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Near campus, there are construction sites for apartments, and one of them has this writing on it:

打井 with phone numbers

Repeatedly written is 打井 (dǎjǐng) = "to dig a well", along with a phone number. It's possible that these are all advertising some kind of well-digging service, but it seems an unexpected place to choose to advertise, especially when there's more than one of them. It makes me think there's more to this story.

Question: Why are people writing 打井 (dǎjǐng) = "to dig a well" on this construction site wall?

The other words seem to be:

  • 降水井 (jiàngshuǐ jǐng) = precipitation well

  • 收废品 (shōu fèipǐn) = waste collection

Becky 李蓓
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    I think that is '打 #' following by the actual phone numbers. (meaning 'dial the following numbers' ; or 打 '#' (punch # key) after you dialed the numbers. Those seems to be ads – Tang Ho Jun 02 '18 at 00:55
  • See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%95%E8%99%9F – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 01:13
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    @droooze this is kinda misleading. Apparently, it's the character 井，not a # sign. – dan Jun 02 '18 at 01:29
  • @dan there's no conflict between the two. There's also no evidence that they're advertising for a well-digging service. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 01:31
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    @droooze I'm pretty sure it's 井， especially there is a phrase 降水井. – dan Jun 02 '18 at 01:53
  • @dan so you're saying that one person wrote 井 twice in one advertisement? BTW, the messages in blue look much more like # than 井. Note the first vertical line is not curved at the bottom. Also, the message on the left advertising for something else, not digging a well. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 01:56
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    @droooze those ads were not written by only ONE vendor! Apparently, there are competitions out there. I suspect you have seldom seen this kind of ads within mainland. Those who wrote this kind of ads never pay more attentions on their writings. – dan Jun 02 '18 at 02:12
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    @TangHo No. See the answers – fefe Jun 02 '18 at 02:22
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    @fefe I now agree with droooze's answer, 打井 is code for sex service – Tang Ho Jun 02 '18 at 05:52
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    I believe OP is @ 南开, so there must just literally be a large need for well digging in Tianjin. There is even a 贴吧 especially for advertising: https://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%E5%A4%A9%E6%B4%A5%E6%89%93%E4%BA%95&traceid= – Mou某 Jun 03 '18 at 03:26

6 Answers6

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I myself as a Chinese can tell you that they are all advertisements for well digging, as those places are near the countryside where some villagers might need well for water, therefore those people with the equipment seek those opportunities by these advertisements. The number follows are phone numbers.

Yanfei Zhang
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This and many things like it are what is considered 非法小广告 or illegal small advertisements. No surface is really safe from these ads.

Essentially it's graffiti used to advertise some business or service. Its legitimacy is questionable and is considered a reckless nuisance to public image by local officials. Efforts have been made is some cities to terminate numbers associated with these ads. Theses ads are refered to some as 乱涂写 or “牛皮癣” (psoriasis) to refer to their unsightliness.

The following is a public notice from the Xiangtan City Administrative Commission of theses types of small ads and the type of services advertised:

非法小广告号码

You can say that this is the equivalent of advertising/graffiti you see on bathroom stalls or walls in some countries. Even if you ask locals about theses ads, they seem too shady for most to inquire about.

Krazer
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  • Thank you for providing this. Anything on 打井, further down the list perhaps? 辦證 has already been mentioned in another answer, I don't see why 打井 appears in hardly any searches. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 18:18
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    OP does not give context of the region specifically. So it may just be an small ad for labor based on regional projects. I. E. 打井 ads in places with public 深井排污 projects. See: http://finance.sina.com.cn/china/20130316/053914852225.shtml – Krazer Jun 02 '18 at 18:34
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While 打井 indeed means "digging a well", it is also used as a euphemism for sex (you can Google something like 打井是什麽意思), so 打井1234567 can potentially mean to call 1234567 for sex.

