洛杉矶时报 中国人的短信

房地产经纪徐建中（音译，Xu Jianzhong）上线了——但他的方式不是沉迷于电子邮件、扎紧黑莓手机的西方所能理解的。

　　这位来自中国河南农村的20岁男子没有电脑。他每隔几周到当地的网吧查看他的电子邮件。

　　这不是说徐就和外界隔绝联系了。只是与在键盘上敲电子邮件相比，他更喜欢在他的联想手机（这是他拥有的最昂贵的电子产品）上给朋友发短信。

　　对许多中国人来说，电子邮件已经成为新的蜗牛邮件，他们转向手机短信和个人电脑的即时信息。大部分富裕而受过教育的人使用电子邮件，但这里的大部分人十分依赖更简短、更快、更方便对话的电子通讯办法。

　　中国社科院教授郭良（Guo Liang）表示，在这里，电子邮件和电话答录机一样受到轻视。“你无法得到直接的答复；你必须等待。”

　　中国对短信（特别是手机短信）的狂热很大程度上是技术发展的产物。如同其他新兴全球市场，就在二十年前，中国农村缺少电话，电视还是罕有之物。该国的现代化正值移动技术在全世界广泛应用。中国如今是世界最大的移动电话市场。

　　根据政府和艾瑞市场咨询集团（IResearch Consulting Group）的数据，每月，中国4.55亿手机使用者通过短信聊天、哄骗、开玩笑以及打情骂俏330亿次。

　　移动市场营销机构21 Communications公司的首席执行官特切蒂（David Turchetti）表示，通过手机获得新闻或天气预报信息的中国人比通过个人电脑获得这些信息的中国人多。他表示，多数中国人买不起个人电脑，那是一笔大投资，而手机却是几乎不可缺少的。

　　即使在那些可以使用电脑和互联网的人们当中，当他们和朋友、同事或爱人交谈时，电子邮件与即时信息相比也要退居次位。

　　在中国，最受欢迎的即时信息程序是腾讯的QQ，它活泼的表达令它在年轻人当中大受欢迎。这些年轻人在进行短时间交谈时拼命发手机短信。原因之一是成本。一条短信所产生的费用大概是一美分，而语音通话一分钟的费用相对贵些，大约是两到五美分。

　　移动电话已经在中国获得标志性的地位，在中国，技术被视为国家快速现代化的一个重要部分。市场调研公司Jigsaw International的布莱克表示，年轻人往往在手机上花掉整个月的工资，在半年后就在网上亏本卖出，从而买更新的机型。“手机变成年轻人最大的、最昂贵的资产。人们随身带着手机。这是一个徽章：‘我在移动。’”

　　手机通讯还让一些人勇敢地从事社会活动，更容易地动员示威。6月，厦门数千示威者游行抗议兴建化工厂的计划。（作者 Natalie Behring）

Chinese get the message on texting

Natalie Behring / For The Times

China's 455 million cellphone users chat, cajole, joke and flirt via short messages about 33 billion times a month.

Far more than Americans, they prefer faster methods of communicating rather than e-mail.

By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 31, 2007

BEIJING -- Real estate agent Xu Jianzhong is wired -- but in a way that few in the e-mail addicted, BlackBerry-packing West would understand.

The 20-year-old from China's rural Henan province doesn't own a computer. He visits the local Internet cafe to check his e-mail every couple of weeks.

That's not to say Xu is out of touch. He just prefers tapping out text messages to his friends on his Lenovo cellphone -- the most expensive piece of electronics gear he owns -- over typing an e-mail on a computer keyboard.

"When I communicate with my friends, I use short messages," Xu said. "I send messages in mornings and afternoons, asking, 'Do you want to come out to eat?' "

E-mail has become the new snail mail for many Chinese as they turn to the immediacy of text messages on cellphones and instant messages on personal computers. The most affluent and educated use e-mail, but by and large people here rely much more heavily on the shorter, faster and more conversational methods of electronic communication.

E-mail here is treated with the same disdain as the telephone answering machine, said Guo Liang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

"You won't have a direct response; you have to wait," he said.

China's mania for messaging -- particularly mobile messaging -- is largely a product of how technology developed here. Like other emerging global markets, rural regions of China lacked phones or even a television as recently as two decades ago. The country modernized just as mobile technology was broadly accessible throughout the world.

