How do people in China use the phone to communicate?

[Caster]

Hahahahahaha, that's funny~~~~~~~

[xiaocai]

I remember that we had not had our first phone installed until early 1990s, and before that to make a phone call you would have to go to the local office of Chine Telecom (known as 邮电局 then), which is only place you could find public telephones. Of course to let the other person know that you would call at such time on such day, you needed to either write a letter or send a telegram a few days beforehand so the person would know when to go the office at their place to expect your call. No one I knew had any kind of exposure to answering machine at all. Of all the telephones we had, the most fancy function I can recall was "re-dail". Probably this could help you to solve the mystery that why so many Chinese don't know how to leave a voice message. My parents do not know anything about voice message, and they will send me text messages if I have missed their calls. So yeah, it is already phasing out before even becoming popular in China.

[Meng Lelan]

Of course to let the other person know that you would call at such time on such day, you needed to either write a letter or send a telegram a few days beforehand so the person would know when to go the office at their place to expect your call.

Oh, ah, yes, I remember those days, yes.....

[yialanliu]

I think text messages are more popular in China than the US. This is especially profound in the daily texts I receive for weather and other goodies/spam.

I have used texts for work and think it's actually quite normal. Not sure if I would do it to quit, but maybe if I had a grudge or something haha.