The First Time I Tried Paying Like a Local in China
I Thought My Credit Card Would Work—Then the Cashier Laughed
I walked into a Luckin Coffee in Guangzhou, confident and caffeine-deprived. I’d read somewhere that China was becoming more foreigner-friendly. So I figured: tap, pay, done. I handed over my Visa card, and the cashier didn’t even try to scan it. She just smiled—almost kindly—and said, “No.” That was it. No dramatic rejection, no apology. Just a flat-out no. She pointed to a laminated sign by the register, and sure enough, the only logos were WeChat Pay and Alipay.
