Telex to Internet
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-24 10:58

One line at a time

At the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, which I attended twice a year for one month each time, there was a telex room downstairs at the Dongfang Hotel, where you could perforate your messages on a tape, which you rolled onto a spool.

The result was a spool less than an inch thick and as wide as your message was long.

You then booked a line to your destination - and waited for a connection. Seven hours: that was my record wait in Guangzhou for one telex to New York.

You could not leave the telex office because you had no idea when your line would come through, and when it did you had to take it immediately. The wait had an upside: you weren't alone. You shared the space with as many as twenty seasoned businessmen who had been at the fair many times. There was an atmosphere of camaraderie among traders. Many had bottles of whisky and were willing to share. The stories would flow, yarn upon yarn of China trade stories, of great deals and those that went sour.

Back in Beijing, for years we had to go to the electronic communications building on Changan Avenue, on the other side of Tiananmen Square, to type our messages, then line up and wait just like in Guangzhou (but for much less time since there was less traffic).

We could not receive telexes, because we did not have a machine and so did not have an address. So, to receive messages, we had to ask an FTC if we could use their address instead.

We would go and pick up the telexes in the morning. This friendly system created challenges of confidentiality since the people we were negotiating with read our telexes before we did. For our counterpart to know what our client's position was on pricing was an awkward approach to subtle negotiations. So we developed a code system to address the issue.

We finally got our very own private telex machine in our new offices in the International Club in the 1980s. It was a brand-new, modern, light blue Siemens machine from which we could both send and receive telexes. We were one of the first companies to have this great luxury, which required a dedicated line as well as various approvals. It meant a huge jump in productivity.

But there were glitches too. Once my secretary had already left for the day and the telex line had dropped halfway through an outgoing message.

I had to reconnect and resend but, at $7 a minute, I did not want to resend the whole thing if some of it had already been well received. So I called the central number for telexes in Beijing, explained who I was and could they please tell me how many minutes had been sent?

The operator was most helpful: the line had dropped about halfway through the message, just after the words 'quota for the third shipment' How convenient: she had a copy of my telex right in front of her. It was nice to know that there was a back-up copy of your confidential telexes with the government in case you lost your original.