Good news for foreigners living in China with limited Chinese abilities; the China Railway ticket APP now recognises a smart phone’s language setting and redirects to the English version accordingly. But, and it’s a big but…
The update to the 12306 China Railway app was rolled out at midnight today, 12 December. With it, foreigners can buy tickets, obtain refunds and change their destination, and all in English.
In addition, a helpful FAQ section informs us that, using the new system, we may also purchase tickets for friends, just as is possible with the Chinese version, but only after verification of their ID. The purchase of tickets for accompanied minors is also possible.
While both the 12306 website and APP are operating the new English version, at present, only foreign passport holders are able to use the system.
Registration is a simple and familiar procedure; name, date of birth, passport information etc.
And email, which is where the problems begin.
The account registration email never arrived. Neither did it go to our junk email. Neither did toggling our VPN make a difference. Or restarting our phone. Or waiting all day.
Perhaps our network was experiencing difficulties. Perhaps we inadvertently snuck a capital letter into our email address. Or perhaps the registration email went to that mysterious, possibly fictional, junk within junk email box; the one that no one can ever access.
But then, email has always been a problematic issue in China, to the extent that we wonder why they couldn’t have just used our mobile number instead.
To what will now be our endless frustration, attempts to reregister are met with the greeting that the ID is in use. Oh well, let’s just wait until our new passport…
So while a lot of work has undoubtedly been done to make the update a reality (and with our profuse thanks), clearly IT still has some work to do.
