The essential what-to-do list to prepare your phone for China - The Tales of Two Travelling Turtles

Getting your phone ready for China

A survival guide

Getting your phone set up for travelling in China is a minefield, but you have no option. It’s pretty much a cashless society, where everything is ruled by the technology on your phone – technology which is different and ring-fenced from the rest of the world by the Great Firewall of China. Here’s a step-by-step guide for preparing your phone which will hopefully save you a lot of heartache and time.

BEFORE YOU TRAVEL

1) It is ESSENTIAL that you install and pay for a premium subscription VPN service like VPNExpress or NordVPN, to avoid costly roaming charges and in order to break through the Great Firewall of China when you arrive. Google services (like Gmail, Lens for the camera Google Translate, and Google Maps), WhatsApp attachment uploads and downloads and loads of services you take for granted like Wikipedia etc are blocked in mainland China. Even if you buy a travel eSIM like Airalo or Holafly (roaming data bypasses the firewall), you will need the VPN in order to activate the eSIM using the hotel wifi on arrival. (Catch-22: you cannot activate your eSIM before you travel, as you are outside its travel zone. I tried.) I and other travellers have found that it works less and less well the more you use it. The Chinese system seems to track the nodes you and others have used, closing most of them down, and it can take an age to find a new one. So, I recommend getting an eSIM too.

2) Alipay is the other essential app. It’s the only ubiquitous means by which foreigners can pay for things. For peace of mind, I installed it before I left and linked it to my UK phone number and passport with no difficulty. It is working fine here, although I did have to go through an additional security check 3 days into my trip which required me to ask someone to take a photo of me holding my passport infront of me. WeChat also has a payment system called Weixin, and smaller retailers and individuals can only use that. It’s a good idea to install that too, as it does not charge 3% for transactions over ¥200, and you need it to get into some attractions, but there is no translation from Chinese and it’s a nightmare to install – see below.

3) Get a travel eSIM to provide continuous connection to the outside world and a backup to the VPN when it doesn’t work. It’s essential because the VPN links take time to connect properly, drop out frequently, and often just don’t work at all. But unless you can activate your eSIM before you arrive (eg you have a global eSIM), you will need a VPN too.

4) Business contacts of mine all say the same thing – do NOT take your phone into China. There are many stories of people leaving China with malware on their phone, with apps not working properly afterwards. One friend of mine even lost all their emails from their account. So, you may want to do what seasoned China visitors do – buy a burner phone and install only the key apps (like those listed here) before you arrive and factory reset it after you leave.

ONCE YOU ARRIVE

1) Buy a local SIM card at the airport on arrival. (Apparently it is not possible/very difficult to buy a pre-paid SIM except at airport tourist desks.) This will give you a local phone number which can receive security codes by SMS, makes installing WeChat much easier, and which is better for Didi cabs (see below). Also, the data on it will be about one eighth the price of an eSIM (let alone the price of normal SIM roaming charges), and you can use it for all the local stuff like WeChat, Didi cars and Amaps. (Local eSIMS, as opposed to SIM cards, are for data only, which will be no good for registering with the apps below)

2) At the airport SIM desk if possible, get them to invite you into the WeChat network. Having WeChat is pretty essential. It’s the Chinese WhatsApp and more. It is ubiquitous for communications, payments, and also to read Chinese writing in translation. (Google Translate with lens uses up your expensive eSIM data.) It’s necessary because for example, when you check into a hotel, they may well send you the wi-fi password etc by WeChat. For the translating Chinese script function, go to Discover/Scan/Translate. Take a photo of what you want to read, and it’ll superpose the translation, like Google translate. (Choose your language in Settings.) You can pre-download WeChat at home, but you CANNOT join it unless you are invited to join the network by someone with a domestic account INSIDE China. I tried to register in the UK, as I have friends with WeChat, but our attempts to have me join the network failed. It seems that foreigners can’t invite others in, and the person doing the inviting needs to be inside China when they invite you. (You could do it if you have a local friend inside China, but be warned that the QR code generated to get you into the network only lasts 5 minutes, so it’s only possible if you do it by Zoom or something similar.) WeChat also has an integrated payment system that competes with Alipay called Weixin, and like Alipay, registration with WeChat involves uploading your passport details for this purpose. However, unlike Alipay there is no interface translation. I have found WeChat very unreliable (probably because it doesn’t work when the VPN is on, and it gets confused when you use the eSIM on and off). Also, because you are new on the system, you will have a low/non-existent Social Credit score. This means that you are blocked out of some systems, including restaurant menu and payment modules. If this happens to you, try using Alipay instead.

3) Install Didi, the Chinese Uber taxi app. It makes life SO much easier! You can do this with a foreign telephone number, but apparently many drivers cancel when they see a non-local number. So I have registered in China using my local SIM number. Inside the Didi app, you can enter your foreign Mastercard/whatever for payments, just like Uber, by going to the Account section.

4) For maps, Android users are at a disadvantage, as Apple Maps works in China, but Google Maps does not – or, at least, it does with the VPN/eSIM but it does not have points of interest like restaurants, or public transport navigation information. With your local SIM/eSIM and VPN set to Hong Kong (other places give you “not available in your region”), you can install Amap (Gaode maps), which has absolutely everything, but initially everything is in Chinese. You have to go into the settings to change the language. This YouTube video shows how to do it: https://youtu.be/MJTCCvFOP10?si=cvYisETLBCNm6Ckr.

Doing all of this often feels like pushing a square peg through a round hole. Setting things up often takes several attempts (It took me about 10 attempts to enter my MasterCard into Didi successfully – weirdly only the Google Pay auto-fill worked). But once you have done all of the above, treat yourself to a nice drink or something. You’ll be all set.

by Chris