dROOOze
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    There's an interesting post here. https://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=5696121289&mo_device=1&ssid=0&from=1000953f&uid=0&pu=usm@0,sz@320_1002,ta@iphone_2_7.0_2_7.3&bd_page_type=1&baiduid=FF22DF561569F3860E45C40E2A747D99&tj=www_normal_6_0_10_title&referer=m.baidu.com?pn=0& – dan Jun 02 '18 at 06:11
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    Most people would not take it as sexual thing, unless it's described as the way in that post. I tend to believe that the ads from OP's just meant its literal meaning. – dan Jun 02 '18 at 06:14
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    @dan OP mentions the photos were taken "near campus" (I assume this is a university campus). I'd be much less inclined to think it was really for digging wells if this campus is located far away from rural areas, where well-digging services are often required. Anyway, we really wouldn't know the real answer unless we ask the locals living where the photos are taken. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 06:23
  • Jenny, don't change your number. – Robert Columbia Jun 02 '18 at 11:37
  • This is misleading, and definitely an inappropriate answer. I couldn't find any other web threads to support the meaning of 打井 here. – WDC Jun 02 '18 at 14:33
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    @WDC Please read the answer again. (1) you haven't searched deeply enough if you can't find other sites corroborating the meaning of 打井. Half of the first page of Google results of 打井是什麽意思 has 打井 used as this euphemism. (2) I said potentially, because I know fully well that I can't confirm the real answer. But since OP didn't provide the location of said campus or even mentioned whether it was near a rural area or not, saying that it's providing well-digging services is also misleading - but you didn't seem to have a problem with those answers. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 14:37
  • @drooze For me, the first a few Google results are only about 周公解梦, “梦见打井是什么意思”. I cannot reproduce your claims. If possible, please, include more pages to support your answer. As for the first comment, it is no more than a joke picture. It should not be over-interpreted. – WDC Jun 02 '18 at 14:43
  • @WDC I must have been glancing at the suggested baidu questions instead. These baidu questions (女人说打井什么意思, 男人口中说的打井是什么意思意思) appear right under the first result of the Google search. Anyway, the only thing that's inappropriate is your strange interpretation of my answer. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 14:49
  • @droooze Here are two links of your reply: 男人口中说的打井是什么意思 and 女人说打井什么意思. Have you noticed the "thumbs-up“ vs "down"? Are those answers justified your claims? I don't think so. – WDC Jun 02 '18 at 14:53
  • @WDC Stop making misleading comments. The first one has thumbs up almost equal to the number of thumbs down, and the second one has more thumbs up than thumbs down. Please note that zhidao.baidu also has huge numbers of thumbs down on correct answers as well, because the content is not controlled. I believe I've not made any firm claims in any of my answer or comments, so please take your strange problems and misleading comments elsewhere. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 14:55
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    My final comment: as long as you can list all the reliable sources for your answer, +1. Otherwise, this is misleading. For my 20+ years living in mainland China I have never heard of such interpretation of 打井. – WDC Jun 02 '18 at 15:08
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    @WDC Then your judgement on all issues is misleading, because there is no reliable source that says the photo was taken near a rural area, so to interpret it as well-digging is incredibly shallow. Also, you don't seem to understand how euphemisms work. They work best when most of the population don't know what they mean. If your partner were a construction worker having potentially extramarital sex, storing contact details as 打井 would work precisely because non-assuming people (like yourself) wouldn't be able to guess what it means. Please think carefully before you make such comments. – dROOOze Jun 02 '18 at 15:12
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    It doesn't explain 降水井 and 打井降水 at all. So I'll not waste my time explaining how absurd this idea is and why. – user23013 Jun 02 '18 at 19:19
  • Just stop arguing and someone just call those numbers and tell us what they are all about! – Enrico Brasil Jun 07 '18 at 14:59
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I searched "打井降水" on a Chinese search engine. The results show that it means digging(打) a well(井) and pumping water out, to lower(降) the groundwater(水，地下水) and keep the construction site dry, i.e. dewatering. Therefore I think they are advertisements targeting the construction site.

jingyu9575
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Maybe you just curious about well-digging, this is very common in China, almost all fields in north need irrigation by mechanical well, 机井 runs by water pump.

I don't know the reason behind this, it is not good, mass 机井 will deplete underground water, but it seems people don't have other choice. :(

What a strange question, Who the heck knows why they are advertising there, it may be:

The construction builder also supply well-digging service.

The builder live near by the construction.

They dig a well for a customer near by the construction once.

Somebody know the digger, he just advertising randomly to act like a middle man.

The text has been there along with the metal plank.

...

BTW

This is a strangest advertising, 办证(Fake certificates) , the text is written all over China, they all have same font type like written by same guy.

This mysterious has confused Chinese many years.

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sfy
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Those are ads. You can call those numbers for digging a well 打井. And there's a number for waste collection 收废品. I'm not sure why they put that 打井 ad there, but there should be some potential customer needs there.

dan
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