3 ms·

As an aside, I just got back from China and found Didi, at least as a tourist, to have really improved in the past couple years. Accepts foreign CCs, very good

As an aside, I just got back from China and found Didi, at least as a tourist, to have really improved in the past couple years. Accepts foreign CCs, very good English translation in app, and text based translation to communicate with drivers. And quite inexpensive; Shanghai at least charges similar distance costs as Lyft and one third the time cost.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
How does it work when the didi driver calls you to ask where you are (given the poor state of urban mapping)? This was extremely common in Beijing a couple of years ago, and I only got by because my Chinese was st the taxi level (able to tel them where I am and give simple directions). A foreigner using didi without any Chinese skills would be completely helpless in that context.
- natmaka 8y ago
  Expatriate in Shanghai since 201708, I don't speak Chinese and cannot use Didi for this reason. About half of the ~50 Didi rides I had (always accompanied by Chinese-speaking people) implied such a conversation with the driver, and nearly any of them speaks English. BTW this problem also arises with all apps I tried, as most are not available in English, and among the rest some are poorly translated and all display from time to time a slab of text and set of buttons in Chinese, leaving the ignorant me completely stuck.
- usaar333 8y ago
  It's changed a lot since I used it (and Uber China - https://medium.com/@usaar33/using-uber-in-china-a-case-study-of-missing-product-details-bb0e2afeeb3 https://medium.com/@usaar33/using-uber-in-china-a-case-study...) two years ago. They now have a txt message system that should be relied on: 1. It has translation built in. 2. It has pre-canned responses In practice, with #2, the most common pre-canned response you give is "follow navigation" and my drivers tended to just respond with the pre-canned "ok". Drivers don't call me -- their app even tells them I'm not using a Chinese language app. Never had any trouble.
- bone_frequency 8y ago
  Didi drivers will very, very often call you. I deal with this problem by having a pre-baked message explaining that I don't speak chinese, and where do I want to go. As soon as didi assigns me a driver, I quickly send this message through the messaging feature of the didi app, then I use one of the predefined messages of the app (which appear in english on my end) to determine if my pickup location is correct, or if I want him to follow my GPS bead instead. Should the driver call me anyway, I just send him the aforementioned message through sms a couple times. It is not perfect, but this method allows me to move around easily with didi without speaking chinese. I had no urban mapping problems, but I do test whatever address I want to go in baidu maps first, or any other chinese map app. That way, in case of problems, I can just show him the location or use whatever voice guidance, but I rarely needed this.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

How does it work when the didi driver calls you to ask where you are (given the poor state of urban mapping)? This was extremely common in Beijing a couple of years ago, and I only got by because my Chinese was st the taxi level (able to tel them where I am and give simple directions). A foreigner using didi without any Chinese skills would be completely helpless in that context.

natmaka 8y ago
Expatriate in Shanghai since 201708, I don't speak Chinese and cannot use Didi for this reason. About half of the ~50 Didi rides I had (always accompanied by Chinese-speaking people) implied such a conversation with the driver, and nearly any of them speaks English. BTW this problem also arises with all apps I tried, as most are not available in English, and among the rest some are poorly translated and all display from time to time a slab of text and set of buttons in Chinese, leaving the ignorant me completely stuck.
usaar333 8y ago
It's changed a lot since I used it (and Uber China - https://medium.com/@usaar33/using-uber-in-china-a-case-study-of-missing-product-details-bb0e2afeeb3 https://medium.com/@usaar33/using-uber-in-china-a-case-study...) two years ago. They now have a txt message system that should be relied on: 1. It has translation built in. 2. It has pre-canned responses In practice, with #2, the most common pre-canned response you give is "follow navigation" and my drivers tended to just respond with the pre-canned "ok". Drivers don't call me -- their app even tells them I'm not using a Chinese language app. Never had any trouble.
bone_frequency 8y ago
Didi drivers will very, very often call you. I deal with this problem by having a pre-baked message explaining that I don't speak chinese, and where do I want to go. As soon as didi assigns me a driver, I quickly send this message through the messaging feature of the didi app, then I use one of the predefined messages of the app (which appear in english on my end) to determine if my pickup location is correct, or if I want him to follow my GPS bead instead. Should the driver call me anyway, I just send him the aforementioned message through sms a couple times. It is not perfect, but this method allows me to move around easily with didi without speaking chinese. I had no urban mapping problems, but I do test whatever address I want to go in baidu maps first, or any other chinese map app. That way, in case of problems, I can just show him the location or use whatever voice guidance, but I rarely needed this.