The restaurants in the busy shopping districts and touristy areas have the picture signs out front and even may have a physical menu or two on hand. However, the random ones on the street, such as the ones near my hotel, lure you inside with a few provocative photos on the window, but there is nothing but sea of Chinese characters and prices scribed upon the wall inside, too far away for photo translation and hand gestures. The noodle shops in particular seem guilty of this heinous crime, and of course, that is where I most want to eat at. I only have a couple more days here, so I can probably get by sticking to the tourism zones for nourishment.

As for VPNs, I hastily downloaded LetsVPN to both of my phones at LAX, shortly before departing to PVG, and they are working like a charm. Only $3 for a week, on both devices.

That seems like a great deal compared to A** short term plan pricing. Can you describe your experience with it in the VPN thread? A big issue for me is customer service. A** is really good on this front, but only comprises a small component of their high price point.

I got a new (android) phone a few days ago and have been slowly adding apps to it.

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, many of the good Chinese apps are no longer in play store, which means you can either slideload the APKs yourself or use a play store clone like Yingyongbao. Both methods require enabling the "installation from external sources" permission.

The only Chinese apps I've included thus far are:
-WeChat
-Alipay
-Baidu Maps
-Ele.me
-Dianping
-Didi
-China Unicom (to manage my phone plan)
-two bank apps

I'm sitting on the fence about several others that I haven't used much recently, but could come in handy.

It's been consistently very reliable, at least for the past two years (so you don't really need customer service ). OTOH, it's really a proxy, rather than a true VPN, so it may not have the same data encryption and protection that you may desire.

All those ridesharing platforms, including Didi, in China offer multiple choices these days, even though Didi may favor its own service in its algorithm. I find Didi has certain advantages in some situation, so I use multiple such platforms, especially in situations when getting a ride is a little tricky and difficult (which happens more often nowadays in some places).

Personally, I prefer having less choice (i.e. app clutter) in most categories (just need to make sure my choices are best ). Maps are an exception that I've explained above, but there too, having both Baidu and Tencent at the same time is hard to justify.

Question from a newbie: What should be my digital and phone strategy for China?

Background: I currently have a burner phone that I sometimes use for travel. It's an Android and unlocked. It does not use eSIMs. It has local service in Canada. I have used it in Europe and Asia before by getting a local SIM.

My background is that I have no military, government, or intelligence connections or value but I do not know if relatives have had US government connections or were merely low level government employees mopping the floor. I do have enough money (not super rich) that I am willing to spend some money for safety precautions in cities with more crime and would do things to reduce risks in China, such as false arrest or being in their files. The likelihood, in my opinion, is that false arrest is low but not zero. I have heard of the Two Canadian Michaels being arrested in China.

Possible strategies: all use my burner phone
strategy A: just get a local SIM in China, sign up for WeChat.
strategy B: get a local SIM in China, don't use the phone much. Remain isolated from email. Phone is mostly for emergency voice call use.
strategy C: use VPN
strategy D: download maps (does Google Maps chart out China?), do nothing online
strategy E: avoid China

I would like a digital profile in China as small as possible.

A and C. Or, roam with a non mainland SIM so you can forego C. I can actually get by pretty well without C btw (I've yet to find a VPN that works with my phone OS), but it is nice to be able to use Google instead of Bing or baidu.

ETA: I should also point out that VPNs don't protect people from themselves (i.e. avoid taboo topics on social media, including WeChat).

Get alipay and wechat to be able to pay and load other programs through them. You can pay and use a foreign sim card with roaming (no need to get a vpn then).

I read a How To on a Chinese forum that you can get an eSIM from Trip.com that is for Greater China with the provider HKG based at very low cost (does need to dig thru to page 2 of eSIM offers to find it). Key is to install it BEFORE entering China. Once inside China make sure data roaming is on. The eSIM will find the network used inside China. Since it is HKG based you use it just as if you are using roaming if your YS provider, have full access of everything without the need to get over the wall.

Or if you use T Mobile high end plan you have high speed roaming inside China free, with full access of sites just as if you are at home. This might be the easiest approach. I am seriously considering of switching to them just for short term covering the period we travel there.

See here:
​​​​​Best and Fast VPN for China ?

I used these apps on my recent trip:

WeChat (for texting and paying)

AliPay (as a backup to WeChat Pay, which had promo that waived fees over certain amount)

DiDi (ride hailing app, I used the mini program version inside WeChat)

AMap (can search locations using English or pinyin, and it generally knows what you're searching for)

Dianping (kind of like Yelp, used for searching restaurants reviews or even places like spas. AMap often didn't have many reviews of the same places)

Railway 12306 (used to book and see train schedules. Can use ctrip or trip instead but I didn't have to pay extra fees and felt like this app was better for viewing schedules and preview seat selections before you confirmed payment)

Deepseek (had better China knowledge than ChatGPT and didn't hallucinate as much on China-related questions. Used for translations and other general travel questions in China)

ChatGPT (paid version which allows unlimited photo uploads, used as backup to Deepseek. The version of Deepseek I have seems to rely on text in its image handling. So if there is no text in the photo, Deepseek throws an error and generally has no idea what it's looking at. Whereas ChatGPT doesn't have that issue. On ChatGPT you can upload a photo of just food and ask what is it. Be aware that trip.com sells several different esim packages. You need to get the esim package that explicitly advertises that it supports ChatGPT. If you use any other esim you might want to research if it supports all the non-Chinese apps you plan to use, including the international version of Deepseek).

Rednote (I rarely used it in China but used more often when I was planning my trip, to check out videos of hotels and attractions)

You didn't use eleme or any other food delivery apps? Those were game changers for me.

Unfortunately no but I'll try them next time since I heard that the food delivery service is super cheap. We were there for about a week and a half and constantly on the move. Everywhere we visited had plenty of food options too. Except on top of the Great Wall. Although I heard they started doing drone deliveries on some parts!

Do you usually just order to the hotel, or want a drink but don't want to walk and find the store?

Yes. And, you'd be surprised how many places do deliveries late at night (e.g. all convenience stores, some foreign grocery stores, fast food, ramen, pizza, sushi, many varieties of Chinese food). In major cities, it rarely takes more than 30-40 minutes. And, unlike Doordash or Uber Eats, there is usually no delivery fee or tipping (in fact, you often don't see the delivery person at all). This means, for example, that it's possible to get 2 DQ blizzards sent to you for Y20, all in. (In the US, this would cost $20.)