Chinese Phone Network

[tony1343]

Ah, I'm so sick of the Chinese phone network infrastructure. Whenever you call a Chinese number and they don't pick up, you get a variety of default messages. Sometimes they are in Chinese and sometimes also in English.

Why do you get the busy message? Have they not heard of call waiting and three way calling? This is very annoying. If I get a second call, I can just click over talk to the second person and click back over to the first.

Why is the caller not available? Send me to a voice mail box to leave a message. That way I can tell them to call me back or shortly why I'm calling.

What's the deal? Do these services exist or are they maybe just extra? They are pretty much default in the U.S. I hope businessmen can pay extra to add them. If not that has to be a serious damper on the productivity of the Chinese economy.

[adrianlondon]

Voicemail - great, call waiting - devil technology.

I hate it ;) If someone rings me and I'm already on the phone, then ... I'm already on the phone! I'm busy. With someone/something else. Leave a message.

I always disable call waiting on my landline and mobiles. I do, however, enable voicemail. If someone is busy and doesn't have voicemail then, if I need to speak to them, I'll call back. If I was doing *them* a favour (such as returning a call) then I probably won't bother. They know they were busy, they know they ain't got voicemail, so they'll work it out.

I don't see it being a big deal.

[Senzhi]

I'd also appreciate voicemail though, as my phone is more off than on at work. It's handy to flicker through the most important calls and giving the courtesy of calling them back.

Yep, I really do miss it.

[cdn_in_bj]

I guess your company must be smaller, as I have voicemail at work and I'm sure many others here do too. It's true that locals don't usually have voicemail on their personal lines, although I know of a few people who have voicemail included in their mobile service, and you can also buy fixed-line phones here with voicemail function.

[liuzhou]

Voicemail doesn't work in China for the same reason that answering machines never took off. All you get are long renditions of people shouting "喂!喂!喂!".

But there is no point getting worked up about it. You are in a different culture. Go with the flow. Send text messages.

[Senzhi]

Send text messages.

Now I don't really think that's culture related. I believe all young people are text crazy.

I admit, I still prefer a goold old call than texting: I always miss the correct buttons.

[imron]

I always miss the correct buttons.

Sounds like you need to turn on predictive text.

[Senzhi]

Sounds like you need to turn on predictive text.

Helpful for one language only. But a pain if you're regularly texting in multiple languages.

And I daily have to text back to someone in either Dutch, English, French or Chinese ...