These events took place over twenty years ago, when I first arrived in China fresh from graduating. It's taken me all this time to start writing about it, fueled in part by nostalgia and finding some old notebooks I kept at the time. Perhaps I was scarred by university essays and deadlines but for the longest time I had no appetite to write, about this year or anything. Now I've started, I'm finding long-hidden memories of moments from my travels reappearing vividly, so this is therapeutic for me. Anyone else reading them is a bonus! 😁
😂 Feels like a key element of the story. I was suspicious. You paid for someone with “a single coin.” China is basically cashless today. 🙏. I moved here in 1997.
2004 for me. I often watch YouTube videos of travellers in China and it's crazy how quickly it has changed. Everything was cash only back then, of course, but I supposed bank cards never really caught on so it was natural that WeChat etc. quickly became the norm.
You just arrived? We were in Beijing in December.
These events took place over twenty years ago, when I first arrived in China fresh from graduating. It's taken me all this time to start writing about it, fueled in part by nostalgia and finding some old notebooks I kept at the time. Perhaps I was scarred by university essays and deadlines but for the longest time I had no appetite to write, about this year or anything. Now I've started, I'm finding long-hidden memories of moments from my travels reappearing vividly, so this is therapeutic for me. Anyone else reading them is a bonus! 😁
😂 Feels like a key element of the story. I was suspicious. You paid for someone with “a single coin.” China is basically cashless today. 🙏. I moved here in 1997.
2004 for me. I often watch YouTube videos of travellers in China and it's crazy how quickly it has changed. Everything was cash only back then, of course, but I supposed bank cards never really caught on so it was natural that WeChat etc. quickly became the norm.
Yes, leapfrogged the card thing, the banking system was never intended to develop that.