China Travel Notes & News

140 Million Cell Phones in China Look who's talking. The Chinese, on their cell phones. The most recent data shows that currently there are 140 million mobile telephones in China, averaging out about one in every ten people in the world's most populous nation. This despite the fact that cell phones did not come to China till the late 1980s when the devices were considered novel and exotic. For a while it was regarded a symbol of wealth and status, only in the possession of the affluent and powerful. Back then a cell phone was known as Dageda, literally meaning "Great Brother Great," which, according to sources, arose from the then prevalent perception that only prominent gangsters in Hong Kong could afford such fancy objects. Also, the mobile phones back then were big and heavy, weighing as much as two pounds, reminding people more of bricks rather than cells. Today, you often hear the Chinese say: "If you are human, you have a cell phone." This is not yet reality, of course, but given the thinking, it is just natural that more Chinese want to get hold of one of them cell phones, so as not to be relegated to the subhuman world. Back to China Notes and News