[moosekaka]

Hackernews and the English tech media in general tends to be very US/euro centric, but there is a lot more innovation going on in the Chinese market that never gets highlighted in English tech media. Almost like a parallel universe, until said western audience goes there and experience first hand a paradigm shift. Look up shanzai.

[westiseast]

I lived there for ten years ;)

But yeah - I think there’s amazing things happening. It’s a bit of a shame that the discussion is regularly framed as ‘who is number one?’ - there’s some straight up great innovation, and there’s a lot of interesting adaptation and innovative use of existing tech to suit market conditions in China.

[moosekaka]

side question...how do short term tourists who might not be able to open a local bank account access wechat or alipay/mobile payments while in China? Are they forced to use just cash?

[westiseast]

No idea :) I heard some foreign cards can now be linked to WeChat, but I've never had that problem. Otherwise I guess yes, Visa/Mastercard and cash.