Have you or your DP ever been to China on business?

[issano]

DP is off to China for two weeks with work soon and was wondering if anyone else's partner has worked away in China and how you found communicating with them?
I know he won't be able to use social media whilst out there (we normally use WhatsApp to message) but are we able to text using iMessage? Or does is it worth looking into buying a VPN?
He works away a lot but we have never had this issue before so any info would be appreciated!

Not sure why I asked on business because they could have been for any reason really!!

I have worked in China. Normal texts and emails to UK work fine.

WeChat

Get WeChat or Line

DP was there recently and normal texts were fine. WhatsApp mostly worked but not always.

You can get free one month trials of VPNs, or just pay for a 1 month subscription. Its then super easy to use WhatsApp etc. Almost every building/restaurant and hotels etc has a public wifi so you can log on.

It is illegal to use a VPN for business purposes in China, I can't remember the details of the law but it would be worth checking it out to make sure your DP doesn't inadvertently break the law.

My DH has. We seem to manage fine. E mails usually.

I downloaded Wechat last night but it won't let me use it unless I know someone who has had it for 6 months +. That's what DP was told to use by work and what we were relying on but started worrying last night when I couldn't get it! Good to hear we can iMessage though.

Normal texts and emails are fine. The Chinese I met all seemed to use WeChat for messaging.

No Facebook, google, etc is really odd though.

I’ve worked there and downloaded a free VPN. There are lots available and so I switched between them.

Also Wechat - it’s the equivalent of everything out there and can also be used for payment in shops/restaurants etc. Cash in Shanghai is not readily used!

He wouldn't be using the VPN for business just for messaging me/using social media as he doesn't use a phone/computer for work (hard to say anymore without outing his job!)

Try Nord VPN. I used it in a country that censors and worked brilliantly

I only used the vpn for out of work :)

Thanks for all the advice, i didn't realise you could get free trials of VPNs so looks like that will be the way forward

WhatsApp usually works fine, he gets bored with no Netflix, facebook and the like but I reckon staying in a fancy hotel with no kids to herd is a fair deal 😌

He has full on days whilst away (6am-midnight most days) and it's manual work so never really has time to use social media anyway and I only get a text here and there so it's not too much of an issue but a VPN sounds great.

We used normal texts and iMessages, also called Each other - West China late night is early morning here, which worked well for us, but obviously that varies a lot across China (standard time but about 5 hours difference in practice). We never had any problems whatsoever. Think I used WhatsApp to send messages and loads of photos when I went along and had no issues, but DH doesn’t use that can barely cope with texts .