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Seriously, are they smoking crack over there?

It's not only The View and The Today Show that are going crazy for sexy texting—China's threatening a crackdown on people sending seductive messages to each other as well.

Henan province promises a lockup of "up to five days" for one message, or ten days for 3 messages. If you're going to send three, you might as well do it in a chunk to get the discount rate.

"I'm totally for the rules. It's uncomfortable to get dirty text messages from male friends and even more gross when they are from strangers," Zhang Kai, 26, told the daily.

What's even better is that the normal people are questioning why so much government effort is being spent in this area.

Since July 10, Shenze party officials have held 480 meetings to discuss the harmful effects of obscene messages, a degree of dedication that has been questioned by the public, the People's Daily said.

"It's not necessary to hold 480 meetings on this. This is an enormous waste of administrative resources," an Internet user named Han Haoyue was quoted as saying.

Are there prisons just not filling up quotas? Do they simply lack the ability to use filters on who sends you messages? What the fuck is wrong with China?

"I'm totally for the rules. It's uncomfortable to get dirty text messages from male friends and even more gross when they are from strangers," Zhang Kai, 26, told the daily.

Is this sort of thing common over there or something? People just spamming a dirty pics to random strangers or something?

Apparently, it's preferrable to have your male friends imprisoned rather than just telling them to cut the crap.

Who said anything about the "victim" having a say? (The Deng Yujiao case isn't related, but is another example of overt "fuckery" -- my term -- on the government's part.)

I was referring to this quote:

"I'm totally for the rules. It's uncomfortable to get dirty text messages from male friends and even more gross when they are from strangers," Zhang Kai, 26, told the daily.

This person is a total asshole if she prefers the law to punish her male friends rather than, you know, telling them to stop, or somehow blocking them. I would understand it regarding strangers, but people you know? Is this a cultural thing in China, not telling people to cut the crap? Or is it that Chinese men are so desperate for affection they just won't stop? I think we need Lusankya an expert to answer these questions.

LordOskuro wrote:s this a cultural thing in China, not telling people to cut the crap? Or is it that Chinese men are so desperate for affection they just won't stop? I think we need Lusankya an expert to answer these questions.

It's a bit of a cultural thing: telling people things directly just isn't the way things are done. It's not necessarily intentional on their part, though. Every facet of politeness revolves around leaving the meaning implicit. I taught my students a bit of debating, and I basically had to order them to use the form "I think... because..." when giving their opinion, because otherwise plenty of the students just would not say it. And even when they were using the proper structure, they'd always finish their argument one sentence too early - rather than explaining how all their reasoning came together to support their opinion, they'd just leave that bit implicit, because that's just the way things are done.

Not leaving things implicit can either cause you to lose face (because you're showing that something makes you uncomfortable) and also shows that you're not giving sufficient attention to someone else's face, which is also a faux pas and could reflect badly upon yourself.

Anecdotally, I also noticed that there's almost no concept of mobile phone number security in China. People seem to share their phone number at a drop of a hat. When I travelled on the trains, I'd constantly have men trying to grab my phone number, and nobody seemed to understand that I wanted to keep it a secret and that I wasn't planning on going anywhere near their city at any stage in the near future (not even the women).

480 meetings since July 10? As in, July 10, 2009? That's about 15 meetings a day. Since when were dirty texts that much of a provencial crisis?

chitoryu12 wrote:480 meetings since July 10? As in, July 10, 2009? That's about 15 meetings a day. Since when were dirty texts that much of a provencial crisis?

Probably not, but if they hold the meetings at lunch time or dinner, then they can get free food. And they can order about 4 dishes per person and get roaring drunk.

Also, many of the meetings can be a place to transact unrelated business, or for party officials to socialize with friends in the party. Never underestimate the power of a single-party dictatorship to do whatever the hell it wants under cover of an issue the public actually gives a damn about.

Lusankya wrote:

chitoryu12 wrote:480 meetings since July 10? As in, July 10, 2009? That's about 15 meetings a day. Since when were dirty texts that much of a provencial crisis?

Probably not, but if they hold the meetings at lunch time or dinner, then they can get free food. And they can order about 4 dishes per person and get roaring drunk.

Well, if it gives you an excuse to get copious amounts of alcohol and free food, I'm all for a dozen endless, completely needless meetings a day.

chitoryu12 wrote:

Lusankya wrote:

chitoryu12 wrote:480 meetings since July 10? As in, July 10, 2009? That's about 15 meetings a day. Since when were dirty texts that much of a provencial crisis?

Probably not, but if they hold the meetings at lunch time or dinner, then they can get free food. And they can order about 4 dishes per person and get roaring drunk.

Well, if it gives you an excuse to get copious amounts of alcohol and free food, I'm all for a dozen endless, completely needless meetings a day.

And don't forget the karaoke. Plenty of important business is formalised over karaoke. It's a bit like golf, except more suitable for countries with high population density.

Lusankya wrote:

chitoryu12 wrote:

Lusankya wrote: Probably not, but if they hold the meetings at lunch time or dinner, then they can get free food. And they can order about 4 dishes per person and get roaring drunk.

Well, if it gives you an excuse to get copious amounts of alcohol and free food, I'm all for a dozen endless, completely needless meetings a day.

And don't forget the karaoke. Plenty of important business is formalised over karaoke. It's a bit like golf, except more suitable for countries with high population density.

Right - in the city I'm usually in when I'm over there (Changsha) you practically can't walk a block without seeing a KTV bar. And they're generally very well appointed, too, with pretty good service. That many golf courses would probably take half the city. And yes, basically fancy dinners are an excuse to eat as much as you can (except for dinners with set courses).

As for the texting - yes, people there are usually at least a bit prudish, in my somewhat limited experience.

Well, to be fair, I did once get an unsolicited text from a number that I didn't recognise that said "are you a virgin?".

I just kind of ignored it.

I'm waiting for cell phones to have a dedicated folder for sms spam. If you don't like the messages being sent to you, you just go to options, "mark as spam", and WHAM!, problem solved.

I'm more curious on the monetary issue... doesn't texting cost money? Or do all chinese people have all-inclusive contracts?

Texting is often free.

This results in an obscene amount of chain texts cluttering up your inbox and 19 year old girls some people getting somewhat insulted when you don't respond in kind.

Buritot wrote:I'm waiting for cell phones to have a dedicated folder for sms spam. If you don't like the messages being sent to you, you just go to options, "mark as spam", and WHAM!, problem solved.

I'm more curious on the monetary issue... doesn't texting cost money? Or do all chinese people have all-inclusive contracts?

A lot of services offer unlimited texting. I have a very basic service, and unlimited texting was still added on to that.