06.14.07
Attack of the Chinese Phone Bomb
note: I wrote this piece with a small dose of anger and several large helpings of humor (hopefully) and sarcasm…please try not to take me too overly serious on this one.
Whether it’s the spitting, the bones in the fish, the public urination, or the “beefsteaks” with fried eggs and macaroni, Westerners on the whole have a lot of grievances about daily life in China. In my time in China, I feel I can honestly say that one of my personal proudest accomplishments has been coming to terms with most of these “annoyances” and being able to either dismiss them as culture difference or to attribute them to the hyper-sensitivity inherent in my own native culture. I have also tried as much as possible to prevent this site from becoming another “Oh my God, I can’t believe the Chinese (insert specific behavior)” blog, which there are already enough of out there..
All that being said, there is one habit of my Chinese brethren which still drives me bananas, and which I have yet to find some kind of sociological or economic reason to justify. And this habit is the very reason I am awake right now writing this entry.
As you might already know, my parents are in China right now. For several completely unrelated reasons I have slept an average of 4 hours the past 4 nights. My parents, due to their jet lag are quite exhausted as well. After a day at the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, we all decided to go back to the hotel and retire for a late afternoon nap. An hour and a half later my cell phone rang. I was not expecting a call from anybody, plus I’m on vacation, so I just let it ring, figuring I would catch some more much needed sleep, and call whoever it was back when I woke up. After about 20 rings, the phone subsided…ahh, back to sleep in my comfy, comfy hotel bed….But No!!! One minute later the phone starts ringing again. Knowing if I got up to see who it was I would not be able to return to sleep, I lay in bed, trying to block out the racket of the unanswered call. Again, after twenty or so rings, it subsided. And then sure enough, just as I was regaining some hope of getting back to sleep the phone rings…AGAIN! I get up, check the call history, and sure enough it is the same person who has called me three times in a row! Is this really necessary??? This is not an isolated incident. It usually happens two or three times a week, usually when I am alseep, and the culprit is always a Chinese caller.
Ok, now before I get really angry and turn this into another merciless China bashing post, let’s backtrack and lay down some facts for those of you who have never lived in the Middle Kingdom. Firstly, cell phone and cell phone technology are neither new nor uncommon in Chinese urban areas. 99% of the Chinese people over the age of 18 whom I have ever associated with own cell phones. (Those who don’t are primarily rural people, who would have no reason to call a 6 foot Jewish honkie from the Bible Belt anyway). I have never seen a cellular phone in China which did not have caller ID and a call history. In other words, WHENEVER I MISS A CALL, I KNOW EXACTLY WHO WAS TRYING TO REACH ME AND CAN CALL THEM BACK AS SOON AS IT IS CONVENIENT. In case you are wondering, I did not accidentally hit the caps lock key. I am authentically on the verge of (defecating) a brick.
Secondly, and maybe I am the oddball here, but there certainly are times during my day when I absolutely do not want to answer the phone, period. These occur mainly when I am sleeping, in the middle of a meeting, playing basketball, having what Bill Clinton might refer to as “relations,” or doing any one of a number of activities which I consider more important than blabbing away into my portable digital leash. If I sound bitter and nostalgic for the good ‘ol days before no one toted cell phones except professional athletes and drug dealers, that’s because I am.
So…here is my question. If you call me once, and I don’t answer…why, why, why must you keep calling me again and again ad museum until I pick up??? Why is your phone call so important that I must answer it immediately or else get phone bombed for the next 5 minutes? Are you afraid I will not know you called? That my caller ID has suddenly malfunctioned? That a cell phone virus has destroyed the remaining remnants of my call history?
One minor reason might be that in China, nobody uses voice mail. While I do find this a bit strange, I have come to accept it and adapt, especially with the assistance of a brilliant and far less intrusive technology known as text messaging. Unlike voice mail, text messaging is quite common in China, probably even more so than it is in the US. If I don’t answer the phone, why not send me a text? What could it possibly accomplish, other than annoying the (excrement) out of me by calling back over and over?
