Survival cards
When words fail, show the screen
Twelve big-character Chinese scripts for the moments your tools give out: the Alipay payment that won't scan, the DiDi driver calling in Chinese, the pharmacy counter, the hotel front desk. Open the card you need before you walk up to the counter or wave the taxi down, then simply show it — the polite, direct Chinese does the talking, and every script ends the way a real conversation here should: with a thank-you. Each card also prints cleanly on one page, so a few folded copies in your wallet make a fine no-battery backup.
Payments
When the QR code fails and cash has to work.
Alipay Won't Go Through
Your Alipay or WeChat Pay payment fails at a market stall or small shop — the awkward moment every traveler eventually meets.
Open the cardPaying Cash, Getting Change
You're paying with a big note at a market or a small restaurant and want the change conversation to go smoothly.
Open the cardATM Trouble
Your foreign card isn't working in the ATM and you need a human to point you at a machine that will.
Open the cardGetting Around
Taxi stands, DiDi phone calls, metro windows, and strangers on the street.
Your DiDi Driver Is Calling
Your DiDi driver phones and a stream of Chinese follows. Show this screen instead of attempting a sentence.
Open the cardTaxi Destination
You've hailed a taxi on the street and the driver can't read your English address — or pretends he can't.
Open the cardMetro Help
You're stuck at a ticket machine or a tangle of line maps and need a staff member or a kind stranger.
Open the cardAsking Directions
You're lost on foot and picking your moment to approach a passerby.
Open the cardFood & Health
Ordering within your diet and explaining symptoms at a pharmacy counter.
No Pork, Vegetarian, Allergies
Ordering when you don't eat pork, eat vegetarian, or carry a food allergy — the one card that covers the whole table.
Open the cardPharmacy Visit
You need over-the-counter medicine and have to get your symptoms across at the counter.
Open the cardPlease Write It Down
The answer is getting complicated — a bus number, a price, an address. Written characters beat any amount of gesturing.
Open the cardStaying & Emergencies
Front desks, passport registration, and the genuinely-lost rescue.