A Day in the Life of a Millennial in China
- Shi Li Li
- Apr 15, 2018
- 5 min read
It's interesting to see how people go about their days just carrying a phone with all the apps that they need. I sought out to interview a few folks that I know in Beijing to see what their typical day looks like and what apps they use to do the many jobs that we have throughout the day. Below is an account of one Beijing-er.
A bit about Helen:
Helen was born and raised in northeast China.
Speaks both Mandarin and English fluently because she received her Masters at a top university in the US for Digital Media.
Currently lives in Beijing and works in the education space and is involved in cross-cultural activities between the US and China.
Behavior/habits:
She seeks a balance between buying things that are priced competitively and are of good quality.
She uses a few apps for entertainment and social media but mostly uses apps that make her life easier.
Having worked in the US (NYC), she wants to be on top of digital trends in both markets.
7:30am: Wake up
Wechat, Weibo
Before actually getting out of bed, take a look at Wechat and Weibo to see if there are any interesting updates or messages to respond to.
8:30am: Head off to work
Beijing's subway app, Mobike, Twitter, Instagram
Typically if the subway station is far from home, she'll use a Mobike or Ofo (bike sharing systems). While these apps detect what bikes are nearby, it is more convenient for her to just see if there are any bikes nearby rather than to use the GPS. There is a preference for Mobike over Ofo. Although there are more Ofos than Mobikes, Ofo's bikes are more beat up and are more likely to be defective or malfunction during the ride.
Once she gets to the subway station, she'll scan the Beijing metro app to pay for the ride.
"Everything is mobile, completely cashless. If I have to get somewhere far and I can't Mobike it, then I'll take the tuk tuk. The tuk tuk even has a QR code for me to scan and pay for my ride. The subway has an app that I can use Apple pay to refill it with." - Helen
During this time, she might also take a quick look at Twitter and Instagram to see what is going on in the world outside of the Great Firewall.
9:30am: Communication at work
Wechat, Slack
While at work, she won't really look at her phone. At her company, they mainly use Wechat and Slack to communicate, both of which have web clients.
While in the US, most of us are using our phones to chat with people through SMS or Whatsapp, people in China can communicate with their friends and coworkers through desktop clients.
12:30pm: Lunch
Using Ele.me or Meituan is the easiest way to have quick, quality and cheap meals without going anywhere. Helen will open both apps to see which offer the best coupon deals. As soon as you open the apps, there will be a pop up like what you see below. You can click on the red CTA buttons to collect coupons that will give you 2, 3 or 15 RMB off your next meal at specific restaurants:
To purchase from the app, most of the time she uses Alipay, which is linked. After purchasing your food, the app will redirect you a confirmation page and you'll get another pop up encouraging you to send a coupon deal in the form of a "red packet" to your friends via Wechat. She will usually send these coupons to a Wechat group with her coworkers that they created so that they can help each other save money on food and drinks. An interesting catch is that only the 7th person to open the "red packet" can take the coupon, so there's a bit of luck in the mix.
Other than meals, she'll purchase milk tea, yogurt and fresh fruit from these food delivery apps.
4:00pm: Break
Taking a break from work, she'll do a bit of shopping online and check out some social media/entertainment apps to rejuvenate. She'll take 15 mins or so to look at Twitter, Instagram, and Weibo. When there's no more interesting feeds, she'll see if there's anything she needs to buy.
If she needs same day day delivery for important household items, like cat food, toothpaste, tissues, she'll choose Jindong. Jindong even has a credit system that will waive your interest for large purchase items. For e.g for electronics, she can spread out her payments without interest. Taobao is mostly for clothes, but she also bought her iPhone X and case on the platform.
Aside from social media and shopping, she'll also use Bilibili, a user-generated video streaming platform, where she watches previously downloaded TV shows or live performances from her favorite bands. Bilibili is mostly known for streaming anime, but because it is user generated and has a great variety of videos, many people use it like Youtube. Sometimes using VPN is too slow for YouTube. You can watch videos to learn how to do things, such as fitness and makeup how-tos. Before Bilibili started regulating copyrighted content, people used to use it to watch foreign movies with subtitle translations.
7:00pm: Head off home
Bandcamp, Xiami, NetEase Music (网易云音乐), QQ Music
She'll just walk to the subway station since it's close to where she works. From there, she might try to spot a Mobike or Ofo nearby to bike home.
This is usually a time when she tries to find new music to listen to during her commute to work or during workouts. She has 3 music streaming apps on her phone: Xiami, NetEase, and QQ music. These are the top 3 music streaming services in China. Each app has different licensing deals so if she can't find a song to download for free in Xiami, she will use the other two apps to see if it's there.
In addition to song selection, there are more differences to how she uses these apps. First she'll discover the songs she likes on Bandcamp weekly. Because she's unable to save songs on Bandcamp to listen to, when she finds a song she likes, she'll first use Xiami to download it. Xiami is free and easy to use, so it's her preferred option. She has around 3-4,000 songs saved here. It allows her to search related artists and recommends similar songs and artists. This is a big differentiator, and keeps her coming back to use the app. If she can't find the song on Xiami, she'll use QQ music and NetEase Music. She'll use QQ and NetEase music for her workouts and because her workout music changes frequently, she doesn't download them.
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