So here is my suggestion. Call me once, any time, any day, anywhere. I might be annoyed to be woken up in the middle of the night, but I can live with a single call. If I don’t answer, you have one of two options. If you are the very patient type, just hang tight. As soon as I return to my cell phone (which like most homo sapiens usually occurs in intervals no less than every 5 minutes) I will see you have called me and call you back as soon as I can. Or if you are of the impatient stock (i.e. yours truly), or if your call is of an urgent nature, send me a TEXT MESSAGE. Tell me what the issue is or any other pertinent information. I will gladly contact you back. If somebody is dead, has contracted Ebola, or has been run over by a bus, please call me repeatedly until I answer. Otherwise, ONE CALL IS ENOUGH!!! Alright, I’m going to try to get back to sleep.
ty
said,
June 14, 2007 at 8:25 pm
You poor thing, really getting mad. How are your parents? Must be sweating in Beijing.
Gustaf Hansen
said,
June 14, 2007 at 8:55 pm
This is actually a question I’ve thought about for a long time, but I have not come up with any valid explanation so far. I’ve had some calls like this during class when I’ve had my vibrator on. After one or two calls I press the reject button to let the person calling know that I am busy, but they still keep calling.
My only guess is that it comes down to privacy. We all know that the personal realm is much smaller here in China, perhaps this is just the way it takes form in cell phone usage.
Benjamin Ross
said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Actually, I had a friend who had a really useful function on his phone. You could reject the call, but instead of hanging up on them, the phone would keep ringing on their end, but you wouldn’t hear it on yours…this would be infinitely more useful than my Hello Kitty screen saver.
Jon
said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:39 pm
…or you could just turn off your phone….
Yu
said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:48 pm
You wrote:
why, why, why must you keep calling me again and again ad museum until I pick up???
ad museum is a new phrase for me.(though amusing as I try to comtemplate the possbile implications of the meaning)… I always thought it was ad nauseum (which I probably spelled wrong).
I really rarely have people call me. This is partly because the majority of my friends and students (all people who have my cell) know that I do not like talking on the phone. But on occassion, a student or someone decided the need to call me now. I think my phone has the ignore feature, but after 3 times, then I worry it might be something related to my child from school or something, so I generally take the call. If it is not a life or death thing, then I tell them I will call back when the time in convenient. I actually think people do this because often it is not possible to hear the phone ring. I do the frantic multiple callings to my husband. Also it can be the case that I cannot locate my phone the first time someone calls (it is often buried in my bag) and I am happy the person called me back. So I guess this is not something I find so completely annoying.
BUT this annoys me far more is people taking calls in my class (I started taking away phones) AND even more annoying is people who talk so loudly on the phone. I think such loudness is not needed, but people just shout away. Even when my husband is at home and calls his parents at home (noise is not a factor) there is shouting. This annoys the bricks out of me.
Benjamin Ross
said,
June 14, 2007 at 10:21 pm
@Jon
The problem with turning off my phone is that I will not be able to see who called, nor will I receive my text messges, when I do want to check my phone…I don’t have a problem with a single call…it’s the non stop 5 minute barrage that really interrupts my day.
@ Yu
If somebody calls me and I don’t pick it up the first time, I can always check my call history…thus the barrage of calls in unnecessary…I hope I’m not the odd one here.
William
said,
June 15, 2007 at 12:04 am
Why not just put it on silent mode?
ym
said,
June 15, 2007 at 12:40 am
So many “keep-coming” calls really annoying,especially when you are gonna sleep.But why not just call him (or her) back and tell him or her that you are going to sleep?It won’t take a second,i think.Usually the person calling you must be the one your are familiar with and always for a reason,but it’is too ridiculous for someone to call so many times,fortunately I have not got any of “these” friends.I believe that this phenomena wasn’t common in China,it due to someone’s 境遇
Jimbo
said,
June 15, 2007 at 12:43 am
Gustaf has a good point, I’m a Hong Kong chinese and i know when u live in household with many family members, IT”S LOUD AS HELL!!! Majhong nights when the aunties are over/when some family friends come there’s at least 5 screaming kids/everyone’s got their own tv/hi-fi blaring somewhere/chinese is a loud language with all the intonations u have to sound out clearly.
So over the land line we develop a habit of calling non-stop. Caller id’s havn’t been around very long, i don’t know about u but most of my friends never bother to call back their caller id’s. (This i can’t explain, unless my friends actually despise me covertly)
take a chill pill
joyce
said,
June 15, 2007 at 2:08 am
i think the reasons of “keep coming”calls are:
1:they really have something urgent need to contact u right away
2:they don’t realize their repeating calls are kinda bother,they think maybe your phone is in your bag or some other places that you cannot hear.so they just wanna try more times hope you can hear the ring.
