By Jeff J. Brown
Above, on the left, is my charity fair stand in Shenzhen to sell The China Trilogy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/) and my English language learning book, Doctor WriteRead (https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-WriteReads-Treasure-Trove-English/dp/150780072X/). There are always several of these seasonal bazaars for vendors to get together and help raise money for a good cause. It was a fun day and I always get to meet many interesting people, both Chinese and otherwise. Pictured on the right is my next door neighbor’s stand, getting her money via mobile telephone payment. I also accepted Alipay, Wechat and cash. More and more people are leaving the house in China with no cash on hand. The level of trust in the banks here is very high, since they are all owned by the people. There are no private banks in China (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/08/17/baba-beijing-is-going-to-start-using-blockchain-technology-for-official-business-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170817/).
Wechat, Alipay and the banks take no fees for mobile payments less than ¥200 (about $25). This is why people can mobile pay $0.25 to rent a bike for an hour or $0.75 for a snack out of a vending machine and not get ripped off by transaction fees. That would never happen in the West, because the banks there are capitalist and rapacious, but I repeat myself. I suspect this is why Apple Pay has not gotten off the ground here. A Western bank could not imagine providing a free service tens of millions of times a day, and not picking the customers’ pockets.
Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio (links below):
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a follow-up to my article and podcast about China’s high tech revolution being fueled by its communist-socialist political-economic system (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/10/25/how-can-western-capitalism-beat-this-thats-the-rub-it-cant-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171022/), today I am going to present a view of what it looks like in everyday life, on the streets and in the shops. The excellent video below is a perfect show and tell. The video is almost 25 minutes long and well worth the watch from start to finish. It is really hard to explain what mobile phone life is like here in China and this presentation does it in spades. I’m so inured to it on a daily basis, that I hardly even notice. Some cutting edge mobile tech I’m familiar with, but still don’t use much, such as live streaming, which this video also discusses.
After seeing it, I thought back to my visit to the United States this last summer, and what a shock it was compared to high flying China. Going back to America felt like getting out of a time machine in the 20th century (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/08/26/china-is-the-most-plugged-in-big-economy-in-the-world-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170824/). This video reinforces that perception.
Enjoy, learn and discuss. Sharing is caring. Please tell your family, friends and colleagues about China Rising Radio Sinoland (www.chinarising.puntopress.com) and post it on all your social media. Read The China Trilogy, to understand your world & where you are headed into the 21st century (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/).
A Whirlwind Tour Through Tech Trends in China from Andreessen Horowitz on Vimeo.
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Or better yet, buy one of Jeff’s books offered below.
Why and How China works: With a Mirror to Our Own History
 China Is Communist, Dammit! Dawn of the Red Dynasty |
JEFF J. BROWN, Senior Editor & China Correspondent, Dispatch from Beijing
Jeff J. Brown is a geopolitical analyst, journalist, lecturer and the author of The China Trilogy. It consists of 44 Days Backpacking in China – The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013); Punto Press released China Rising – Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is also currently penning an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, to be published in late 2018. Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities.
Jeff can be reached at China Rising,
je**@br***********.com
, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.
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Mr. Brown, do you really not see what an Orwellian nightmare is praised as desirable in this presentation? I am really disappointed.
I don’t like social networks either (and you listed a perfectly valid reason for that),but they’ve sadly taken the world by storm.
I will second the first commemter’s setiment about this techno-narcissim being an Orwellian nightmare.