China Digital

Chinese Netizens Discuss Uber New Rider Rules: “Would You Still Take Uber?”

International car service company Uber is currently testing new rules that could make ordering a Uber cab more expensive for riders. On Chinese social media, netizens dispute the new rules. As Uber China (优步) is already suffering huge competition from homegrown giant Didi Kuaidi (滴滴快的), implementing their tryout rules in the PRC might further harm their China expansion

Published

5 years ago

April 29, 2016

Manya Koetse

International car service company Uber is currently testing new rules that could make ordering a Uber cab more expensive for riders. On Chinese social media, netizens dispute the new rules. As Uber China is already suffering huge competition from homegrown giant Didi Kuaidi, implementing their tryout rules in the PRC might further harm Uber’s China expansion.

As Uber (优步) is trying out new rules that will charge riders additional fees for every minute they are making their driver wait, the ‘private driver’ app became a trending topic on Sina Weibo on April 29 under the hashtag: “Would you still take Uber?” (#你还会用Uber打车吗#).

The American ride-hailing app Uber has not been doing too well in China, where it is now losing more than $1 billion a year. Uber China has fierce competition from homegrown Uber-equivalent Didi Kuaidi (滴滴快的), which is now doing a staggering 10 million rides a day in China. In comparison: according to its numbers from fall 2015, Uber is doing 2 million rides a day worldwide.

Both Didi and Uber are mobile platform taxi-calling applications that have made ordering a private cab in China’s cities easy and affordable. Uber entered the Chinese market in 2013. Chinese rivals Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache (嘀嘀打车-快的打车) were both founded in 2012 and then merged in 2015, creating one of the world’s largest smartphone-based transport services.

Uber has tested its new rider rules in New York City, New Jersey, Dallas and Phoenix. According to Wall Street Journal, the recent test could result in a permanent change to the rules.

These are the potential new rules as discussed on Weibo:

• The customer will be charged extra costs if the driver has to wait more than two minutes after arriving at pick-up point;
• The customer will be charged for every minute the driver has to wait after 2 minutes;
• After five minutes of waiting, it will be regarded a ‘no-show’ and the customer will be charged $10;
• If a customer orders am Uber cab and then decides to cancel, they have to do so within 2 minutes after ordering- otherwise they will be charged a cancellation fee (±5-10$).

According to many Weibo netizens, Uber first needs to up its service in China before changing its rules. As one netizen says: “1. Uber has too many drivers who don’t know directions. 2. They make me wait for over ten minutes – even if there’s no traffic jam and they’re in the neighborhood – and when I finally have to cancel my ride, they will still charge me cancellation fees. 3. I’ve also had a driver who told me he couldn’t come but still sent me a bill. I called him and he said he had other people in his car. So I canceled and was still charged for it. 4. I once spent over 100 RMB [±15$] on an Uber, although the ride would’ve only cost me around 70-80 RMB (±11.5$) with a regular cab.”

Netizens also worry that drivers will take advantage of the new rules by purposely waiting for a rider: “So what if a driver arrives and does not give you a call to let you know?”

Some also think it is unfair to charge riders for making their driver wait, as the drivers also often make riders wait: “If they let me wait for 20 minutes, do I get any money?”

The main issue for most Weibo users who are Uber riders seems to be the company’s long waiting times. As one netizen says: “It’s not like I don’t want to ride Uber anymore, but every day it is the same: my ride is just 15 minutes, and they make me wait 12 minutes. You just need more drivers.”

It is not known when and if Uber will implement their new rules in China. If they do, they will certainly not be welcomed by China’s netizens. As one netizen concludes: “These automatic fee deductions are very unreasonable. Just yesterday, the driver said he had arrived at the appointed address but he wasn’t there. I waited for half an hour and still I was the one who was charged with a cancellation fee. How is this reasonable?! Uber has to think more about its passengers. Do you still want to grow in China, or not?”

– By Manya Koetse
Follow @WhatsOnWeibo

Related Topics:china marketing chinese apps

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Manya Koetse

Manya Koetse is the editor-in-chief of www.whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer and consultant (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends in China, with a focus on social media and digital developments, popular culture, and gender issues. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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China Digital

From Red Packet to Virtual Hongbao: Lucky Envelopes in China’s Digital Era

Raising virtual cows, shaking with phones – this is the Chinese New Year tradition of giving red envelopes in the digital era.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 10, 2021

Things That Talk

The custom of giving out red paper envelopes has evolved into a world of virtual lucky money and online games. This is the transformation of a Chinese New Year’s tradition, reported by Koen van der Lijn and Xiaojun Zhang.

