BY ROGER WATSON
It is one of the greatest privileges of my life to have worked for years, and to continue to work, in Mainland China. In the early days, I would go to an ATM and take out a pile of renminbi to cover the week or two I was there. For other expenditure, there was always the credit card.
But things have changed. ATMs are few and far between, largely redundant now that cash is barely used, and credit cards are no longer recognised in most places. It is well known that nearly all transactions in China now take place through WeChat—essentially a Chinese version of WhatsApp with bells and whistles.
China is keen to promote tourism, and the new visa-free entry agreement between China and the UK—as far as I am concerned, Keir Starmer’s only achievement—will facilitate that. But I have no idea how the casual tourist operates in China unless they are au fait with WeChat and have managed (it is not easy, and has only recently been permitted) to link a UK bank card to a WeChat account.
I have been set up with WeChat for years, and on a recent visit it was good to test whether WeChat payment worked with my UK bank card. It did, much to my relief. Until recently, I had to depend on the link in WeChat to my Chinese bank card, and since that card is due to expire in a couple of years, I am relieved that I do not have to renew it. The process of getting a Chinese bank card in the first place was convoluted enough, which brings me to the point of this column.
Without naming provinces, cities, banks or individuals, I was once in China for an extended period on a provincial government scholarship. Under Chinese anti-corruption legislation, the scholarship money could only be paid into a Chinese bank account. My hosts assured me that opening an account would not be difficult. On that point, they could not have been more wrong.
Thankfully, I was in China for more than a month, as it took me the best part of a month to open the account. My helper, a junior member of staff, suggested that we try a few banks in the vicinity of the university and my hotel. Accompanied by my helper and a gathering of female PhD students, we duly set off on various days to visit some of these banks.
In some cases, the teller would take one look at me and, with a shake of the head, indicate that the answer was no. In others, they would ponder for a while, as if they had the power to decide, and then shake their heads. Others would run off to speak to a senior colleague—for ages—before coming back with “bù” (不), which means “not.” In one place, before the “bù” was issued, I heard the phrase “yang guizi” (洋鬼子), which I knew meant “foreign devil.” My helper translated this as, “They say for Westerners it is not possible.” I told him, “I know they did not say ‘Westerner’!”
Finally, we thought we were getting somewhere when the teller at one bank ran off to the manager and—after a long wait—came back with a positive response. After standing in the bank for about 30 minutes, we were allocated a lady at a kiosk who was going to process my application. She asked for all the usual things, like my passport and any other ID that had my address, so I also handed over my driving licence. Then a mountain of paperwork ensued, all in Chinese, which was scooped up to be completed by my helper and other students. They would throw the occasional question at me, and then I signed a few of the forms.
The mound of paper was returned to the lady at the kiosk, who started to read through it and fire a few questions at me—in Chinese—which my helper translated, and in turn translated my responses to her. Excitement was mounting at the prospect of having a Chinese bank account and, more importantly, getting my hands on the scholarship. Suddenly, however, the woman at the kiosk screamed, flung the paperwork and my ID documents through the cubby hole, and pulled down the door. My helper said, “I don’t think it is possible.” I never found out why.
Finally, in the middle of the commercial part of the city at a major Chinese bank, we succeeded in opening an account and obtaining a card. The only glitch was that I had to have a Chinese mobile phone number. I didn’t, so we had to pretend that my helper’s phone was mine. He told them what “my number” was in Chinese, they phoned it, and the process was complete.
The problem with having my helper’s number attached to my bank account is that, years later in another city and with the help of other PhD students, when linking my WeChat account to my Chinese bank card, we had to ask my helper to respond to various confirmation messages, pretending to be me. It worked, but periodically, when I must confirm the WeChat link to my Chinese bank card, my old helper has to comply. He always does.
Now that I have managed to link my UK card to WeChat, I feel that I am “cooking on gas.” I am free from the shackles of the Chinese bank account and free to spend my money in Mainland China. Appropriately, my first purchase with my newly enabled WeChat account was a bīng píjiǔ (冰啤酒)—a cold beer.
Roger Watson is a Former Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.