[zelphirkalt]

Of course it is possible to live there without WeChat. That's an illusion I get tired of hearing. Been there in 2019, done it, had no problems using cash. Probably Mastercard would also have wirked for buying a train ticket, if I had persisted and acted as if I did not have it in cash. (And no, no one robbed me.)

[verst]

No problems using cash? Sure, if you only go to the stores and restaurants catering to foreigners.

Last year I noticed I could no longer use cash to touch up my Shanghai Transportation card balance. There are still some touch up machines but they now only accept WeChat / AliPay QR codes for payment. I have to go to the one service counter in the station to use cash to touch it up and sometimes those aren't even staffed.

Not only that, but the Shanghai Metro has moved away from their own NFC Transportation cards to installing bar code scanners that directly use WeChat / AliPay QR codes when you enter and exit the station, then charge your account accordingly. They also have support for NFC and Apple Pay. But to set up the Transit Card in Apple Pay you need a China Union Bank Card. The alternative is to install the Shanghai Metro App, link that to AliPay with the new option for foreigners to add foreign credit cards (this by the way creates a virtual Chinese prepaid debit card which eventually will refund unused funds).

If you buy streetfood (from those BBQs late at night in the middle of city intersections for example in Shanghai) you now find that payment with WeChat may be the only option.

Beggars don't want cash and instead are displaying a big WeChat QR code to receive payments.

I was staying in my friend's local apartment complex. To enter the building you needed to use a WeChat app. Unfortuantely we couldn't register me because I didn't get a Chinese phone number this time. It took a lot of awkward conversations to eventually get someone to issue me a physical NFC key card, something they no longer do.

Here is also an article on the subject: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-mobile-payment-boom-chan...

[zelphirkalt]

> No problems using cash? Sure, if you only go to the stores and restaurants catering to foreigners.

Well, maybe you've been in a different region or something, but I've been in capital of a 2 provinces and quite rural areas too, no problems whatsoever. Sounds like you are talking exclusively about Shanghai. I've not been specifically to Shanghai, so who knows, maybe there it is that shitty. Not where I went though, so don't try to discredit my telling of how it is as "visiting only stores and restaurants catering to foreigners", cause that's BS.

> If you buy streetfood (from those BBQs late at night in the middle of city intersections for example in Shanghai) you now find that payment with WeChat may be the only option.

Done that, with cash, in a major city, capital of a province.

> Beggars don't want cash and instead are displaying a big WeChat QR code to receive payments.

Perhaps in Shanghai as well? I've seen them begging for cash, where I went, so that is also a quite general statement to make.

Seems your personal experience is either limited to Shanghai or simply completely different. Speak a little Chinese to the locals and they lighten up. Never on my whole trip have I encountered a single situation, where they would not take cash, while having seen a lot of different places, from capitals to villages, to street food, to little markets. Perhaps just don't go to Shanghai, if it is that bad.

I find it a little bit stupid, that people downvote a first hand account of how things are in several areas in China, as if it was something bad in a discussion about such things. This is exactly what this discussion is about, so it's on topic and adds valuable information to the discussion: Not everywhere it is as you describe it to be. Don't confuse any personal location limited experience with an overall situation in a huge nation like China.