Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Hong Kong mobile phone culture is like car culture in the US. Phones confer certain types of freedom and enable certain ways of living. They are often status symbols and expressions of personal style. Like wearing a printed t-shirt or designer clothes, the phone you carry conveys social information, even when a call isn’t made.

But Hong Kongers do make incessant calls on their mobiles. They also use them to play games; take, view and share photos; communicate through short text messages (SMS) and now even get streaming video and other 3G services.

There are many magazines about mobile phones on the newsstands here. These provide technical details but actually are more like fashion magazines.

In fact, Hong Kong magazine racks have a number of what I would call “digital lifestyle” titles. You can find magazines focused specifically on mobile phones, digital cameras, PDAs, electronic games and of course PCs. Some titles encompass all these areas. One publication is explicitly called “Digital Life.”

I sense here in Hong Kong the emergence of something new and exciting. It’s a culmination and flowering of what has been wrought by the development of mobile telephony; the Internet; the digitization of music, pictures and video; international travel, hyper-commerce and China itself. I like it.

Hong Kong magazines devoted to mobile phones–a fusion of technology and fashion.

Chinese language PDA magazines.

Low-cost pre-paid SIM cards.

SIM card vending machine, Hong Kong subway.

All posted from my Sony U