Over the past year, I’ve had numerous missed calls from colleagues – they said my phone would just ring through – and more recently a kuaidi guy who said he couldn’t get an answer, despite my phone being on. Colleagues said China Mobile has a better signal where I work, but I didn’t want to go through the hassle of applying for another mobile number. After some research, however, I found that it is possible to switch carriers, and did so over National Day recently.

Whether you’ve been a Beijinger for 10-plus years or less than a year, chances are that you can switch carriers. In fact, number portability and moving service providers is relatively new, with the Regulation on the Administration of Number Portability Service published in November 2019 and implemented in December 2019.

FAQ: Can I switch from another province/city?
Mobile service is managed by province and city. If you have a number from Beijing, you can switch carriers by going to a service hall in Beijing. If your number is in Shanghai, then you’ll have to go to Shanghai to switch.

Why do it?

• Poor 5G/4G signal
• Families wanting to be on the same telecommunications service provider
• If you want to take advantage of a new, sweet deal on an internet/mobile package

How do you get it done?

Step 1: Check eligibility

You’ll need to send a text message to your current mobile carrier and see if you meet the requirements for porting your number. In general, this means that you have been with the carrier for at least 120 days, have no unpaid balance, and the number must be registered in your name and with your passport.

Important note: If you have not updated your current number with a new passport number, first go to your carrier’s official service hall to update your details.

• China Mobile: CXXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10086
• China Unicom: CXXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10010
• China Telecom: CXXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10001

Important note: Your name should be in all CAPS or look for a previous mobile phone bill to see the format. No spaces after the # symbol. Sample: CXXZ#JOHNSON MARK ALLEN#519388999 \

You should receive a text message similar to the one above, saying in Chinese that your phone number “满足携转条件,” meaning you can port the number to another carrier.

Step 2: Go to the service hall

Important note: If you’ve got a ton of money on your current mobile phone number, you may want to wait until you’re closer to zero because your funds will not transfer when you port your number.

Small resellers will not be able to offer this service. You must go to an official service hall, and there are many throughout Beijing. Want to take your number to China Mobile? Go to an official China Mobile service hall. The cost to port your number to another carrier is free.

What to bring:

• Passport
• Mobile phone with SIM card
• Idea about new mobile plan
• About RMB 100 in WeChat/Alipay/cash

The employee behind the glass will ask for your passport and ask you which mobile service plan you’d like. If you’re not sure, they’ll provide you with a flyer and help you choose one.

Step 3: Request authorization code

Just like any fine James Bond flick, the message will self-destruct in 60 minutes. While in another carrier’s service hall, send a text message to your current mobile carrier to get authorization from your current carrier to port to the new one.

• China Mobile: SQXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10086
• China Unicom: SQXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10010
• China Telecom: SQXZ#SURNAME FIRST MIDDLE#PASSPORT NUMBER to 10001

Important note: Just like before, your name should be in all CAPS or look for a previous mobile phone bill to see the format. No spaces after the # symbol. Sample: SQXZ#JOHNSON MARK ALLEN#519388999

You’ll receive a text message with a six-digit authorization code. Show this text to the staff member who’s helping you behind the counter in the service hall. Breathe a sigh of relief as the most arduous part of the process is now behind you.

The customer service rep will ask you to digitally sign off on your new mobile service agreement, take three pictures with your face mask removed, and might ask you if you have a backup mobile phone number. It’s perfectly okay if you don’t, but after you pay about RMB 100 for your first month’s bill, they’ll tell you to come back in 30 minutes, after your SIM card is deactivated. If you’re leaving the service hall, you may need to shoot a nice smile to the security guard on your way in, since your jiankangbao – aka health kit – won’t work after about 30 minutes, and you’ll need to come back in. After your old card is deactivated, you’ll return to see the employee who has helped you and will receive a new SIM card and new mobile service!

KEEP READING: New Law Bans Cell Phones in Local Schools

Images: Joshua Hiller

“Put your phones away!” “No phones at the dinner table!” You constantly hear parents tell their kids to put their phones away and to focus on enjoying the moment, but is it really that easy to do? Even for us adults the idea of being away from the digital world for just a few hours is sometimes a tough task.

Caravan has been a Moroccan comfort food favorite amongst Beijingers for years. Owner Badr Benjelloun introduced a new concept to his restaurant: Anti-Social Mondays, where if you don’t check your phone for the entire duration of the meal, you get 50-percent off your bill.

