The Wall Street Journal has an article, written from an American perspective, lamenting the difficulty American enterprises have when dealing with China and the apparent cultural reluctance of the Chinese to use voicemail (either to leave it or to return it). This can drive Americans batty, as we use voicemail all the time and rely on it to get business done.
I showed the article to a Chinese classmate here and she confirmed the Chinese predisposition not to use it. But it didn't seem like an oversight to her - there was simply no perceived need. Everyone sends text messages, she said. She herself sends about 15-20* of them a day, and thinks that she might be below average in that tally.
Rather, she found the American predilection for it to be surprising, thus suggesting that Chinese people may be driven just as batty as Americans by their western counterparts not using text messaging more.
* Edited downwards 12/2 based on her clarification. But that's still a lot more than Americans send messages...
Comments (2)
A pox on voice mails and text messages... E-mail is the only way to go (aside from in person meetings over lunch, which I am highly partial to)
Mark
Posted by Mark | December 1, 2005 10:29 AM
Posted on December 1, 2005 10:29
Text messages do have their place, particularly because people are often away from their computers but much less rarely away from their phones.
But the article did mention that the reason this was often an issue in China was because Chinese people were rarely at their desks - they were always out having face to face meetings, which Chinese tradition values particularly.
Posted by Cathy | December 1, 2005 10:39 AM
Posted on December 1, 2005 10:39