3:they’re nuts.
Peter
said,
June 15, 2007 at 3:12 am
When you spoke of the annoyances, I thought you were going to say people spitting on the streets. I don’t know if it’s really a “Chinese” thing, but I know sometimes my non-chinese counterparts also will call and recall and…..
Maria
said,
June 15, 2007 at 4:41 am
Although being from Sweden, the typically Chinese phone behaviour you describe seems perfectly logical to me, and also applies to most of my (Swedish) friends. Why, why, why don´t you turn off your phone? Or put it in silent mode? When I call someone I count on them to do one of these things whenever they do not want to be disturbed. If the phone and the sound is on, I assume the reason that they do not answer is that they for some reason cannot hear the phone (in the bag, noisy surrounding). So I try again and again – as a favour to the friend I am calling! I am also one of those people who never call back the caller id’s. If they really want something I count on them to leave a message, voice or text. Which, by the way, would appear as soon as I turned on the phone, had I turned it off for an undisturbed nap…
Handan
said,
June 15, 2007 at 10:43 am
You said you COULD always call back. Now, have you actually been calling back every missed call? And do you always reply to text messages upon receiving them?
cuz to those who do, I opt for text messages in the first place, and in the case of long and complicated messages, I call once and rest assured, if the call wasn’t answered, that I’d be contacted in time.
Now, if it’s really urgent and can’t wait. I call once and it’s rejected, my friend/colleague is most likely in a setting that doesn’t allow phone talk. But he/she is awake and by the phone, as signified by the rejection. So text message.
Text messages sometimes (although rarely) get lost in transmission or arrive only after a long lag. That’s why I need an assuring reply. My pa’d give me a single ring, as he finds it troublesome to write even a one word text message. Fine. Just lemme know you got it.
If it’s urgent and the phone rings to the end without being answered, there could be many possibilities. In a shower, in the bathroom, in a gym, away from desk and phone left on it, phone buried in a tote bag(applies more to girls), OR phone stolen/forgotten in a cab/owner in coma. For those who are not in the habit of calling back immediately, you’d just have to keep ringing. Although, yeah, some crazy people keep ringing regardless of who they’re ringing. I differentiate. Many others do. Build a reputation of good cellphone manners and you’ll have more peace.
Mute you phone when you need sleep, unless say, your parents are out on their own in the vast and strange city of Beijing and will call in for help any minute.
I carefully searched your text for the “oh, I should’ve muted the phone when I went to sleep” and was disappointed by the lack of reflective thinking in this case. Not coincidently, also missing is suggestions for changes in your own handling of cellphones.
Yu
said,
June 15, 2007 at 10:45 am
Yeah, I check the call history. But I generally don’t return calls to unrecognized numbers. Also setting the phone to silent is a good idea. I try to remember to do this when I am in class as well. But sometimes I forget. If you really don’t want to be distrubed, turn off your phone. But the reality is that when you forget to do this is when it becomes bothersome.
Jenn
said,
June 15, 2007 at 11:27 am
The constant calling and phone ringing has been a problem for me too. It is ESPECIALLY annoying when it is the wrong damn number and the jerk on the other end of the line refuses to accept that he is actually wrong and stop calling me.
I never answer or return calls of numbers I don’t recognize, unless they continually call (almost always) and I have to answer and tell them to please please stop calling me. Which works on the 4th or 5th time usually.
Rene
said,
June 15, 2007 at 3:15 pm
So am I the only who is curious as to who it was who actually called you?
harnniann
said,
June 15, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Ben,
I think you are unfair when you (attempt to) attribute this “non-stop-phone calling” to unreasonable Chinese behaviour.
It happens anywhere in the world where cell phone exists. It is more to do with the individual concerns rather than a “national behaviour”.
You know why he/she called you repeatedly? I venture a guess:-
She/he just wanted to wake you up, so you could answer the call. Simple as that. Maybe, at that very moment, he/she honestly thought that the call was important, though it might be just a funny joke he/she wanted to share with you.
Anyway, how’s your Beijing trip so far?
