In case the article will be gone in future, I just copy that below:
The Secret Messages Inside Chinese URLs Decoding 4008-517-517.com
By Christopher Beam
An American
friend living in Beijing once said she refused to communicate with
anyone whose email address consisted of a string of numbers, such as
62718298454@163.com. This made sense to me at the time—why
make email addresses as difficult to remember as phone numbers? But I
soon realized that issuing a blanket ban on number-based communications
would mean cutting off just about every single Chinese person I knew.
In
the U.S., you really only have to remember two long numbers, ever: Your
phone number and your Social Security number. In China, you’re
constantly barraged by digits: QQ numbers (QQ is China’s most popular
chat service), email addresses, and even URLs. For example, the massive
online retailer Jingdong Mall is at jd.com or, if that takes too long to
type, 3.cn. Check out 4399.com to see one of China’s first and largest
online gaming websites. Buy and sell used cars at 92.com. Want to
purchase train tickets? It’s as easy as 12306.cn.
Why
the preference for digits over letters? It mostly has to do with ease
of memorization. To a native English-speaker, remembering a long string
of digits might seem harder than memorizing a word. But that’s if you
understand the word. For many Chinese, numbers are easier to remember
than Latin characters. Sure, Chinese children learn the pinyin system that uses the Roman alphabet to spell out Mandarin words (for example, the word for “Internet,” 网络, is spelled wangluo in
pinyin). And yes, Arabic numerals (1-2-3) are technically just as much a
foreign import as the Roman alphabet (A-B-C). But most Chinese are more
familiar with numbers than letters, especially those who didn’t go to
college. To many, “Hotmail.com” might as well be Cyrillic.
The digits in a domain name usually aren’t random. The Internet company NetEase uses the web address 163.com—a
throwback to the days of dial-up when Chinese Internet users had to
enter 163 to get online. The phone companies China Telecom and China
Unicom simply reappropriated their well-known customer service numbers
as domain names, 10086.cn and 10010.cn, respectively.
Digits
are even more convenient when you consider that the words for numbers
are homophones for other words. The URL for the massive e-commerce site
Alibaba, for example, is 1688.com, pronounced “yow-leeyoh-ba-ba”—close enough! Those digits can just as often have individual meanings. The video sharing site 6.cn works because the word for “six” is a near-homophone for the word “to stream.” The number five is pronounced wu, which sounds like wo, which means “I.” The number one is pronounced yao, which
with a different tone means “want.” So the job-hunting site 51job.com
sounds a lot like “I want a job.” Likewise, to order McDonalds’ delivery
online, just go to 4008-517-517.com, the “517” of which sounds a bit
like “I want to eat.” (An English equivalent might be the old radio jingle, “How many cookies did Andrew eat? Andrew 8-8000.”)
This
kind of number-language has become an infinitely malleable shorthand
among Chinese web users: 1 means “want,” 2 means “love,” 4 means “dead”
or “world” or “is,” 5 means “I,” 7 means “wife” or “eat,” 8 means “get
rich” or “not,” and 9 means “long time” or “alcohol.” The numbers
5201314, for example, mean 我爱你一生一世,or “I will love you forever”; 0748
means “go die”; and 687 means “I’m sorry.” (See here for more examples.) Chinese has plenty of other number-based slang, such as erbaiwu, or “250,” which means “idiot,” or “38,” pronounced sanba,
which means “bitch.” And of course there’s the association of certain
numbers with good or bad luck, and the subsequent demand for addresses
and phone numbers with lots of 8s (“get rich”) and minimal 4s (“die”).
Back in 2003, a Chinese airline paid $280,000 for the phone number 88888888.
Why
don’t Chinese web addresses just use Mandarin characters? Because
that’s a pain, too. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), which sets the rules for web addresses globally, has periodically hyped
the expansion of domain names to include non-Latinate scripts, but
Chinese web sites have yet to take full advantage. Some devices require a
special plug-in to type in Chinese URLs, and even then it takes longer
to type or write out characters than to input a few digits. Plus, for
web sites that want to expand internationally but don’t want to alienate
foreign audiences with unfamiliar characters, numbers are a decent
compromise.
Still, the numbers/letters divide is
emblematic of the Internet’s built-in bias: Even more than two decades
after its birth, it’s still a fundamentally American system. (Sorry, Tim Berners-Lee.) ICANN is an American non-profit corporation, though the U.S. recently agreed
to hand it over to a “global multi-stakeholder community” in 2015.
ASCII, the character-encoding scheme that was long used on most web
pages, is short for the “American Standard Code for Information
Interchange.” In 2012, the United States refused to sign
an international telecommunications treaty, supported by both Russia
and China, that would shift the Internet away from its current
U.S.-centric form of governance. In other words, the structure of the
Internet is a constant reminder of American digital hegemony, from WiFi
standards to GPS. Even the “.cn” at the end of Chinese URLs comes from
the English word for China, not the Chinese word for China. You can’t
blame other countries for wanting to tell the American 250s to 0748.
