[standardUser]

That's not how most American tech workers and urbanites see China. But I've had conversations, online and off, with people who have no idea how much China has transformed in the last ~25 years. They don't think about it, read about or generally care about it, so their perceptions aren't really updated.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is weird since my first trip to china was actually 25 years ago (December 1999, so more accurately ~24.25 years ago), and they actually had Starbucks in Beijing back then (at Xidan, I think there was another in guomao somewhere but I didn't see it). Still a bit pricey (I think 35 RMB for a grande coffee frap), and it was the only place in Beijing that I saw any non-Russian foreigners at (but it was winter, not high tourist season for China back then).

You'll see techies who think China is all open modern Shenzhen, and are surprised when they visit and Gmail doesn't work (at least, that was my experience hosting a computer science conference in Beijing in 2011).

[carmen_sandiego]

China has decoupled a lot more since then. If you visit now I would say paying for things smacks you in the face way before access to Google services does. Recently they've enabled foreign cards so you can pay for stuff in stores with WeChat but it's still something you need to set up. The uninitiated just come and assume they'll use Visa/MC.

[seanmcdirmid]

I've never been able to use Chinese pay services even when living in China. It used to require a Chinese ID card, which you don't get unless you are a Chinese citizen with hukou.

My wife has wechat/pay, so it won't be a big deal when we go back. Starbucks will take foreign credit cards (or at least they did?), you could suffer at McDonalds though. I wonder if the xiaochi's still take cash?

[carmen_sandiego]

You can open a bank account in China without any real requirements and thus have a 'local' card. You just need a passport, phone number, and a local address (a friend's is fine).

And yes I think long long ago the WeChat setup would expect a Chinese ID number, but for at least some years now they've accepted passports as an alternative.

But very recently (in the last six months) they've started allowing foreign cards for WeChat pay. So you can add a card and pay for things in store, but not access the more general money transfers, red packets, etc. that people do with it. I guess those have stricter KYC requirements, plus they are keen to stop money getting out of the country.

Smaller places I never _see_ take cash, always WeChat, but I suppose that doesn't strictly mean they won't take it.

[seanmcdirmid]

You needed a working visa/resident permit last time I opened up a bank account in China (but that was in 2007, a bit long time ago). Linking to a foreign card to WeChat/AliPay would be really convenient, like how I was able to link ApplePay to Suica when I was in Japan (super convenient, but I had to top off manually on my phone, which was a bit annoying).

I'm really wondering how the hole in the wall xiaochis (e.g. 成都小吃, this is mostly a Beijing thing) work now. I'm guessing they would be the first ones not to take cash anymore if they didn't have to.

[carmen_sandiego]

Nobody asked me for a visa in 2015, and I was on a tourist one at the time so it can't even be some unified database thing they were using. A nice thing about Chinese banks is they can just hand you the card over the counter as well. That would never happen where I'm from in Europe-you have to wait for it to get mailed out to you.

Then again, I often find in China that workers/officials/whatever make up the rules on the spot, depending on what they know how to do, or what they consider too mafan. So maybe some will just 'feel' like you need a visa and others won't.

I get a similar thing in hotels where they can't be bothered to register my passport with the PSB, because they don't get many foreign visitors and so e.g. the computer to do it is not turned on. So they just don't do it.

I would guess you could get a hole in the wall to take cash most of the time, I just never see it done. One problem with cash in China is that the largest note has a pretty low value given how inflation is going and how costs are in tier one cities. Chinese people seem to think this is some kind of image management thing, where if they issue a larger denomination everyone will start freaking out about inflation. But I guess it's moot given how cash is losing favor anyway.

[idlewords]

You can now use Alipay tied to a US debit card. I did it last month and it works fine; the biggest obstacle is your US bank may get jittery and require a couple of phone calls to unblock the debit card. Setting the whole thing up takes less than five minutes.

[carmen_sandiego]

Most Americans don't even have a passport and have never left the country apart from Canada/Mexico. But to be fair I find Chinese people's views of America are equally based on cliches.