Finding cheap movie tickets online in China

Biking to a movie theater….after dark…in the city….after a snow fall.

I am able to find cheap movie tickets on my phone! This impresses both expats and Chinese. Chinese of course can get tickets online but you need to figure out enough Chinese and also directions and also be linked to a Chinese bank account on your phone. Not necessarily skills most of us as expats have. But right from a month or so after our arrival in China, I wanted to find cheap movie tickets. If you get tickets at the theater, they are about the same as getting them in the US: about $10. But online you can reserve some tickets for about $4. (We have 2, yes 2, tv’s provided with our apartment, but the programming is in Chinese, and not of much use to us, so I really enjoy English movies. Rick comes along, because he wants to be with me, not because he wants to go to a movie.)

Yesterday, we had a new expat friend over at our apartment for the afternoon. He knew how to use the online navigation system for biking. I knew how to find cheap tickets. We wanted to go to “Black Panther”. So we put our skills together to figure out how to bike to one of our favorite cheap theaters. Usually we walk 6 blocks and get on a bus for close to an hour, but we knew it was a lot closer than an hour’s ride. We headed out on our bikes before the movie started. It was 6:30, quite dark, and about 30 degrees out. He led us over hill and under dale (through huge highway intersections, and in dark underpasses.) And arrived in under half an hour. At least the snow earlier in the day had stopped, although things were a bit wet and we drove through puddles. Success! Of course then we ended up having to bike home at 11 at night, which was a bit creepy, but doable. (We so very much enjoyed the movie.)

This seems like such a simple thing, but obviously took a fair amount of work and manipulation to execute. Maybe not worth it for just a movie, but things like this make a difference in settling into a place and culture. Does this relate to the Beatitudes?  I don't know. It does help us to settle into a here and now, helps us share with a friend, admits our limitations, helps us problem solve, etc. What do you think?

(Use Wechat. Go to Me, Wallet, Movie Tickets, Click on pictures until you figure out what movie it is, then work through the process. I ascertain if it is a movie in English by looking at the pictures of the actors and deciding if they are all Chinese or not. I have made a few mistakes and ended up at movies that I was surprised to be at, but oh well.)