“Hey we can sent message…If you get this message pls reply me let me know. :)”

- a friend in Xinjiang

“Yay! Hey josh!”

- a friend in Shanghai

As of 12:01am this Sunday morning, January 17th, I am now able to send and receive text messages all over China for the first time in 6 months. The news was released as a one-sentence statement on the web but has been quickly forwarded all throughout the province via…can you guess? That’s right, text messages.  Finally I can receive something besides a public service announcement telling me to be careful driving on highway 217 because it’s icy.

Naturally I’m glad things are getting restored, but I honestly care little about text messaging. All the people with whom I can text I could just as easily call (I feel the same way about the texting phenomenon in America, but that’s another story altogether). I’m more interested in contacting the people I can’t call at the moment, and this latest development does nothing to solve that predicament.