我爱你一生一世要学就多学一点 0 字部 019425 你依旧是爱我 02746 你恶心死了 02825 你爱不爱我 03456 你相思无用 0437 你是神经 04517 你是我氧气 0456 你是我的 04567 你是我老妻 0457 你是我妻 045692 你是我的最爱 0487 你是白痴 0487561 你是白痴无药医 0564335 好无聊时想想我 0594184 你我就是一辈子 065 原谅我 06537 你惹我生气 07382 你欺恶怕善 0748 你去死吧 07868 你吃饱了吧 08056 你不理我啦 0837 你别生气 08376 你别生气了 095 你找我 098 你走吧 1 字部 1240 最爱是你 1314 一生一世 1314925 一生一世就爱我 1372 一厢情愿 1392010 一生就爱你一个 1414 意思意思 147 一世情 1573 一往情深 1711 一心一意 2 字部 200 爱你哦 20110 爱你一亿年 20160 爱你一万年 20170 爱你一千年 20184 爱你一辈子 2030999 爱你想你久久久 2037 为你伤心 20475 爱你是幸福 20609 爱你到永久 207374 爱你七生七世 20863 爱你到来生 20999 爱你久久久 220225 爱爱你爱爱我 230 爱上你 234 爱相随 235 爱上我 240 爱死你 246 饿死了 246437 爱是如此神奇 25184 爱我一辈子 25873 爱我到今生 25910 爱我久一点 259695 爱我就了解我 259758 爱我就娶我吧 2627 爱来爱去 282 饿不饿 2925184 爱就爱我一辈子 296 爱走了 3 字部 300 想你哦 30920 想你就爱你 309420 想你就是爱你 3013 想你一生 31707 LOVE(把BP机倒过来看) 32012 想念你的爱 32069 想爱你很久 3207778 想和你去吹吹风 330335 想想你想想我 3344 生生世世 3399 长长久久 356 上网了 35910 想我久一点 3731 真心真意 39 THANK YOU 4 字部 440295 谢谢你爱过我 4422335 时时刻刻想想我 4457 速速回机 456 是我啦 460 思念你 5 字部 505 SOS 507680 我一定要追你 510 我依你(我已来) 51020 我依然爱你 51095 我要你嫁我 51396 我要睡觉了 514 无意思 515206 我已不爱你了 51620 我依然爱你 51820 我已不爱你 518720 我一辈子爱你 51920 我依旧爱你 51930 我依旧想你 520 我爱你 5201314 我爱你一生一世 520*10000 我爱你一万年 5203344 我爱你生生世世 52094 我爱你到死 521 我愿意 5230 我爱上你 5240 我爱是你 52406 我爱死你了 526 我饿了 5260 我暗恋你 530 我想你 530184 我想你一辈子 53207778 我想和你去吹吹风 53406 我想死你了 53517230 我想我已经爱上你 5360 我想念你 5366 我想聊聊 5376 我生气了 53719 我深情依旧 53770 我想亲亲你 53782 我心情不好 53880 我想抱抱你 53980 我想揍扁你 540086 我是你女朋友 54033 我是你先生 5406 我是你的 5407 我是你妻 54064 我是你老师 54074 我是你妻子 54086 我是你八啦 5420 我只爱你 54335 无事想想我 543720 我是真心爱你 54430 我时时想你 5452830 无时无刻不想你 546 我输了 5460 我思念你 5490 我去找你 54920 我始终爱你 554528096我无时无刻伴你左右 555 呜呜呜 55646 我无聊死了 556520 我不能不爱你 558 午午安 55926 我有多无聊 5620 我很爱你 562059487 我若爱你我就是白痴 5630 我很想你 564335 无聊时想想我 5670 我要娶你 570 我气你 57350 我只在乎你 57386 我去上班了 57410 我心属于你 574839 我其实不想走 57520 吾妻我爱你 576 我去了 5776 我出去了 578 补习班 58 晚安 584520 我发誓我爱你 586 我不来 587 我抱歉 5871 我不介意 592 我好饿 59240 我最爱是你 59420 我就是爱你 59430 我就是想你 59520 我永远爱你 596 我走了 5976 我到家了 6 字部 609 到永久 6120 懒得理你 6785753 老地方不见不散 6868 溜吧!溜吧! 687 对不起 7 字部 70345 请你相信我 706 起来吧 70626 请你留下来 706519184 请你让我依靠一辈子 7086 七零八落 7087 请你别走 70885 请你帮帮我 721 亲爱的 729 去喝酒 7319 天长地久 737420 今生今世爱你 73748096 今生今世伴你左右 73807 情深怕缘浅 740 气死你 7408695 其实你不了解我 745 气死我 745420 其实我是爱你 7474074 去死去死你去死 74839 其实不想走 756 辛苦了 765 去跳舞 7678 吃饱了吗 770880520 亲亲你抱抱你我爱你 7731 心心相印 7752 亲亲吾爱 775885 亲亲我抱抱我 77543 猜猜我是谁 77895 紧紧抱着我 786 吃饱了 7998 去走走吧 8 字部 8006 不理你了 8013 伴你一生 8074 把你气死 8084 BABY 809 保龄球 82475 被爱是幸福 825 别爱我 837 别生气 8384 不三不四 85 帮我 85941 帮我告诉他 885 帮帮我 860 不留你 865 别惹我 8716 八格耶鲁(日语混蛋) 881 拜拜唉 8834760 漫漫相思只为你 886 拜拜罗