When objects meet social media, two websites meet as well. This is a collaboration between What’s on Weibo and Things That Talk (follow on Insta @thingsthattalk).

Ever wanted to raise a digital cow? This year, you can raise your own lucky cow (福牛) for Chinese New Year on Weibo. Through maintaining and raising their virtual cow (or ox), users can participate in this online game to win red envelopes, a well-known and beloved tradition linked to Chinese New Year.

The hashtag “Lucky Cow’s New Year’s Travelogue” (#福牛新春旅行记#) is linked to Weibo’s celebration of Chinese Spring Festival and the Year of the Ox. Users are expected to be active on Weibo daily to raise their cow/ox, similar to the once so popular Tamagotchi. Whilst leveling up their cow, users get the possibility to earn digital red envelopes.

The online game is another development in the story of the red envelopes, known in China as hongbao (红包). Often given during Chinese New Year, the envelopes can also be given at other joyous occasions like weddings. These red envelopes are given to each other by friends and family members to wish each other a happy new year and are always filled with an amount of money.

Red envelopes for sale via Taobao.

The practice of giving money during Chinese New Year goes far back in Chinese history. The earliest form of the red envelope is said to be yasuiqian (压祟钱). In order to keep evil spirits away, called sui (祟), people put money underneath children’s pillow since the evil spirits were said to be warded off by coins.¹ These coins were woven together using a string.

Yasuiqian

As time went by and paper money and envelopes became more widespread, string and coins were replaced and the red envelope was created.

Red envelopes are used by Chinese all over the world nowadays. The amount of money inside depends on many factors. Recently, the tradition has left behind its tangible form and entered the digital era.

“Adding the thrill of gambling to the practice of giving away red envelopes”

In 2014, the popular Chinese messaging app WeChat (微信) launched a new function that allowed users to send virtual red envelopes. Users could send an amount of money directly to another user, or an amount of red envelopes could be sent into a groupchat. When the function launched, users worldwide could shake their phones in order to receive free red envelopes. The amount of money that was given to users surpassed 500 million yuan ($77.5 million).

WeChat’s inventive idea put digital red envelopes on the map in China. During the peak of the event, 800 million shakes were recorded per minute. There were two types of envelopes introduced in 2014 by Tencent, the company that owns WeChat:

1. A regular red envelope that could be sent directly from one user to another.
2. A ‘group’ red envelope, with a limited number to be grabbed and a limited sum of money which can be grabbed by all users in a group if they are fast enough. The sum inside this envelope is randomized, adding the thrill of gambling to the practice of giving away red envelopes.

Other companies also wanted a piece of the digital red envelope cake: Weibo and AliPay combined their strengths a year after WeChat introduced its digital hongbao in order to promote their version of the digital red envelope.

A ‘war’ then broke out between the two companies. AliPay handed out 600 million renminbi ($93 million) worth of red envelopes as a response to WeChat’s 120 million envelopes sent out during the televised celebration of Chinese New Year.²

“Digital red envelopes can cross time and place, but cannot replace the method of face-to-face contact”

In the years after, the digital red envelope became more and more popular. Weibo and Alipay also came with their version of sending red envelopes online. The companies organized large-scale actions to make users make use of their form of digital red envelopes.

WeChat, for instance, gives users the option to make the red envelopes very personal through adding stickers and personal messages, making the digital red envelope an even more enjoyable experience.

Does this new development of the traditional red envelope make the tangible envelope obsolete?

When asked by the digital newspaper The Paper (澎湃新闻) about whether the digital red envelope might replace its tangible brother, scholar Tian Zhaoyuan (田兆元) of East China Normal University said that the digital red envelope can cross time and place, but cannot replace the method of face-to-face contact. Though friends and family may send one another digital red envelopes, it does not mean that it replaces the tangible red envelopes.³

The tradition of sending red envelopes is and will be inherently linked to Chinese New Year. Though both the paper and digital forms of the tradition remain incredibly popular, the virtual hongbao will definitely win territory once more this year as travel is restricted due to COVID-19. Especially in these times, the digital red envelope is the best digital way of wishing family and friends a happy new year.

Why are ‘lucky envelopes’ not just red, but sometimes also green or purple? Read more via Things That Talk here.

