I watched 2-3 years before Covid19 some doco where they'd said, to my astonishment, that in China, even in the best known hotels you could no longer pay for your stay in USD or even by major credit cards (AmeircanExpress quoted as one). Those hotels were only accepting payments by using some app on your smart phone. Unreal !!
Moreover, that was apparently the case when paying for your groceries in fruit & veg markets - only by using your phone. It is the same / almost the same in other countries in Asia like Thailand & Cambodia (been there a few times).
Yeah, I know. The reality is so different in those countries to what we are led to believe by TV and other media.
You can see that when watching vlogs on youtube of American students who go to study abroad in Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia and so on.
They are blown away by what they actually see compared to what they'd been told all their lives in the States. I watched an American guy of African descent, 5-6 years ago, who studied medicine in some Polish city, it wasn't even the biggest. Anyway, he was entering the gym through an air-lock door without using any membership card - his eyes were being scanned instead. And he could not believe it.