You’ve been doing the Anti-Social Mondays at Caravan for a while now. What made you want to start it?

Actually, we started the “Anti-Social Mondays” which were previously called “Social Sundays” back at CuJu over three years ago, in the summer of 2016.

The story is simple: I was busy and stressing out from planning my three weddings in three continents over one month and one day, as I was on my laptop looking at logistics and bookings, I noticed a couple sitting outside on the terrace. They had ordered a set meal for two and a beautiful bottle of wine. Every time I looked at them, I noticed that they were just looking at their phones and not touching the food or drinks. This went on for about 30 minutes. I watched as their food got cold and their white wine got warm. I felt that as the restaurant owner, it was my duty to go over and maybe try to defuse whatever situation was happening: tell them a joke or whatever.

When I walked over to say hi they both looked at me like I had just interrupted the best conversation they ever had and were overall pretty rude to me.

This made me rethink what the role of a social space is and that’s how Social Sundays (as we called it back then) started.

We had a few issues with people trying to take advantage of it over the year and took it away until I sorted out a better implementation and brought it back as “Anti-Social Monday”.

What has the feedback been like from your guests?

People are hesitant at first and worried that there’s a catch. There isn’t! Once they realize that, it’s a very positive experience. We have regulars that come by every Monday just for that and a lot of couples also struggle with one or both of the partners unable to just commit to a meal without interruption so they end up here with a forced “phone time-out”. But, at the other end of the spectrum, we’ve also caught people checking their WeChat under the table or even in the bathroom on a second phone. It’s so interesting seeing how dependent some people are on technology.

Why do you think that it’s important for families to spend time together without phones?

I think it’s important for people to remember the human contact, families, and friends. The art of conversation is being lost with too much screen time and I am as guilty as everyone else. For families with or without children, I do believe there should be a time where no screens are allowed, like in the old days. Take a walk in the park, cook, play social games, anything. Just build a bond that’s outside of the digital world.

What’s something that you’ve personally discovered from these Anti-Social Mondays?

People have a love/hate relationship with their devices in general, even when they’re not aware of it. The slightly older generation deals with it better because they grew up without smartphones but the younger ones look like they’re almost having withdrawal symptoms the first time they’re without their devices.

What are your thoughts on children’s use of technology?

There’s nothing wrong with that, especially in the modern day and age. Everything revolves around technology, but maybe every now and then, instead of limiting screen time, we need to look at the other side and increasing non-screen time. Get the children involved in activities that do not involve screens: sports, cooking, games, whatever.

Most parents keep their toddlers entertained at restaurants by giving them an iPad to play with. What’s your alternative recommendation for them?

That’s a hard one! I actually think that’s not a bad use for the iPad if it involves educational apps as opposed to just mindless cartoons. The good old approach of paper and color pens is still good and I have a few friends with children that still do just that. Ultimately, I don’t have children yet, so it’s a little harder for me to talk about it from a real-life perspective. I just know how I would approach it.

Caravan 驼队餐吧
Moroccan Food, Live Music, Craft Beer
44 Guanghua Lu, Across from Embassy of Brazil.
光华路44号，巴西大使馆对面
eat@caravanbeijing.com

Photos: unsplash, Badr Benjelloun, giphy

Hailing from a family of expats, I know how hard it can be to keep in touch with people scattered around the globe. My grandparents moved to Dubai in the 70s and my parents moved my brother and me to Paraguay in the 80s. My other grandmother has lived in India and my stepmother wandered around South America. They had no internet; so no Skype, Facebook, WeChat, Watsapp, and no Google maps. No other means to communicate then post and telephone.

In this time and age I almost feel overwhelmed with ways we can stay in contact with our friends and family. One person does email, the other person does Watsapp and all our new friends in our new life in Beijing do WeChat.

I wondered how expats stayed in touch with friends and family so many years ago. My father explained that he used to write letters from Paraguay to The Netherlands and it took around six weeks to get a letter back. By that time he got a reply the things he wrote about before were not relevant anymore.

Around 20 years ago it took two weeks for a letter to arrive in Europe from China, not a far cry from the ten days it takes these days. Telephoning from China required buying a card from the corner store and scratching of a code that needed to be entered in the home phone together with some other codes to get connected to Europe.

