The Myth About Living in China – Part 1
What you heard from the media maybe not even close to what is witnessed on site
For more than a decade we have been hearing China is getting more and more influential in the world, gaining strength in both political and economic power. On one hand the country is slowly opening up to the world, on the other hand there are still a lot of scrutiny so that people can hardly see the real face of life there.
I have been working closely with China clients in the past years, and finally moved to Mainland China in mid 2021. My Chinese cultural background with my language help me exploring this country quickly. I have found many interesting things about living here. Some very much similar to what people usually think, some are actually very different. Here I share what I have seen at society level
E-commerce development is beyond your imagination
You might have heard that E-com is super well developed in China, you can buy literally everything online and get it delivered to your door next day, if not in hours.
It is very true that E-com is super very convenient here. From food, grocery, household service, apparel, even furniture or luxury brand, everything is available online. And for many products actually it is easier to find online than offline, cause anyway people prefer buying online and receive delivery, why bother paying rent to keep the offline door?
You can even buy a house or jewels up to millions rmb online. Some local governments even sell those properties they confiscated online. Below shows screencap from my own TaoBao (the biggest E-com channel owned by Alibaba) account, they recommend me to buy a living deer, some candies, silver bars and handcrafted kettle.
Spending money is convenient, but not so much for everything
You can imagine when E-com is so well developed, there must be a lot of easy payment methods to come with. Yes you can link your bank account / debit card / credit card to IM messenger (WeChat pay) or Alipay to pay / receive money very easily. Everything is instant. Some people even use “Scan Face Pay”, meaning with face recognition, shop-owner can debit your saving account directly. With all these very convenient payment methods, people would laugh at you if you carry cash here.
However, apart from spending money, there are a lot of other areas that are not so convenient yet. For example, to enter Disneyland you have to buy ticket, pre book timeslot, then present your ID / passport at the entrance and let them check you are really the one who booked this timeslot. This is the famous “Real-name System”, from phone number, home internet service, entry to museums or theme parks, everything you need to register with your real identity, and get verified at the point of usage / entrance. For local it may be just a few minutes work, but for those who do not have a local ID card, very often the process is much more complicated (e.g. system only accept ID card number but not passport number, staff do not recognize your passport, etc).
My personal experience, it took me more than 10 min to enter Disneyland, including all the online registration, verification at the gate, even I can speak fluent Mandarin. And till today I cannot do any online flight check-in because no airline accept document other than local ID card.
There is no such thing as privacy
The sense of privacy is very weak here, no matter at interpersonal level or government official level.
When you meet new people, very soon you will be asked private questions, like your age, salary, sexual orientation, your family situation or other personal info. At the same time people do not mind disclosing theirs too. And in a matter of days what you share will be spread around, very efficient information flow network.
In digital world your privacy is also not much respected. When you sit down in a restaurant, scan the QR code on your table, you will see something like “Welcome, you are sitting at table A3, please allow us to access your gender / location / profile picture and other personal information”. What they did not say is if you deny, you cannot even order your food.
The first time I met this I was like “wtf, you told me I am at table A3, why do I have to share my LOCATION? You don’t know where your table A3 is? And why you need to know my gender in order to bring me my food?”
Anyway, after a while you will just click “Allow” every time, just like reading those software license agreements, scroll to the end, click “Yes”.
Scrutiny is everywhere
It is true that scrutiny is everywhere. CCTV everywhere in the street and at the corners inside every building, thousands of words are banned on search engines and millions of websites are blocked. But what is more intimidating is the CCTV in people’s mind.
Most people know what is happening, know what is real / fake on media. But most choose to pretend they do not know, or stay silent about it. This produces an atmosphere that pressures you to stay in the line, avoid saying / doing something that the authority may be not happy with. Together with the fact that every big registered organisation management committee need to include a couple of CCP members, to ensure government’s interest is respected for all decisions, you can really feel the pressure.
Delivery / Didi (Chinese version Uber) Army
Delivery and taxi calling are very convenient here. These are all because of the huge army of delivery guys and Didi drivers.
With only 7–8 rmb per order, food delivery guy bring your breakfast to your door within like 30 minutes, by their motorbike. They are earning a hard life, their performance is counted at MINUTE level, one minute late, certain amount get deducted from the compensation.
Same for the taxi app drivers. There is algorithm behind all app to “control” how much they can earn each day. The system would distribute the orders evenly such that each driver’s daily earning would not vary more than 50 rmb, while utilizing all their driving time. There is not much room for you to work hard or be lazy.
Under such intense condition, it is understandable that all the delivery guys and app drivers are super aggressive, causing a lot of mess on the road. One very smart driver once told me “in big cities like Shanghai, traffic is usually very well managed, the only thing you have to be careful with are the delivery guys.” Very true, for both pedestrian or driver.
Recently some news said the government is trying to improve the living standard of these delivery guys / drivers. Hope we will see changes very soon, in terms of the traffic and more important the quality of living of these guys who are servicing the whole population. So they do not have to risk life of their own and that of others to gain 10 seconds advantage.
These are what I saw so far at society level, coming up I will share more about interaction with people. And I am sure there is much more to discover. Stay tuned if you want to know more about this country.
