A Reason for Leapfrogging
Photo by: Benoist Sebire, all rights reserved.
Back when I was in Beijing, I loved listening to stories from my friends about the old times when they were younger. One of my particular favorite was the story from my friend who spent her childhood in XiAn.
One day when she was back from high school, she realized there were some strange things built on the street. With funny orange hoods and some sort of equipment underneath, it took her some time to realize they were what people call as phone-booths. She also told me that back in those days not many people actually realized what they are for, and found a few families ripping them off the streets, bringing them back home as a new piece for display.
What surprised me was that this story only took place 18 years ago. Since then, pagers appeared and very quickly, mobile phones came and penetrated the entire country. If we simply look at how vast the country is, and how much effort has
to be made to complete the infrastructure, it is no surprise that
mobile phones quickly swept over the landlines. But to those like me, who experienced these changes in much longer time span, it strikes almost as an agressive evolution.
And what is left behind, is a collection of bare cables tangled and hanging from houses. They may still work, who knows, I often saw amazing old antiquities work after a few strong slaps. But perhaps it is not the most serious issue any longer, as we now have mobile phones, which work perfectly without all these physical, tangible complexities.
Leapfrogging takes place for a reason. And the reasons would remain visible to our eyes.
