qq vs wechat: which one US folks in China should actually use?
Night shift in Changsha — why this still matters to you Back in 1998 in Shenzhen, Tencent started building the messaging tools that billions of people in China use today. QQ arrived in 1999 as a desktop-first chat client; WeChat (Weixin) showed up in 2011 and quickly became the compact, phone-first Swiss Army knife: chat, payments, taxi bookings, mini-programs — you name it. For Americans living, studying, or spending long stretches in China, that history isn’t trivia. It’s why your landlord wants your WeChat QR code, why your campus group chats live inside an app you didn’t grow up with, and why paying for dumplings with a QR scan feels normal here. ...