Take care
Matt Schiavenza
said,
June 15, 2007 at 4:32 pm
This same thing happened to me recently and I reacted to it pretty badly, so I fully sympathize with Ben here.
ddjiii
said,
June 15, 2007 at 6:07 pm
This is clearly a generational thing as much as a national thing. For those of us closing in on 40 who grew up without cell phones, persistant calling is irrational and extremely annoying – but frankly so is your refusal to accept a period of time when you’re unreachable by turning off the phone. The world isnt’ going to end if someone can’t reach you for an hour or two.
The big national difference I’ve noticed is the seemingly Chinese ranking of a phone call as above any other possible activity. I have seen people in the middle of presentations to large/important groups of people stop to take phone calls. Needless to say, conversation with someone can be interrupted at any time without apology. I’m now old enough for that to make me sad.
Kenny Shia
said,
June 15, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Does China treat you well? LOL.
just found you here from Business Week.
canrun
said,
June 16, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Speaking of nostalgia…
Nice to see there there are still a few young, idealistic,nary a negative word shall be uttered Liberals out there. Ah, youth is indeed wasted on the young…
canrun
said,
June 16, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I do so hope sarcasm was detected in that post…
http://sima-joseph.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!721550CD0C68A137!143.entry
zuraffo
said,
June 16, 2007 at 6:46 pm
The accepted norm here in singapore is if you can’t get someone on the first try, leave a message and try later.
Funny how chinese too behave differently in different societal context.
Alan
said,
June 18, 2007 at 8:07 am
Ben, what’s your cell phone number? Just kidding.
I don’t think it’s an innate Chinese thing (culturally speaking) to keep on calling until the call is answered. However, I do think Chinese are more likely than Americans to keep on calling constantly. Basically, Chinese view their friends as personal and personable. They tend to feel friends won’t mind no matter what. I am Chinese from China who have lived in America for 20+ years. So I am bicultural and understand what you are going through. Trust me. Many years ago I decided to help some fellow newly arrived Chinese students. I had already graduated and had an 8-5 job, which meant I needed to go to bed and get up at the normal hours. One of the Chinese students whom I had befriended would call me at wee hours in the morning. I am not making this up. He would call 1:00 am from his lab and sometimes at 11:30 p.m. from his apartment to ask me if I would like to stop by to play pokers with other Chinese students. This type of phone calls kept coming for quite a while. Finally I had to explain to him that I had a job and needed enough sleep in order to get up early in the morning. That ended his phone calls altogether as well as our friendship. China has 1.3 billion folks. It’s not unlikely for you to find some people who has the phone habit you described.
Chinese folks can be very pesky when coming to respecting others’ personal space. Again not all Chinese are like that (yours truly for example). I have 2 young kids. Sometimes some of our Chinese friends would decide on a Saturday afternoon that they would call us to let us know that they are stopping by with their kids to have a play date with ours. HAS IT EVER ocurred to them that we might not want to have a play date on such a short notice? What about askinbg us if we have something more important to do? My wife, being a nice non-confrontational Chinese from ever so polite Taiwan who cares so much about saving face usually would say yes to such requests. That actually has put a strain on our marriage and family life. Usually families who have no respect for other’s personal space tend to have no boundaries with their kids. Honestly I don’t want my kids to play with theirs all the time. So I am the one in our family who would jump up to answer the phone when it rings at certain hours on weekends. I just blatantly tell them NO when our personal space is being trampled. My advice to you is to tell your Chinese friends not to call you more than once if they need to and do not call at certain hours when you need to be quiet.
Please tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them… They won’t get it unless you tell them.
Kevin S.
said,
June 18, 2007 at 11:20 am
My wife (she’s Chinese) used to get so mad at me when we were dating if I didn’t respond immediately when she would call or text me on the mobile.
Alan
said,
June 18, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Kevin S. I think Chinese frienship tends to be more possessive than Westerners’. My wife was like yours when we were dating. For us, it was 15 years ago when we were dating and cell phones weren’t popular for those of us who didn’t deal drugs. I oftentimes had to wait for her phone calls at home after work. One time I went out jogging and missed her call. Let’s just say she wasn’t very happy. Being possessive with friendship is definitely a distinctive Chinese thing. Constant calling is just a behavior of such possessiveness. On the other paw, possessiveness also leads to warm friendship if you like the friend. An American teacher who taught English in China for 2 years in the 90’s told me that he actually liked this type of “warm” Chinese friendship. He as an American feels that American friendship is too distant. A balance is needed for both cultures.
