A public payphone in China began ringing and ringing. Who was calling?
It started in July. The callers live in Gourd Island, and they were hoping to share an important message that they say was being ignored by their local authorities.
BEIJING – For years, the public payphone in Beijing — demurely shielded by its bulbous, yellow cover — sat underused, eclipsed by the rise of the smartphone. Then on a Saturday in July it began ringing ... and ringing ... and ringing.
It rang every Saturday for weeks with a barrage of calls, each a plea for help from residents of a community cut off from the rest of the world.
Curious pedestrians passing by answered the phone as well as volunteers. The pay phone is the star of a performance art to highlight the irony of a hotline in a city hundreds of miles away which has been ignoring cries for help from its own residents.
"The air is constantly laced
