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A few years ago, at a business dinner in Guangzhou that included three Westerners, I watched the Chinese attendees pull out their phones and start typing the minute we sat down while the Westerners discussed the wine selection.
Throughout the meal, none of the Chinese lifted their heads and occasionally stabbed at the food with their chopsticks, all the while tapping away.
Their attention was focused on talking to their mates or reading news on Chinese social media application WeChat. The Caucasian observers were baffled and beside themselves. Here was another puzzle to add to those of language and food.
WeChat is a Chinese oracle and it is absolutely acceptable to bury yourself in it, even when others are present. It has been a constant presence at every Chinese party, meeting and birth of child I have attended since it was launched in 2011.
The service was built by Chinese mega technology company Tencent and has become a social media phenomenon. It started as a messaging application and has morphed into a combination of Facebook and Whatsapp.
Red packet function
My mate Sophia, a Chinese media boss in Sydney, says the Chinese love socialising. The onset of WeChat suddenly solved the problem of getting together with people in a country with a population of nearly 1.4 billion. It made catching up with friends as easy as looking at the palm of your hand.
As well as chatting, you can store money credits in WeChat and, in China, use them to pay for goods and services, although the payment system is set to become global.
You can also send money to your friends using the app's "red packet" function. (Red packets are money envelopes, usually exchanged during Lunar New Year celebrations, at weddings or any other auspicious times of giving.) You can shop for apartments, clothes and cosmetics, and pay for all of it with a few taps. In fact, you can go all day in major Chinese cities without a wallet.
Australia secretly thinks it rules over Asia when it comes to technology, but when I'm in Sydney I have to carry a bulging wallet full of plastic and coins (seriously, that 50¢ needs to go). Which is the "evolved" economy? In China, people walk around all day with just a phone.
Users endorse products and provide reviews of their experiences on the platform and business people exchange important documents on it. I know Chinese entrepreneurs who have built entire empires by advertising only on WeChat.
Western brands are getting in on the act now. Luxury house Cartier is trying to infiltrate the wealthy Chinese middle class using WeChat.
Ray White in Sydney has its own WeChat channel where you can browse houses and apartments, and then buy without ever having to speak to anyone.
ING is preparing to load its banking services on WeChat and even Australia's Chartered Financial Analyst Institute has a WeChat account.
Just join in
With nearly a billion users, WeChat should it get its own postcode and electoral division (Facebook has 2 billion and Whatsapp has just over a 1 billion).
Never try to come between a Chinese person and WeChat, it's a pointless exercise; one friend declined dinner with me, so he could eat alone with WeChat. I know people who refuse to pick up the phone but will happily converse via the app.
If you're confused by its power or offended by the bent heads at dinner, don't be; just join in.
If you can't read Chinese, there's a translation tool. Once you have uploaded the app, exchange details with your Chinese mates by scanning a QR code. Once you are linked up, you can chat one-to-one or create groups. English works just fine. There are chat channels for every conceivable topic.
Sure, there is a bunch of useless information and "fake news" – such as "con men in the city", "cheating housewives" or "how silly is the Australian dual-citizenship domestic feuds" – but overall, there's just a lot more good than bad.
The moments feed (like Facebook's timeline) will deliver pictures of your pals or dinner spreads, advice on where to buy the cheapest milk powder in Australia and every kind of up-to-the-minute life information imaginable. It even offers in-depth economic analyses of Australia's property market.
On WeChat, friends introduce friends, so if you are looking for a reliable business partner – "the proverbial guanxi, aka the invisible Chinese business network" – then having WeChat just made your business networking a whole lot easier.
It's a referral service that never fails and a friend that guarantees you'll never eat alone again.
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