use the taxi app you need to register with the phone number and scan the passport and so on
Full story:
I went to china, first thing I went out for a walk and after a couple hours of walking I wanted to eat, so I went to KFC as I was intrigued by an ad showing a shrimp burger and a nori seaweed flavored fried chicken. (Yes, they looked tasty in the pictures, although by typing this, it doesn't look like it's actually tasty. Probably the "shrimp" burger is just surimi made with the cheapest shit gathered from the oceans and then just slushed in a patty. No, I could not try them, for the reason written below)
I went inside and I saw no self ordering kiosk. Oh no, I have to do social interaction with my poor Chinese proficiency. I go to the cashier and... there's only a order pickup point. I ask and they say need to order from their app, just scan the qr code.
Now, luckily I ordered a travel esim with 500mb/day, as the store didn't have public WiFi
I scan the qr code and it doesn't work. It's a proprietary version of qr code developed by tencent, need to use WeChat to scan.
I already had WeChat installed, I scanned it. It needed to download a KFC "mini app" and I agreed. 200 FUCKING MEGABYTES??? What does it contains, 4k movies of fried chicken????
After burning the whole data plan on that "mini" app I do the order and before paying: WAIT, YOU MUST LOGIN!
WTF? I thought the point of using WeChat is that I was already logged in a platform? Ok, let's login. WAIT! HOW DO WE KNOW THAT YOU'RE NOT A BOT? Please verify your phone number!
WTF??? I just need my weird seafood flavored chicken, why do you need my phone number??
At that point I was already 20 minutes in, and due to the fallacy of sunk cost I agreed to let them "verify" my phone number. Which for some reason they sent via WhatsApp instead of texting it. Luckily the travel esims are somehow exonerated from the gfw so I could receive it.
Ok, identity "verified", now need to pay. Oh, can't pay in cash??? Can't pay with credit card??? Only weixin pay. I try to check, needs passport verification.
At this point I just flip the table and I give up, I want to go back to my hotel room.
I'm tired boss, I don't want to walk another 2 hours, let's take a taxi. Last time I went to China it was pre-covid. In order to take a taxi you just needed to go on the side of the road, wait 30 seconds and a taxi would stop. Now there are no taxis at all??? I call my friend and he says it's normal, everyone orders a Didi now from the phone. I see it's another 200 mb app and I even don't try it, as I'm 100% sure it will ask phone verification and pay with weixin pay.
I give up and just start to walk...
Luckily I see taxi dropping someone on the side of the road so I run there to ask get me home. When we arrive he directly shows me a laminated card for paying with weixin. I give him a 20 yuan bill for the 14 yuan ride. He probably tells me that he doesn't have change. I don't understand. It's ok buddy, keep the change.
I spent three weeks in China this year, had a blast. It's true you need an app for nearly everything, and while it's too late for this advice, I'd recommend before you go:
Once you've got the physical sim, you'll have fewer issues with phone verification (obviously). The eSIMs I found (I also had one) were based out of hong-kong, and there are regional weirdness/connectivity issues with it. It worked, kind of, but was less reliable than the real deal. Good luck, god speed.
For wechat verification, I had to have a third-party (i.e. one of my chinese friends) perform a verification for me before all options unlocked. If you don't know anyone there, this is obviously challenging.
My experience with esims is fantastic. I loaded 5 of them on my phone (bought cheap plans with low data tiers) and switch them accordingly. High speed, no censorship at all, decent lag to western sites, I'm not detected as a VPN user.
Arrived in the airport, toggled, worked.
Physical SIM... Didn't try this year but even 6 years ago it was extremely problematic to get one as a foreigner, no store would accept my form of identification, I was offline for three days until I caved in and finally paid 200 yuan extra for a preactivated one (on someone else's id , I guess) on the grey market. And then there's the problem that even if the plans are cheap (I'm seeing $1/month for 5gb), it's rendered useless by the gfw. What's the point of having 200 Mbits of 5g bandwidth if any website that you can think of (including hexbear and .ml surprisingly, I wouldn't expect that they would block tankies), is banned? Better using a HK esim at 30mbits in 4g but with the full internet unlocked...
VPNs it's a cat and mouse game that I don't want to play anymore. You never know if the website isn't loading because the VPN has been blocked, or the website blocked the VPN, or it's a temporary connection issue, or today the server is overloaded...
Phones are starting to drop physical sims in the US. I was surprised to find out that my pixel 10 doesn't have one.