China is now the world's largest mobile phone market.

"When people are stepping up to buy their first phone in their life, why bother with the land line?" said P.T. Black, a partner in Jigsaw International, a consumer lifestyle consulting firm based in Shanghai.

China's 455 million cellphone users chat, cajole, joke and flirt via short messages about 33 billion times a month, according to government statistics and IResearch Consulting Group, a market research firm that focuses on Chinese Internet and wireless industries. During the mid-autumn festival, people here exchanged 2 billion short message greetings and well-wishes in a single day.

More people in China get news or weather via the Web on their cellphones than from personal computers, said David Turchetti, chief executive of 21 Communications, a mobile marketing agency based in China.

"Most Chinese people can't afford a PC for their home. It's a pretty big investment," he said. "Your mobile phone -- you almost can't live without it."

Even among those with access to computers and the Internet, e-mail takes a back seat to instant messaging when people converse with friends, colleagues or lovers, Guo said. The Brookings Institution plans to publish more of the Internet expert's findings on the subject in November.

Nearly 70% of China's online population regularly uses instant messaging, compared with only 56% for e-mail, according to the government's China Internet Network Information Center. That's a stark contrast to the U.S., where the 39% of those who use IM are dwarfed by the 91% of Internet users who communicate by e-mail.

Among the most popular IM programs here are Tencent Technology's QQ -- whose lively animations for common expressions, such as a cat waving when the user types "goodbye," make it popular among younger users -- and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Messenger.

"Most young people will come up and ask you for your MSN [screen name] or your QQ number rather than your e-mail address," said Kaiser Kuo, director of digital strategy for Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in Beijing. "Young people often print it on their cards."

Many of those young people can be found pecking furiously at the mobile phone keyboard as they engage in short bursts of conversation. The cost is one reason. A short message costs as little as a penny a thought, whereas voice calls are comparatively pricey at 2 to 5 cents a minute.

It's not just teenagers and young adults who don't seem to mind composing their thoughts on a tiny device.

Ren Xiaomin, a 49-year-old construction worker from Beijing, said he recently traded his Motorola phone for one with a stylus and touch-screen that lets him communicate with his 26-year-old son using traditional Chinese characters. In fact, nearly 9 out of 10 Chinese who own cellphones send text messages, IResearch found. Only 49% of U.S. cellphone users send text messages, according to the Pew Internet Center.

Mobile phones have achieved iconic status in China, where technology is viewed as an important part of the country's rapid modernization. Jigsaw International's Black said it is not uncommon for young people to spend an entire month's salary on a cellphone, only to sell it online at a loss six months later so they can buy a newer model.

"The mobile phone has been the young person's biggest, most expensive possession," Black said. "The mobile phone is what people carry with them. This is the badge that [says], 'I'm moving up.' "

Any time millions of people use a technology, scams are sure to follow. Chinese officials have instituted new regulations designed to cut down on text-messaging schemes that offer fake cash prizes and illegal services such as gambling and prostitution.

Mobile communication also has emboldened some to engage in social activism, making it easier to mobilize political demonstrations. In the Philippines, President Joseph Estrada was forced from office in a 2001 popular uprising that he decried as a "coup de text."

Last June, thousands of Chinese protesters wearing gas masks and carrying banners staged a protest over plans to build a chemical plant in the port city of Xiamen.

Angry about what they described as an environmental "atomic bomb," locals claimed to have circulated a million mobile text messages urging friends and families to rally outside the city government's headquarters. Officials responded by blocking messages to keep people from joining the demonstration.

As with all other forms of communication in China, the government is watching. Some Chinese say officials expanded censorship over phone messages after the 2003 SARS epidemic, in which millions of text messages were sent alerting people to the virus and exposing a national cover-up.

"Once in a while, you'll get friendly reminders from the public security bureau," Ogilvy & Mather's Kuo said. "You always know what the event is that they're referring to, but they're very elliptical about it, reminding you not to spread rumors."

Sometimes an electronic quip can land the sender in prison.

One man -- Qin Zhongfei -- was jailed for a month in August 2006 for writing a poem that satirized local leaders, then sending it to friends via text and instant messages. The case was eventually dropped after it drew media attention.