简体中文
The Chinese lunar New Year usually witnesses two records: the world's most
watched television gala show, and its busiest telecommunications network.
Rather than visiting families and friends and passing on good wishes in
person on the first day of the lunar New Year, the Chinese have grown used to
sending greetings from their mobile phones.
The Beijing branch of China Mobile, the country's biggest telecom
operator, said that in the capital city alone, a total of 831 million text
messages were sent on the eve before this year's Spring Festival, up 4.27
percent from a year ago. China Unicom Beijing also recorded a peak volume of
8,000 text messages per second around 7:45 p.m. that night, according to
Sunday's edition of the Beijing Evening News.
However, while media once dubbed telecom operators the biggest
money-maker on New Year's eve, industry insiders say the heyday for the short
message service (SMS) may have passed.
A January report from the Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology (MIIT) said the Chinese sent 897 billion SMS messages in 2012, up
only 2.1 percent year on year, whereas the number of mobile users gained about
11 percent to 1.1 billion.
At the same time, the country now has 564 million netizens, about 75
percent of whom can access the Internet from their cell phones, according to the
MIIT report.
For many netizens and mobile users, staying online tweeting about the
Spring Festival Gala Show run by China's state television is a "ritual" as
important as watching the program itself.
"I brought my computer to the living room," netizen "robin_taoran" said
on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like service, on lunar New Year's eve.
"Watching the show on TV while tweeting on Weibo is a must, just like Chinese
steamed bread goes with pickles."
According to Dong Wenjun, Sina Weibo's director of operations, Weibo
users sent a total of 28,977 posts in the first second of Feb. 10, the day of
the Chinese New Year.
"Saying happy new year on Weibo has become a good custom," Dong was
quoted as saying by China National Radio.
For the country's 233 million 3G users, Weixin, a popular smartphone
application that allows voice messages and more creatively edited greetings,
also became a trend this year for its convenience and low cost.
A survey run by Sootoo.com, a website monitoring the Chinese Internet
industry, showed that about one fourth of 7,854 respondents said before the
Spring Festival that they would use Weixin to send greetings this year.
However, paying a visit in person and SMS still ranked as the most
popular options for New Year greetings, with both choices selected by 73 percent
of respondents.
Although people have more ways to express their feelings thanks to
development of technology, face-to-face communication is irreplaceable, said
Zhong Xin, a professor of communications at Renmin University.
While some Chinese netizens are drafting "strategy guides" to cope with
questions from difficult relatives, others are starting an online campaign
pledging to leave cell phones behind during family reunion dinners.
"It is perhaps necessary for young people to cherish family ties, for
they will have fewer and fewer relatives as time passes. Loneliness is harder to
deal with than the bustle," Zhong said.
More young Chinese are nowadays working and settling down in cities far
from home. Beijing had 7.7 million migrant residents as of the end of 2012, and
many of them are the only children in their families.
