That sucks.

The gist of it was OP visited China, where he had been at least once before covid, and noticed changes like everything from taxis to restaurants requiring WeChat, weixin pay, a proprietary QR code format, passport verification, 2FA over WhatsApp (which requires a proxy to even use there), etc.

All OP wanted was some KFC to try their seaweed chicken and their shrimp burgers, but eventually he rage quit and went back to his hotel because it was taking so long to jump through all the hoops and it was eating up his data plan.