One of the big differences that I remarked here in China compared to Switzerland is how much but also how diverse phones are used here. You would probably already think that the young generation in Switzerland spends a lot of time on their phone, but this is a whole different thing here.
Here it is very common to have two smartphones. I have not actually figured out why people need to, but I guess for most people one is a work phone and the other one a private phone. You can use your phone for way more things here in China than in Switzerland.
The most used APP is Wechat. Wechat at first seems to be the WhatsApp of China, but it is used for way more. WeChat has a payment function, where you can connect your bank account to your phone and then use it for payment. At the checkout you simply show them the barcode on your phone and then they scan it and the payment is done. You can use Wechat payment almost everywhere, even the people that sell things on the street mostly accept this way of paying. Wechat payment is such a convenient function and I’ve rarely used cash for anything here in China. Another great function of Wechat for me is it’s translation function, so when I get a message in Chinese I can automatically translate it into English (but sometimes, the translations are very funny and not too helpful…)
People are on their phones almost everywhere. There are a lot of people that even use their phone when they hang out with their friends, which at first was a very strange thing for me to observe. Another observation that I made is that lunchtime in the canteen is very quiet, because a lot of people are on their phones. I actually admire them for being able to use chopsticks in one hand and the phone in the other :)
Talking about phones there is another thing, which is online shopping. A lot of people use services where they order food somewhere and then get it delivered to their apartment by some delivery services. With my limited Chinese skills I’m sadly not able to use it yet, but it seems very convenient. Yesterday was 11.11, which is Single’s day. It is a huge shopping event so Single people can go shopping and therefore the online shopping market exploded…
These are just some examples of how advanced China is in using their phones and I’m sure there are so many more that I just haven’t discovered yet!