Tech Inwards China: Missive Of The Alphabet From Shenzhen

From Logic Magazine:

Letter from Shenzhen
Chinese tech isn’t an mistaken of its American counterpart. It’s a completely dissimilar universe.

山寨 (Shanzhai) translated direct agency mount stronghold, in addition to that’s where my journeying appropriately begins. I’m inwards a pocket-size town inwards Guizhou, i of the poorest provinces inwards China, where the gross domestic product per capita is the lowest inwards the country. But the lack of disposable income does non foreclose the glimmer of aspirational consumerism from fueling this alive sales seminar that I am overhearing.

In a large conference room, inside a hotel that is to a greater extent than frequently used past times couples looking for privacy from families than tourists, a human being drones on virtually filial piety. His even out is melodramatic in addition to suspenseful at all the correct parts, virtually a woman raise who gives upward her final penny to salve her son’s company. He asks: inwards return, what tin dismiss sons in addition to daughters create for their parents who create got given them in addition to then much? Even I am unopen to tears when the human being does his large reveal: purchase them 2,500 RMB silk bedding.

I continue to view other mount strongholds — villages in addition to zhais, places where bathrooms even in addition to then offering an adrenaline rush of potentially falling into a pit, in addition to pigs are slaughtered with a river. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 combination of tourism in addition to economical evolution are rendering these places increasingly rare. Yet i chemical cistron remains constant: the ubiquity of mobile phones in addition to the key importance of phones for the unproblematic transactions of everyday life.

Most transactions middle around i app: WeChat. WeChat is an app made past times Tencent that has give-up the ghost crucial to life inwards China, specially with Tencent’s state-sponsored initiatory of 智慧生活 (zhihuishenghuo, smart living). WeChat enables access to messaging, video chat, payment systems, in addition to populace services. And it has nearly i billion users — about equally many users equally Facebook Messenger. In fact, many of WeChat’s features create got of late been eerily appearing inwards Facebook Messenger.

I purpose WeChat to message a friend spell standing inwards the middle of a rice paddy, to pay for snacks in addition to H2O inwards a remote village, to purchase prepare tickets, to volume hotel rooms, to club taxis, to larn takeout, in addition to to mail my aunt photos. If I wanted to, I could likewise purpose it to pay electricity bills, overstep upward my mobile weep account, brand infirmary appointments, in addition to banking company represent the weather.

Scan these QR codes to pay, fifty-fifty at the hamlet bodegas. WeChat pay on the left, Alipay on the right.

Everywhere I go, picayune “Alipay/WeChat Pay” QR codes sit down inwards plastic placards, inwards the most unexpected places. In i pocket-size town, every business, including the adult woman making 炒粉 (chaofen, rice noodles) inwards the forepart of her identify accepts WeChat Pay. At a newly opened prepare station, massage chairs create got no slots for coins or money—just a unproblematic QR code pasted on their arm. To pay with WeChat, I scan the QR code with my phone, in addition to the chair turns on....MUCH MORE