you used to be alright

unionpay

as someone who gets paid their salary paid into a chinese bank traveling abroad has always required an extra step of preparation, meaning one had to go find money exchangers (usually the uyghurs who sit outside the bank of china) as chinese banks use an atm system called “unionpay” – as opposed to the more familar to global audiences “cirrus” or “plus” interbank networks. not being able to access one’s bank was something that necessitated carrying around large bundles of cash and trying to find money changers who would accept rmb.

for a long time i had believed that to join the global economy, chinese banks needed to follow suit. silly me, all i needed to do was to wait for chinese bank customers to become important enough to matter.

first it started with hong kong – which was logical, as its chinese territory and receives millions of mainland chinese visitors yearly. then i started seeing unionpay in bangkok – which makes sense as thailand is one of the few places chinese citizens can receive visas on arrival.

but over the past year, unionpay has rapidly expanded, and i’ve now seen it in japan, spain and now the united states. here’s to globally being able to access my own cash!