If my father would call my grandparents in Dubai from The Netherlands in the 70’s, they would answer the phone not with “Hello” but with “What’s wrong?” My grandmother has still saved all the letters she received in Dubai written on very thin paper, to keep the postal cost down.

My father explained to me that when our family lived in Paraguay, the man at the newspaper and magazine stand would stop my father’s car to sell him “new” magazines. These were magazines that were left in the airplane and ironed, so they looked new. Expats in Paraguay used to call each other when corn flakes would be in the supermarket.

My mother has hours and hours of video tapes of our lives in Paraguay. We watched them over the summer before we moved our family to Beijing. We can argue that they were boring, but these tapes are the closest thing we have to our fast and savvy internet that we use nowadays.

Pauline van Hasselt has just started working for Beijing Kids. Born in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, she moved with her husband and her 3 year-old daughter to Beijing in June of this year. Prior she lived in the Netherlands, Belgium, Paraguay, Texas, and London, studying and working as a chef. Pauline enjoys biking around Beijing, finding markets and new restaurants, reading crime and fantasy books in bed, and most importantly, turning her house into a home for her family.

Mobile phones are infinitely important to us civilized people trying to survive in this cruel metropolis. Nowadays our phone is an extension of our body, using it to be social; using it to pay for things instead of carrying our wallets; calling a taxi; and buying stuff from JD, the list goes on. Hopefully this never happens to you, but just in case, you may want to save this blog in case you do the one thing that’s more mafan than everything else combined (slight exaggeration for entertainment purposes): losing your phone.

So, what should you do? Your phone, after all, has all your pictures, and your WeChat wallet is linked to your bank account. Well, first, check that it isn’t just in your hand.

Not there? Let’s take a deep breath and continue.

1. Call yourself
Yep, this classic trick. Find another phone to call yourself immediately. Nothing? Ok, moving on.

2. Tell your family and friends
Tell your family and notify them that you have lost your phone. Post a message on social media. Your network will know that it’s not you if someone asks to borrow money.

3. Report your SIM lost to your provider
Call your phone carrier, and report the loss of your SIM card. They will require a password, but your passport details and name will also work in order to freeze your sim. You could also pay a visit to their nearest branch.
FYI:
China Mobile: 10086;
China Union: 10010;
China Telecom: 10000.

4. Freeze your bank account
If your WeChat wallet is linked to your bank account, don’t forget to call the bank to freeze your account.

Here are several useful bank hotlines:
– Bank of China: 95566;
– Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC): 95588;
– China Merchants Bank (CMBC): 95555;
– The Agricultural Bank of China: 95599;
– Bank of Communications: 95559;
– China Construction Bank (CCB): 95533;
– China Citic Bank: 95558;
– China Everbright Bank (CEB): 95595;
– China Minsheng Banking Corp (CMBC): 95568;
– China Guangfa Bank: 95508;
– Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB): 95528;
– Huaxia Bank: 95577.

5. Report the loss to Alipay
If you have linked your card with Alipay, which allows completion of small transactions without a password, then you’ve got to cancel quickly. Call Alipay’s hotline (95188) and unlink your telephone number from Alipay. Or log in from a computer and freeze your account.

6. Freeze your WeChat Wallet
Sure, you linked your bank account with WeChat wallet to make your life easier, but now you’ve got to put a stop to it. Log in here, and freeze your WeChat via the following steps:

Click the green button to freeze your WeChat

Continue to freeze it, it will ask you to fill some blanks up

7. Change passwords for all of your social media
Most of the apps on your phone don’t require passwords, so sit down and be patient, even it takes some time to change all the passwords for your social media and online shopping apps. It’s worth it, because you don’t want to risk someone posing as you online. Here’s how to reset your passwords:

8. Get your contacts back
If you don’t have a backup on iTunes, the screenshot above shows how WeChat can help you get most of your contacts back, depending on when the last backup was made. To enable, follow this: WeChat -> Me -> Settings -> General -> Features -> Contacts Sync -> Enable.

9. Report to the police
If you happen to have an iPhone and enabled the “Find My iPhone” feature, there’s still a chance to get it back. Report your phone stolen to the police, and if you are lucky, they may even get it back for you if they stumble across it. However, we don’t really put too much hope in this method. The best thing to do is change your passwords, make sure nobody can steal any money, and move on with your life.

More stories by this author here.
Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @flyingfigure
Instagram: @flyingfigure
Photos: Dumpaday, blog.asurion, App Store, utfcu.org,