January 2020 – Philbert’s Phables

Before we start with the Shenzhen photo essay, I want to highlight how integrated QR codes are into daily Chinese life. You can scan QC codes (or have your own code scanned) using WeChat or AliPay to make retail payments, but you can even scan (indeed, must scan) a QR code to pay your electric bill. Take a look:

A lot of vendors (including taxis, fruit stores, etc.) leave their QR codes up for customers to scan and submit payments, while most established retail stores will bring a QR code reader to scan the QR code that is randomly generated from your WeChat or Alipay app.

Interestingly, because Alibaba (which makes Alipay) is headquartered in Zhejiang and Tencent (which makes WeChat) is in Shenzhen, only Alipay is available in much of Zhejiang, and WeChat Pay in Shenzhen, in a sort of e-payment turf war.

Ok, on my way to Shenzhen: Starbucks are everywhere in China but their menus are different than the ones in the states. Just check out these items below. They have to compete with shops selling crazy flavored teas and boba drinks, so they come up with these exotic beverages:

“Modern Mixology” replete with coffee mixed with lemon and other monstrosities

Now I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Tencent, the internet giant that makes WeChat and other apps, is headquartered in Shenzhen

All the people going into Tencent in the morning

You can (and sometimes have to) order by QR code at restaurants by scanning a code like this at the table (including the table number) or the counter:

It will bring up a menu of items which you can add to your shopping cart and checkout with, this is a screen capture from the Luckin Coffee payment menu, which is like a cheaper Starbucks which is still decent:

You pay in the app, and once your order is ready, you pick it up from the counter or they bring it to your table.

Lunchtime in Shenzhen, which is a huge business center rivaling Hong Kong or Shanghai:

A restaurant devoted entirely to serving frog dishes, which I did not partake in:

Frozen ads on the plane for Shanghai Disneyland, which is now closed because of the coronavirus:

Obviously there was more to the trip than just this but hopefully it gives you a flavor…

My life has gotten a lot more exciting over the past couple of months so I haven’t gotten to writing the Phables recently. But now things are clearly getting very exciting over here, so I’m back at it again.

First, mandatory pictures of ordinary life in Shanghai:

View from the Bund to Lujiazui, in the Pudong New Area

Art Deco buildings on the Bund, a former foreign concession area

But probably the biggest question on everyone’s mind is how it is being in China during the coronavirus.

It’s clear that people’s attitudes changed drastically after the government announced that there was people-to-people transmission of the virus, because then it seemed more like SARS, which a lot of people still remember. Then the masks started coming out more in public and at the office, where previously few people were wearing them. As readers of the blog will remember, I was just in Wuhan as recently as last November, so this current crisis comes as quite a surprise.

I remember SARS, as I was attending local junior high school in Taiwan at the time. There were accounts of the virus spreading until finally someone in our school (or their family member) was infected, so they shut school down. I do remember distinctly one vignette, that is when we were put in a different classroom to wait for the school day to end and everyone to be sent home (we had to wait because some people’s parents were still at work I imagine), everyone was wearing masks in a classroom with a projector.

Our teacher or some admin person thought it would be a good idea to play a movie for us while we waited to go home, so they picked the enlightened choice of Resident Evil. Good times.

Anyway, in lighter news, I recently went on a business trip to Shenzhen, which is a very advanced city in southern China, less than 2 hours away from Hong Kong by road. I could do some research into how Shenzhen is one of the special economic zones (SEZ) of China that was first opened up to world investment and trade, but I’ll let you figure out the details. I’m just going to show what I saw, since that’s the sort of day-to-day details that seem to interest my readers. Tune in next time for the Shenzhen photo essay…

Month: January 2020

Philbert’s Phables – Shenzhen Photo Essay

Philbert’s Phables – Updates from Shanghai