Which app do I need to download in China

For many international students studying in China presents a greater challenge. You have to live in a completely unknown country. However, due to the progress of smart phones, it is no longer challenging to study and live in China. There are many kinds of applications in China that aim to make your study and life in China very easy. Here are ten must-have apps for living and studying in China. We will help you start selecting the apps you need to make your daily life in China easier. 

1. WeChat (HOT)

WeChat is the most popular communication tool in China. If you want to communicate with friends in China, WeChat is your indispensable application. With this application, you can send video and text messages and make better free calls through the call function. It's easy to add contacts to social applications. Likewise, the bulk addition feature of this application makes it easy for several large groups of people to add each other to their respective contact lists for conversations. 

WeChat supports payment. When alipay is not supported in some stores(I will introduce this APP below), you can use WeChat payment. This function is convenient and secure. 

WeChat also has real-time location analysis, which allows you to send your real-time location to friends and family. The app is especially useful for international students passing through crowded places in any city and any country because they can easily find their friends when they get lost. 

2. Dianping

Dianping helps foreign students find restaurants with Chinese characteristics, enabling them to find the places where Chinese people eat most often in the first place. It is very suitable for finding out which restaurants nearby have good comments from other customers. The app comes from dianping. com, China's leading restaurant review website. 

Almost all the information on the App comes from the public. Everyone can freely comment on the merchants. While not all comments are provided in English, the basic message is that the Chinese address can be a handy way to ask people how to get there. 

Not only that, the public comments on the app via Internet, combined with geographical location and the users personalized consumer demand, provide users' with business information, consumer preferences and consumption evaluation of catering, shopping, leisure and life service areas. Dianping has become the Chinese necessary tool. As international students, you should download this application. 

3. DiDi

DiDi is an APP help you get a taxi and travel almost anywhere. DiDi provides various efficient and reliable mobility services to about hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Whenever needed, DiDi can get you a ride in minutes, saving you from the hassle of finding parking or long wait.  

DiDi is a taxi-hailing app for international students who can easily get lost in China, and they have a hard time finding their destination. Didi helps them get to their destination quickly and safely by taxi. 

4. Amap

Amap is a useful navigation tool in China. Foreign students may not know where the school is when they first come to China. The navigation function of Amap can help you reach your destination quickly and accurately. 

Amap has the function of panorama. The advantage of panorama is that it allows users to get more detailed information about specific geographic locations, especially the realistic 3d physical effects that make you feel as if you are in the real world. 

Amaps also have walking directions, if you can't read the map. It shows the route accurately on your phone, helping you get to your destination correctly. 

5. Ofo

Ofo is China's leading sharing bike, you can see Ofo bikes on almost every street, so you should download Ofo to help you travel better. 

Customers use the company's mobile app on their smartphones to locate nearby bicycles. Each bike has a QR code on the frame, which the customer scans to unlock the bike. ofo bike unlocking is also available on other collaborative apps such as WeChat and Alipay in Mainland China. Each yellow bicycle has GPS satellite positioning which allows users to see which bikes are available nearby. Users pay within the app, with their credit cards. After customers are finished, they can leave the bike anywhere and lock it.  

6. Alipay (Hot)

Alipay is a third-party mobile and online payment platform which Chinese use in their daily life. Alipay is almost the same as a credit card, but it has more functions and is more convenient. It is impossible for international students to live in China without alipay. Without alipay, your life will be very inconvenient. 

Alipay claims it operates with more than 65 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to provide payment services for Taobao and Tmall as well as more than 460, 000 online and local Chinese businesses. 

Alipay is used in smartphones with their Alipay Wallet app. QR code payment codes are used for local in-store payments. The Alipay app also provides features such as credit card bills payment, bank account management, P2P transfer, prepay mobile phone top-up, bus, and train ticket purchase, food order, ride-hailing, insurance selection, digital identification document storage. Alipay also allows online check-out on most Chinese-based websites such as Taobao and Tmall. 

7. Weibo

Weibo is one of the most popular social media platforms in China. You may don't know what is hot now until you use Weibo. International students can get news through Weibo and talk with your Chinese friends. Users can send messages and multimedia messaging service through the website and the App, and they also can upload pictures and videos to the public for instant sharing. Users can directly add comments, pictures, and videos under in the comment section. 

Although often described as a Chinese version of Twitter, Sina Weibo is more like a combination of Twitter, Facebook, and Medium, etc. The users of Weibo interact much more with each other than the users of Twitter do. Many topics that go viral on Weibo also started from the platform itself, while Twitter topics often come from the news or events that take place outside Twitter. 

8. Eleme

Eleme is a platform for ordering food in China. By 2018, it is the largest website for ordering food in China. International students may have heard that ordering take-out food is common in China, and it is true. 

If you use eleme, you can order food easily and at a reasonable price. It usually takes no more than 20 minutes to order a meal at a time, and the delivery fee is low. With more oversight and better food quality, it's hard to find substandard food. 

9. Taobao (HOT)

Taobao is a Chinese online shopping application. Taobao provides a platform for international students to easily buy necessities and other goods where you can buy almost anything you want. Besides, Taobao's goods are cheap and of good quality. 

The Economist calls it "the country's biggest online marketplace". Sellers are able to post goods for sale either through a fixed price or auction. Auctions make up a small percentage of transactions. The majority of the products are new merchandise sold at fixed prices. Buyers can assess seller backgrounds by information available on the site, including ratings, comments, and complaints. 

10. VPN

Studying in China is a new experience for international students, but it is impossible to share your experience with your family and friends through social media. Social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram are not available in China. 

Therefore, VPN applications are essential if you need to use some social media. The app is designed specifically to prevent third parties from restricting or monitoring your access to the web. VPN is one of the best applications in China. It can also be easily downloaded to almost any type of smartphone. However, it is good to download it on your phone before studying in China, because you may have problems downloading it and setting it up in China. 

11. Ctrip

Ctrip is a very popular travel application in China. It can help international students book domestic and overseas hotels, domestic and international air tickets, as well as train and high-speed train tickets in advance, making it easier for you to travel in China. 

Traveling by train is by far the best way to explore China while living in China. Besides, it's much cheaper than flying from one destination to another. With this app, you can easily book and plan your train trips around the country. The application offers ticket booking and train schedules for travelers across the country. The app is one of the best in China, given that the largest part of the country's population uses trains. 

12. Baidu translate

Baidu translate is one of the most popular translation apps in China. It has powerful functions. Besides text translation, it combines the diverse translation needs of users and also has the functions of network interpretation, massive examples, authoritative dictionary,  offline translation, voice translation, dialogue translation, practical oral Chinese and photo translation. Baidu translate can not only help foreign students solve problems in the daily shopping, dining and learning, but also help them learn Chinese. 

The powerful function of Baidu translate is the combination of voice translation and AI. It can combine big data to translate words intelligently, without the common shortcomings of previous translation software. Baidu translate is an indispensable application for overseas students to live, travel and study.