Gordon
said,
June 19, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Hi Ben, I just found your interesting blog from the plug in BW. Considering that telemarketers are probably the #1 pet peeve of Americans nowadays, there must be a real cultural disconnect if what you experienced is common in China.
My wife once had a boss who, if he wanted something from someone, would just call every 5 minutes until he got it, so I wouldn’t automatically think such phone “manners” are just friends-related.
Personally, I would agree that such incessant calling would be extremely annoying. Would it be perhaps the case that in Chinese culture, (blatantly) interrupting someone just isn’t considered rude?
KevinZheng
said,
June 19, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Yeah! I hate those guys who always fuss me up by their phone bombs. It’s f**k up they don’t let me enjoy my own time. Sometimes I can’t bear my cell phone keeping ringing, so I just turn it off. And then, guess what, my home phone keep ringing in stead…
Jeremy Yeh
said,
June 19, 2007 at 9:27 pm
yeah,we dont have voicemails here in china. i dunno why.
its really interestin to watch people usin voicemails in american movies.
Stephen Xu
said,
July 6, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I hate cell phones! And I hate the so-called “warm” Chinese friendship!
Last Friday night, when I was preparing for my GRE test, my cell phone rang. It was Liu Guixiong, one of my classmates in college. He said,“Hello, Honghai. Fangli’s wedding day is tomorrow. I can’t go to his wedding ceremony for I am going to XX. Could you please pay the bill for me tomorrow? ”(1、For relatives or friends of the young couple, it is customary to provide the groom or bride some money as a gift, usually 100RMB or 200RMB nowadays. 2、Fangli is one of my classmates too). Liu had done me some favors in the past, so I answered that I would do that for him.
Last Saturday noon, when I was attending Fangli’s wedding ceremony, my cell phone rang again. It was Zhang Lijuan, another classmate. She made a similar request to Liu’s, and the differences were: 1、 Compare to Liu’s polite request, she almost ordered me to do that. 2、 She said that she would not return the money to me until a long, long time later(How long? I didn’t know). I got angry and refused her request cause I didn’t own her anything.
About 6 PM this Tuesday afternoon, my cell phone rang again! It was Ye Dong, another classmate. He said,“Hi, Honghai. I have to write a study plan for visa application to Canada. Could you please come to my place to help me revise it?” I had to go to his office to help him. When I was about to start, the cell phone rang again!!! It was He Xugang, he asked me to study with him for the entire July cause he was preparing for GRE too! I said that I had no free time. This entire July, my god! And I got to Ye Dong’s office and tried to finish the study plan ASAP. When it was done, my cell phone rang again, and it was another classmate. He asked me if I had any disk availble, for he wanted to copy something. I refused him. And my cell phone rang again!!!!!!!!!!!!!It was Zhenhua, he said，“Honghai, how are you doing recently? I am in Shanghai now. And my application to a india software company was refused. The reason was my English wasn’t good enough. Could you provide me a study plan?” Oh, What am I? All-purpose machine?
Now, when I am alone, I turn off my phone, for I just want to be quiet.
LT
said,
July 15, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I get this all the time. I do a few things to ‘adjust’ their behavior. Sometimes people take it as almost rude, other’s attribute it to my cheapness, other’s to being laowai, and …I dunno a multitude of attributions.
Anyway, almost for pretty much everyone, I never pick up the phone, unless I’ve just met them. But almost always I reply back quickly with a text message. Usually then people just text me. If it’s really urgent then they escalate to phoning.
About the loud talking on the cell phones. Somehow people in other parts of the world, for the most part, have come to realize that with your mouth millimeters from the phone, one doesn’t have to shout, even when the background noise level raises.
The shouting occurs because when one’s ear hears a lot of background noise, it naturally thinks the voice level needs to also pick up…if one was talking face to face. With the cell phone microphone so close, one just needs to talk closer to the mike, shouting actually distorts the voice.
If they would just have a national campaign to let people know, this kind of loud talking would decrease dramatically. IMO
kewlchat
said,
July 19, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Jon said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:39 pm
…or you could just turn off your phone….
Thats what i was going to say , however i also understand your frustration, i personally get upset at the spamm callers that call my home phone.