Much like the US, basically everyone here in China has a cellphone, and when I say basically everyone, I mean that I have even seen a beggar on the street receive a call on a cell phone. One thing about cell phones over here is that the basic service is like a prepaid service and is not a monthly billed service based on the number of minutes you signed up type of plan that you would see in the US. So you throw a bunch of money on your phone and you hope you just don't run out of money on your phone. With this prepaid service you don't get voicemail, so when a phone starts ringing and someone can't get to it, it will ring and ring and ring and ring… and just in case you don't get the point, let me just say that unlike in the States, people don't hang-up the phone if the person on the other end is not picking up, they will let it ring until someone picks it up.
So it would not be a huge ordeal if you had your phone on soft ring or vibrate, but it becomes a little bit of an issue when you have your phone set on the loudest ring!! That and the fact that it is very easy to get illegally downloaded ring tones over here, so I get to listen to all kinds of fun Chinese Pop songs all day long as phones throughout my office ring away for minutes at a time. The best part of it is when you see a really masculine guy walking down the street and his phone goes off and the ringtone sounds like a mid-90's Celine Dion song. Coincidentally as I write this post, I just heard a phone with an excessively loud Destiny's Child song ringing and it turned out to be the operation manager's phone… a guy in his mid-40's. Oh well, maybe I have to look into getting a Hannah Montana ringtone so I can blast it in my office whenever someone gives me a call.
So it would not be a huge ordeal if you had your phone on soft ring or vibrate, but it becomes a little bit of an issue when you have your phone set on the loudest ring!! That and the fact that it is very easy to get illegally downloaded ring tones over here, so I get to listen to all kinds of fun Chinese Pop songs all day long as phones throughout my office ring away for minutes at a time. The best part of it is when you see a really masculine guy walking down the street and his phone goes off and the ringtone sounds like a mid-90's Celine Dion song. Coincidentally as I write this post, I just heard a phone with an excessively loud Destiny's Child song ringing and it turned out to be the operation manager's phone… a guy in his mid-40's. Oh well, maybe I have to look into getting a Hannah Montana ringtone so I can blast it in my office whenever someone gives me a call.
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