Jul 23, 2007
My sorta-new phone: Blackberry 7100
Well, I finally replaced my old Nokia cell phone. It had seen me through about 3 long and bumpy years in China, but I think it’s definitely time to set her out to pasture.
For a replacement phone, I went out on a limb and bought a Blackberry 7100 cell phone. Yes, a Blackberry in China. I wasn’t aware that you could get them in China yet, but apparently you can. Much to my surprise, a Chinese friend of mine had bought one. For 700RMB no less.
So yesterday I headed down to the cell phone market to see what I could track down. I walked up to the first lady-vendor:
Me: Got any Blackberries?
Lady: Ah? [looks questioningly at coworkers]
Coworker: Wait a minute, I know where to find one. [goes off to another stall]
(wait ten minutes)
Coworker: I’m back. Here ya go.
Me: How much?
Coworker: 7000RMB.
Me: Ha ha ha ha. I think you’ve been misinformed. It should be about 700.
(coworker goes off again, then returns)
Coworker: It’s 850RMB.
Me: My friend bought one for 700RMB. I can come back tomorrow with him, and get it for 700, or you can give it to me now. Is 700 ok?
Coworker: Ok, ok, ok. 700 is ok.
I hate bargaining…
I still need to play around with this phone a bit to figure out all the features. I still haven’t configured my email yet, but I’ll get to that later. I am a bit disappointed that I can’t send Chinese text messages, although there is a Chinese interface option in the settings. But I don’t send that many Chinese text messages all that often these days anyhow.
The China/Blackberry story has been an intriguing one so far. From tales of Chinese spies in Canada stealing Blackberry technology, to China Unicom producing a strangely similar Redberry device – it’s been an interesting story to watch.
How do you get by without sending Chinese text messages? First of all, it’s a great way to practice Chinese. Erqie, some of my Chinese friends don’t know any English. I have a few friends who’s phones don’t read Chinese characters, and I have to send them messages in Englihs or pinyin, and it drives me crazy. Does your phone at least display Chinese okay?
Just curious, that’s all.
The phone can display chinese no problem.
If I have friends who can;t read english, sending them a pinyin message will do. Worst case scenario, I just call them.
I find the most common use for Chinese text messages is sending addresses to laowai friends so they can show them to taxi drivers.
To tell the truth, these days my socializing has been kinda minimal — and I don’t use my phone all that much. And that’s just fine with me. I spent my first year here socializing, and doing little more than that.
I’m busy now, but happy that I’m more productive. :em20:
The other big use of text messaging, I discovered, is to send friends elaborate greetings on holidays. Got a phone full of them on new years, and again on valentines day(!). There’s a funny article about some of the quasi-feminist messages that circulated on cell phones on International Women’s Day on the Chinese Voices Project page (www.clavisinica.com/voices.html), including the one about planting husbands in May so you can harvest two or three of them in August…