Pagers of history
Cui Jinghua can type names of streets and dishes speedily after working for six years at Beijing-based Yuanwang Paging Company, one of the last paging firms still open for business in the country. Courtesy of Cui Jinghua |
"What? Who still uses pagers?"
Then follows a pause and the feeling of embarrassment. However, six years ago, when Cui started her career, people's reaction was a lot different.
"They wouldn't be surprised. Instead, they would have asked about my working environment and salary. I was more proud of my job then," recalled the operator with Yuanwang Paging Company, one of only a few Chinese paging firms still open for business. The small device has almost been displaced by mobile phone.
Late last month, China Unicom, one of the two major telecommunication operators, applied to the authorities to terminate its paging business, which has been shrinking since 2001. Statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry show there were about 1.1 million beeper users in September 2005. A report from the China Information World revealed only 1,044 beeper users in February 2006. Today, people who use beepers are either hospital staff or old-fashion followers, according to Zhuang Jiannan, boss of Yuanwang.
Yuanwang was the 16th paging company in Beijing established in 1991. It once had 63 outlets across the country, boasting more than 1 million customers. During the peak years, there were around 200 paging companies in the country, according to Zhuang.
"The beeper was an expensive import in the beginning," he said.
"In our prime time in 2000, we had about 50 paging operators working around the clock in turn."
But now, there are only seven of them, including Cui, who came from Central China's Henan Province to Beijing for his job in 2001.
"In recent years, I receive no more than 100 calls a day on average," the woman said. It is a sharp contrast against the first two years after she took up the job once during a Spring Festival, she received more than 1,000 calls within 10 hours.
"During the busiest time, I was riveted to my seat by incessant rings, being unable to move for a cup of water or the restroom," Cui recalled.
She admitted that the change once threw her into a total loss.
"I like my job," Cui said. "It was so much fun to receive all kinds of calls from people with different dialects and some interesting messages."
It took her a while to get accustomed to the strong accent of people from the south. "When they talk about the number 0, they often pronounce 'dong' instead of 'ling' in mandarin," the operator said.
"It was an interesting experience and now I am able to differentiate many accents."
She said the most frequent calls were about meeting people and food. "Some restaurants almost paged farmers or grocery men daily about what they needed for that day and food purchasing messages were also exchanged frequently between family members," the operator said.
Cui and her colleagues were required to learn Beijing street names, scenic spots, major stores and landmark buildings. "Every month, we took a test about these names. If we typed one wrong, money would be deducted from our salary," she said.
In the first few months as a paging operator, Cui developed a habit of paying attention to the name of every place she walked by in an effort to improve her short-term memory and build up her local knowledge.
"I hope the company could survive the industrial slump. As long as it is alive, I won't quit the job," she said.
However Cui is realistic and is looking at other career options. "I like marketing. Maybe I will try that way someday," she said.
Cui said very few of her former colleagues switched to jobs related to paging after they left the company. A few are working at mobile phone voice message centers.
"That may be the closest business to paging," she said.
The most senior operator at Yuanwang has worked nine years at the company. Cui and other loyal employees give Zhuang, the company manager, motivation to keep the company operating as long as possible.
"I know the paging market is diminishing. But I still have high hopes for this technology," said the former technician.
Beepers utilize electronic components sensitive to an FM radio signal to alert the carrier. The signal is small and occupies a very narrow bandwidth, therefore costs much less than a mobile phone operation, Zhuang said. He is now collaborating with investors to explore new ways to utilize the old technology.
One application may be used for traffic management.
"We have invented a small box, which can receive real-time traffic information like a beeper from our operating center," Zhuang said. "It will be very useful for drivers in such a big and crowded city like Beijing."
But he is not sure whether the device will be embraced by the market. After all, there are already more advanced inventions based on the global positioning system.
For Cui, though the idea is exciting enough to keep her attached to the business, she also has no theory about how long it will be. The title of "paging operator" may soon be history.
(China Daily 04/10/2007 page20)
