On The WeChat Pay

I have now come to think of it as normal to use my phone to pay for things.  It’s been possible for years, but necessity has forced me to suddenly embrace modernity.  As mentioned I was in Shanghai without a bankcard or any obvious way to source cash for a few days and had “money” transferred to my Wechat account.  “hey, do you have Wechat pay?” is now part of my lexicon.  Everyone between the age of fifteen and forty in China necessarily answers “yes.”

But what is the etiquette for this new form of intercourse?  Is my question a polite one?  Is it presumptuous to suggest you want to equate Wechat money, for cash?   I wanted to host my students on the last day of class to a get together at a nearby pub.  This is ritual.  But, it wasn't going to fly without a card or much of any cash.   

I went by our default bar:  “The Irish Bar.”  Where else?  All a pub needs is a few Shamrocks and Guinness on tap and you can bogtrotter-up as an “Irish Bar.”  Fungible Irish soft power.  

No one was there at noon when I went by and I sauntered up to the young lady minding the place and asked her if I could use Wechat pay to settle a larger tab later this evening.   She said “no” but when I explained the situation and that I wanted to drop one thousand yuan, she promised to socialize it with her boss and see.  “应该可以了吧？  ”是。应该可以了。“

Cross-eyed busy yesterday with an end-of-quarter to close and a new client call mid evening, a friend to visit after his guest session with my students.  There’s no way . . .   I chipped away at work for a few hours, fighting off the urge for a nap and with only a few minutes to spare, I headed over to the bar to meet the students.  I hadn’t had time to whip up a "Plan “B” if this gal told me “no dice", when I got there.  "Sorry.  Boss said no on the Wechat pay.”

Disheartened after hi-fiving one and then another student, for as I looked to the bar, the lady I’d struck the deal with was not behind the counter.  Another gal, whom I know from other visits was tending the bar.  I smiled and tried to explain my earlier discussion about virtual payment, when up jumped the primary bar maid. She smiled and said we were good to go.  I just had to “connect” with her boss on Wechat. 

I don’t ‘connect’ with people on Linkedin, that I don’t recognize.  I don’t do Facebook, at all.  But I’m willing to connect with a complete stranger so I can send him money.  I transferred him his We-loot and opened the bar tab.  That Wechat has established trust on such a sensitive matter, so quickly, is remarkable.  It’s hard to imagine how long it will be before we have a hack of this that leaves ten thousand fleeced, but while I have no idea about the privacy of my data, I’d have faith in Tencent as much as anyone to handle exchanges on this level.  I’d never thoughts twice about whether or not it would be safe or effective.  No body else seems to either.   A toast.