Spring Festival Text Messages
Aside from feasting, watching Zhang Ziyi's poor attempt at lip-syncing on TV and letting off truckloads of fireworks, Beijingers were also busy sending off text messages to friends and family on Spring Festival eve. The official numbers haven't been announced yet, but China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) was forecasting that across the country more than 17 billion Spring Festival greeting messages would be sent via mobile phone over the holiday season. In Beijing alone 600 million text messages were sent on Chuxi (Spring Festival Eve), which works out at close to 38 texts per person. This number is up from 400 million last year.
As in previous years, a contest aimed at discovery the best Spring Festival text message was held.
Co-sponsored by 19 Beijing-based portal websites, including big names like Sina, Sohu, Yahoo and NetEase, more than 36,000 original messages were entered into competition. Voting closed on Feb 17 at 7.30pm by which stage a total of 20 million votes had been cast and a list of the twenty most popular messages was announced. Then between Feb 13-17 they had some kind of knockout round on the radio that we don't quite understand. The winners were announced yesterday at 2pm.
The first prize (a Chery SUV) went to the author of this message:
浓郁的除夕凝聚着全球华人的文明，火红的春节洋溢着炎黄子孙的喜悦，古希腊的奥林匹克圣火传递着世界的和平，二零零八彰显着华夏儿女的风!
Which roughly translates as:
The richness of Lunar New Year's eve represents the culture of Chinese people worldwide, the fiery red Spring Festival overflows with Chinese people's joy.
Ancient Greece's Olympic flame brings world peace, 2008 will reveal the splendor of China's descendants!
And two runners up prizes (a tour of Europe worth RMB 10,000) went to the following two messages:
鼠年过节不送礼，送礼就送五千万，妮送生活千万福，迎送身体千万康，欢送事业千万顺，晶送心情千万好，贝送家庭千万欢，五福到鼠钱快乐!
Roughly: I do not send you a present in the year of the rat but 5 'qian wan' (where qian wan can mean both 10 million and also something along the lines of completely or absolutely), Nini wishes you the 'qian wan' of eternal happiness, Yingying wishes you the 'qian wan' of good health, Huanhuan wishes you the 'qian wan' of success in your career, Jingjing wishes you the 'qian wan' of happiness everyday, Beibei wishes you the 'qian wan' of family happiness, when the five fu (perhaps five kinds of happiness or alternatively the five fuwa) arrive you can happily count your money.
and
金鼠闹春，愿你在鼠年里：爱情心有所鼠，事业鼠一鼠二，鼠钱鼠到手抽筋。幸福快乐健康全都鼠于你!
Roughly:The gold rat rattles in the spring, in the year of the rat: may your love life bloom, may your career be outstanding, may you count bank notes until your hands twitch, may all fortune and happiness be in your hand (with lots of play on the the character 鼠 [shu] that is near impossible to translate).
Links and Sources:
CRI: Chinese Expected to Send 17 Bln Text Messages
Xinhua: China text greetings contest draws 5 mln online votes
Sina: 北京除夕短信发出6亿条 平均每人近38条
Sina: 2008年新春原创祝福短信大赛
Qianlong: 2008年新春原创祝福短信大赛
Yahoo: 2008年新春原创祝福短信大赛
NetEase: 新春原创祝福短信大赛为2008年新春献礼花
The Beijing News: 春节短信将超170亿条
Soho: 鼠年短信大赛明天揭晓
