Because my wife’s birthday is coming up, I’m going to send her eight Chinese yuan (just over one American dollar
send red packet
I’m then forwarded to WeChat Pay (I’ll go into more detail about this later), the money is taken out of my digital wallet, and the red packet containing the gifted amount of money will appear in our conversation thread.
successfully sent red packet
If you didn’t already know, the red packet is an important philippine cellphone number cultural symbol in Chinese tradition. During Chinese holidays, people will give each other physical red envelopes containing gifts of money.
traditional Chinese red packet
Moments
When I enter the “Discover” area, we can find WeChat Moments at the top of the list.
WeChat Moments
This is an Instagram-like feed where I can see what’s happening in the lives of my friends.
The content is usually related to people’s personal lives, but you’ll also see updates about their business and work, and posts about discounts or sales they’ve discovered.
WeChat Moments content
People can add comments on any of these posts (as long as they are friends with that person).
However, these interactions on Moments are different from what you’ll get on platforms like Twitter, Weibo, and Facebook, where conversations are more public and could go viral.
Comments made on Moments are usually between friends and are much more private in nature.
Scan Me or Scan You?
If I meet somebody new in China and we want to stay connected, then I’ll just open my own QR code under the “Me” section.
WeChat “Me” sectionpersonal QR code
From here, they can scan my QR code, or I can scan theirs, and then we’ll have each other’s contact details.
In business settings in the West, you might be used to getting a business card, email address/phone number, or adding somebody on LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn changed its product in China and now focuses on hiring only, so Chinese users can’t interact with each other on the platform.
People may use business cards, but it’s much more common for somebody to ask for your WeChat.
China loves QR codes, and you’ll see them everywhere you go. I’ll go into more detail later about how to pay using QR codes.
Articles
Here’s a screenshot of my chats.
a screenshot of WeChat chats
Now, you might notice not all of my chats are from people. Besides the usual messages from family, friends, colleagues, or clients, I also have messages from brand accounts I follow.
In WeChat, there are two types of brand accounts: Subscription and Service.
WeChat Subscription account and Service account
Service Account