"Ten Days in Shenzhen" article

[cdev]

This seems like it would be of general interest!

http://www.karimyaghmour.com/blog/2018/01/ten-days-in-shenzhen.html


"Much like other shopkeepers, the guy at the tape counter asked if I had WeChat. At the time when I first passed by his counter I still didn't have a functional device. By the 4th day, though, I had fixed this problem and I went back to several shops to connect with them via WeChat. TEGES mentions that WeChat is “handy”. From my point of view, that doesn't sufficiently highlight how crucial WeChat is. For there is one functionality not mentioned in TEGES that makes it a killer app for shopping in HQB: it's got live translation between Chinese and English. Now, I didn't figure this one on my own. At one counter where I stopped I started by asking if they had WeChat. The guy at the counter popped his phone and showed me the QR code for me to scan and connect with him, which I did. Then, as I had been doing before, I went to Google Translate to write my question and show him. Seeing what I was doing he said: “no, no, no, WeChat, WeChat”. I didn't get what he was saying at first. But he quickly showed me that he could type in Chinese on his phone, I would get the text in Chinese, long-press on it and get a menu that allowed me to translate it in English. And when I sent a message in English, he'd be able to translate it to Chinese. That was a revelation. From that point onward I was able to have very effective conversations with most shopkeepers when the discussion warranted going further than a couple of simple questions using Google Translate.

Thereafter WeChat became central to most everything I did in Shenzhen, including keeping in touch with the companies I met. I returned to a shop where I had bought a few neodymium magnets a few days before for example. The first time around the guy at the counter didn't know any English. When I showed up and tried to talk to him he called what seemed to be his wife on his phone over a video call and just let me speak to her. She then explained to him what I was asking for. When I returned there, she was there in person. I asked if she had WeChat and we were able to have a constructive conversation from there on. When I asked if I could order from them for delivery back home, she asked me how do you ship magnets. That clued me in to something I hadn't realized before: powerful magnets can't just be shipped like other components. I knew lipo batteries required special packaging and carrier notification to transit properly, but I hadn't realized magnets were an issue as well. After some investigation I found that the marginal quantities I bought were a non-issue for my specific trip, which was my primary concern. That, though, didn't solve my problem if I wanted to use that shop and contact for ordering larger quantities later. I told her that I needed to investigate that upon my return and I'd let her known."