Mobile payment going global

In addition to sightseeing, shopping is a popular activity for many Chinese tourists when they go abroad. Their huge buying power has made them become known as “walking wallets”. However, thanks to mobile payment services such as We-Chat Pay and Ali-pay, perhaps “walking e-wallets” would be a better nickname .

According to Xinhua News Agency, We-Chat Pay’s overseas service is available for Chinese tourists in 12 countries and regions, including Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Canada. Thailand’s Songkran Festival (宋干节) in every April is the most popular time for Chinese tourists to visit the country. During this year’s festival, many Chinese visitors used We-Chat Pay in convenience stores, duty-free shops and restaurants. And the service is not only available in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. Many places in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and Phuket in southern Thailand also accept We-Chat Pay.

“I don’t need to take my wallet out. I don’t need to wait for change. There is some discount and no commission (销售佣金). This payment method has so many advantages,” a Beijing woman surnamed Liu told Xinhua while shopping in Thailand.

Ali-pay is also popular with Chinese tourists overseas. With about 450 million users, Ali-pay is accepted by more than 80,000 companies worldwide, according to China Daily.

Although mobile payments can bring convenience, they are not without safety risks. In January, Ali-pay allowed people to log into users’ accounts and make payments without entering a password. Later, the company raised the application’s safety level and fixed the flaw.

Luckily, more and more efforts have been made to address safety concerns. For example, Ali-pay has introduced new digital payment methods to users, allowing customers to process payments using a “voice-print”, reported China Daily.

By using the “Culture and Tourism e-Village” programme on WeChat, visitors now can enjoy the sightseeing (观光) of 1,594 villages and 877 towns in East China’s Jiangsu Province on their phones.

The programme has several parts, such as memories of the village, countryside tourism, e-business of cultural tourism (旅游业) and voluntary service.

For visitors, it gives introductions, pictures and travel guidance of many villages. It allows (允许) visitors to check villages by using VR technology, learn about local histories and attractions and book village hotels. For example, Qingdun Village of Hai’an City has used VR technology to present the whole village on the programme. Travelers who are interested in Qingdun can learn about it by simply clicking on the screen.

For farmers, it allows them to advertise their hometown, attend online training and take part in more cultural and tourism activities. “I sell more grapes and strawberries by using the programme,” said Zhang Feng, a villager from Baitu Town, Zhenjiang City. “I have confidence in the quality (质量) of my products (产品), but I had trouble selling them in the past. Our town has been known to more people since it appeared on the programme and our products have drawn more attention. Many villagers have enjoyed a better life with Baitu Town becoming famous”, he said happily.

To attract more users, the programme also holds different kinds of online activities, including short video competitions, cultural products designs and photography competitions. According to the Jiangsu Cultural Center, the programme will work together with more key tourism villages in Jiangsu to develop the province’s countryside tourism.

Can you understand the following sentence?

"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & 3 kds FTF. "

The Scottish teacher who received it in class had no idea what the girt who wrote it meant. The essay was written in a form of English used in cell phone text messages. Text messages（also called SMS）through cell phones became very popular in the late 1990s. At first, mobile phone companies thought that text messaging would be a good way to send messages to customers, but customers quickly began to use the text messaging service to send messages to each other. Teenagers in particular enjoyed using text messaging, and they began to create a new language for messages called "texting".

A text message is limited to 160 characters, including letters, spaces, and numbers, so messages must be kept short. In addition, typing on the small key pad of a cell phone is difficult, so it's common to make words shorter. In texting, a single letter or number can represent a word, like "r" for "are", "u" for "you", and "2" for "two". Several letters can also represent a phrase, like "lol" for "laughing out loud". Another characteristic of texting is the leaving out of letters in a word, like spelling "please" as "pls".

Some parents and teachers worry that texting will make children bad spellers and bad writers. The student who wrote the essay at the top of this page said writing in that way was more comfortable for her.（The essay said, "My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend, and their three kids face to face."）

Not everyone agreed that texting is a bad thing. Some experts say languages always develop, and this is just another way in which English is changing. Other people believe texting will disappear soon. New technology for voice messages may soon make text messages a thing of the past.