Pay by phone

When I moved here in China a couple of months ago, I kept getting funny looks every time I would pull cash out of my wallet to pay for things and then I got one of these. It’s a code on my phone, and now I can basically buy anything here in China.

That’s rare and weird, he says, only the elderly and people who don’t know how to use a phone pay cash. That’s because those phones can buy just about anything, from clothes in the store, to steamed buns on the street.

They are used to pay for bike rides and bus rides, rent and utility bills. As one guy told me on the street, you can’t achieve anything without your phone.