Chinese Chatting Up with Numbers in Cyberspace

Reuters
Thursday, January 23, 2003; 10:51 AM

By Doug Young

HONG KONG (Reuters) - When is the number 520 worth a whole lot more than its numerals imply?

When it's sent to you in a Chinese Internet chat room, where it means you've just been propositioned by someone using Chinese Web shorthand to whisper "I love you" in your cyber ear.

Such digital displays of affection are just part of a growing lexicon of Internet lingo that has swept through Chinese language chat rooms worldwide in recent years.

Much of the chatter derives from the abundance of homonyms in Chinese, where a single sound can carry many meanings. For example, 520 sounds like "wo ai ni," Chinese for "I love you."

Roman-letter abbreviations also abound, the result of a new generation of Web chatterers impatient with the cumbersome system of Chinese characters, which take more time to type on a keyboard.

The abbreviations are not unlike many of those now used in English, such as IMHO for "in my humble opinion" and BTW for "by the way."

Reflecting the relative youth of Internet users worldwide, much of the shorthand in Chinese cyberspace is devoted to pleasantries, terms of endearment and expletives. Political terms are less common, and are even filtered out in many mainland China chat rooms by Web hosts seeking to avoid controversy.

"I don't know where it all came from. I guess it's for convenience," said Huang Ching-hui, a Taiwanese student in the United States who chats online to keep in touch with friends.

"Internet users don't like to type a lot. Plus, it feels good to know that someone knows (the lingo) and belongs to your gang."

China now has about 59 million Internet users, with Taiwan and Hong Kong having another 12 million and 4 million, respectively, at the end of 2001, according to various sources. China's figure alone is second only to the United States, where an estimated 170 million people now use the Web.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

Like much on the Internet, the origins of the chatter on Chinese sites are unclear. Some believe many terms began with the earliest pagers that could only display numbers.

Popular expressions of endearment include 360 for "I miss you" and 775885 for "kiss me, hug me." But don't come on too strong to a stranger, or you could be told to 748, or "go to hell."

Some sweet numbers have became so popular that Taiwanese pop star Mavis featured them in her recent hit "Digitally Falling in Love," among them 520.

Roman letters are also used for popular cross-culture abbreviations -- "ssgg" means "handsome boy" from the Chinese "shuai shuai ge ge," while ppmm means "pretty girl."

One of the most common Chinese Internet shorthands is 88, which reads "ba ba" in Chinese and has come to mean "bye bye."

"If you're in an Internet cafe and have to rush to class, it's easier to type 88 than 'bye' or 'zai jian' (the Chinese word for goodbye)," said Zhou Xizhou, a native of Hunan province.

SELF CENSORSHIP

While digital-speak abounds in China-based chat rooms, one number you would not see often is 64, shorthand for "June 4" -- the day in 1989 when hundreds of Chinese pro-democracy supporters were killed in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Many chat room operators have filters to screen out any talk on sensitive subjects, which include not only politics but also pornography, Tibet and the Falun Gong spiritual movement. So "64" is automatically filtered out.

Some 130 China-based Internet companies reportedly agreed in March to a form of self-censorship under pressure from authorities. The companies reportedly included the popular sites Sina.com, NetEase.com and Sohu.com, along with the China site for Yahoo!.

Despite the attempts at censorship, some terms -- such as fb, or "corruption" from the Chinese word "fubai," have managed to work their way into the online lexicon.