By Koen van der Lijn and Xiaojun Zhang
Follow @WhatsOnWeibo

Koen van der Lijn (China Studies, BA) is a ResMa student Asian Studies at Leiden University focused on Chinese history and its international relations. He is a student ambassador at Things That Talk.

Xiaojun Zhang (China Studies, BA) is an MA student Asian Studies at Leiden University focused on contemporary Chinese culture, symbolism and food. For Things That Talk, she currently works on a project about Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands.

This story was made in collaboration with ThingsThatTalk.net – exploring humanities through the life of objects. Things That Talk is an educational digital project where staﬀ and students produce narratives and metadata about objects in Leiden collections and beyond. Check out the story “Hongbao: from paper envelope to digital gift” on Things That Talk here!

Footnotes (other sources hyperlinked within the article)

¹ Kin Wai Michael Siu. 2001. “Red Packet: a Traditional Object in the Modern World.” Journal of Popular Culture 35 (3), 103.
² Chen, Liyan. 2015. “Red Envelope War: How Alibaba and Tencent Fight Over Chinese New Year.” Forbes, Feb 19 https://www.forbes.com/sites/liyanchen/2015/02/19/red-envelope-war-how-alibaba-and-tencent-fight-over-chinese-new-year/?sh=1b88bccccddd.
³ The Paper, Zuowei yi zhong “xinnian su”, weixin hongbao hui qudai zhizhi hongbao ma? 作为一种“新年俗”，微信红包会取代纸质红包吗?, https://cul.qq.com/a/20160208/012888.htm.

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China Digital

Conversations Behind the Wall: Clubhouse App Now Blocked in China

While the Clubhouse app is no longer accessible from within the PRC, conversations continue behind the wall.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 8, 2021

Manya Koetse

The Clubhouse app became a hot topic among web users in mainland China this weekend. On Monday, the platform was no longer accessible from within the PRC.

On Saturday, we posted an article about the surge in popularity of American ‘drop-in audio chat’ social media platform Clubhouse in mainland China.

As conversations about the popular app continued throughout the weekend, the app was no longer accessible from within mainland China on Monday.

Clubhouse describes itself as “a space for casual, drop-in audio conversations—with friends and other interesting people around the world” where you can “go online anytime to chat with the people you follow, or hop in as a listener and hear what others are talking about.”

The app has virtual rooms and events themed around various topics – anything from politics to music – and lets hundreds of members join conversations as moderators, speakers, or listeners.

The Clubhouse app was developed by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Paul Davison and ex-Google employee Rohan Seth. It was first launched in April 2020 on iOS only, and is still only accessible through iPhone for users who have an invite.

Before Monday, the Clubhouse app was freely accessible from within China for those people who had an invite, but only if they had access to the non-Chinese Apple store to download the app.

The app was a hot topic on various Chinese social media platforms this weekend. On Weibo, the civilized and open character of the Clubhouse conversations were praised, allowing a broader understanding of issues that otherwise remain untouched or are limited within the Chinese social media sphere.

One Chinese-language virtual room about the Xinjiang camps was joined by hundreds of people on Saturday. But besides the room focused on Xinjiang, there were also other rooms where discussions took place about the status of Hong Kong and about issues such as whether or not (overseas) Chinese are willing to return to the mainland and why.

“It is like a small crack in a window,” one person on Weibo said about Clubhouse, while others already predicted the app would become unavailable from within mainland China soon.

When it finally happened on Monday, the responses on Weibo were mainly those of disappointment. “Bye bye Clubhouse,” some Weibo users wrote, with others expressing their surprise: “What?! It was just popular for two days and it’s already blocked? They move so fast it’s scary.”

“I was active on Clubhouse for two days. I didn’t expect it to be shut down so soon already.”

Although many commenters previously expressed that they expected the app to become unavailable within the PRC, the fact that it was shutdown while it was just exploding online comes as a surprise to some, as various commenters write.

The term ‘Clubhouse’ was also temporarily blocked on Weibo by Monday night Beijing time; over the weekend various hashtags relating to the app made their rounds on Chinese social media, but the hashtag pages were no longer online by Monday evening.

‘Clubhouse’ no longer shows results on social media platform Weibo. Screenshot by What’s on Weibo.

Meanwhile, various Chinese-language rooms on Clubhouse discussed the topic of its disappearance in China.

A room titled “Clubhouse is blocked, and now?” was joined by over a hundred people on Monday night. The room “Clubhouse is blocked” attracted over 3000 participants. These conversations are likely to continue for the time to come, but now they must continue behind the Great Firewall of China.

By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo