Invisible but loud networks that connect people

Editor's note: Stay connected! Sometimes we can feel very distant and disconnected from the lives of others. Like an elephant parade with each animal holding another's tail, we all have a strong desire to connect with the outside world. That desire has paved the way for the development of wireless connection services in the modern world, especially in remote areas. In this edition, China Daily presents a selection of pictures showing the buzzing development of China Mobile's wireless network services in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Thanks to China Mobile's Wireless City project, which started one year ago, herdsmen and women in villages can easily make a call anytime and anywhere they want in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The Wireless City project now involves 16 cities, including Urumqi, Karamay, Kashi and Altay. Tens of thousands of mobile signal transmission towers have sprung up in Xinjiang, connecting people and helping the region get more closely involved in China's dynamic economic activities. [Photo/China Daily]

 

Sitting in a car driving along a highway to northern Xinjiang areas, I gradually became bored as the roadside view was relentlessly similar and had not changed for hours. There was nothing but stone, sand and a little grass. What's more, there was a long, lonely road stretching to the skyline.

Our driver started to tell a joke in order to cheer everybody up. "A Uygur uncle drove his tractor along the highway. He tried hard to stay awake but unfortunately eventually fell asleep. When he woke up, he could not help clapping his hands. 'Ha, the tractor is safe and sound and I can continue to drive onwards'."

Everyone laughed and felt a bit more lively. The joke reflects the truth that Xinjiang is a vast, undisturbed land with a small population. Because I had never been to Xinjiang before, I naturally assumed that living there must be peaceful and perhaps lonely with little communication with the outside world.

My stereotypical illusion was shattered over the following days. As our car passed through pasture land, we saw herdsmen riding on horses and taking out cell phones to make calls. "They belong to the Kazak ethnic group and are nomadic people. Even when they wander from one place to another, they are making connections through the wireless network," said Wang Zhengxing, an official at China Mobile's Xinjiang subsidiary.

When I went to Karamay, a western oil hub surrounded by desert, I was astonished to find that Karamay's mobile penetration rate is even higher than some of the most developed cities in China, such as Beijing and Shanghai. Karamay residents own 1.7 mobile phones when averaged out. Only newborn babies are not reliant on mobile terminals, it seems. They work, study, entertain themselves and enjoy their lives via the small, rectangular handsets.

"I live in various unseen networks - a wireless network, a fixed-line network, a social network. Because I am connected, I find my personal value," said Zhou Shisi as he used a mobile phone to go through receipt details in a Karamay hospital. Zhou suffered appendicitis and had to be in hospital for several days but he still had close ties with friends and teachers.

Beneath the serene picture, Xinjiang people are truly active and show a passion for connectivity. Even in White Haba, the northernmost county of Xinjiang, the border soldiers exhibit no loneliness or misery. They smiled, chatted. I quickly discovered they had a better knowledge than me as we discussed some popular TV dramas.

A Karamay citizen consulting medical staff at a local hospital about how to make use of the Wireless City website to check if the medicines he needs are in stock and how to find out which pharmacy is still selling them and discover its exact location. Although Karamay is a small city with a population of 400,000, the mobile phone penetration rate is about 170 percent, much higher than the nation's average of 70 percent, said Li Wei, general manager of China Mobile's Karamay branch.[Photo/China Daily]

Sun Qing, an Urumqi resident whose hometown is in the northern Altay region, one day asked me excitedly, "Did you know cows' milk is much less nutritious than donkeys' milk and camels' milk?" Seeing my confusion, he laughed and said he had been researching medical journals. They reported that cows' milk is not as good as perhaps most of us thought. "I drink a lot of camel milk. I believe it's true," he said.

"I dream about one day setting up a camel milk business so people outside Xinjiang can enjoy high quality camel milk as I do and become stronger," the ambitious Sun said.

Some Xinjiang people have already realized their dreams. For Liu Sanhai, a sweet melon farmer in Ruoqing county, the greatest joy is to ship the fruit he grows to Beijing, Shanghai and even to overseas countries.

On the flight back to Beijing, while browsing a magazine, I came across a camel milk advertisement. The camel milk is produced by a Xinjiang company and the advertisement said it has been served to world champion golf team members. It must be a comfort to Sun that someone with a similar dream had stepped forward and started a business with a global vision.

"Connections," I wrote down in my journal. Xinjiang is no longer a separate, vast region but is a place full of passionate people eager to make connections. Every connection is like a thread. It may tangle, or twist, but it will never break.