CNReviews 2008 Summary > Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3
What an incredible, historic year. In CNReviews’ 1st year, we experienced what is likely to be one of the most memorable years in recent history for China and world. Part One covers from late December 2007 to April 2008. Part Two will covers May 2008–the month of the Wenchuan earthquake–through August 2008–the month of the Olympics. Part Three will cover September 2008 through December 2008, including CNBloggerCon, the China 2.0 Tour, and the global economic meltdown.
I should also mention that Kai, Min, David, and I are extremely grateful for our guest bloggers, our readers and commenters. OK, here we go down memory lane!
December 2007
I was inspired to launch CN Reviews because I observed a one-way mirror effect where the world saw through the mirror to America but Americans failed to look through the other way. We wanted to change that. To get started, we reviewed CNBloggerCon 2007 in 4 parts…part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4) and shared about a new generation of Chinese bloggers including the Chinese Blogger Network and Aw Guo.
January 2008
Happy New Year! David Feng joined CN Reviews this month! We branched out into several topics:
Web 2.0 and the blogosphere – Min reviewed the 10 most viewed Chinese blogs and also shared about 1kg.org, a grassroots Web 2.0 NGO in China. We also also defended Robert Scoble from his online critics. We also blogged about China microblogging, Abang, and QQ.
Business and economy – Elliott started posting about the strange global imbalances causing each and every American to owe the Chinese government $4,000. Min shared new learnings about the new 2008 New Labor Contract Law.
Culture and society – David kicked off his Mind the Gap series about cultural differences about queues and the trust factor, and shared about David’s KTV birthday party in Beijing.
Travel and practical tips – ways to call China for free…my favorite Shanghai room rental service, Fays Rooms…the new 2008 Beijing Subway Line 5…
February 2008
February highlights include Spring Festival and the terrible South China ice rain.
Spring Festival – David posted about Beijing spring festival fever, on the Po Wu (破五) tradition on the fifth day of Spring Festival, and reflected on how Beijing has changed over the years. Min posted some pictures of Shanghai in the snow and an interesting Chinese New Year Food Map. She also shared some interesting photos about the Temple Fair (miaohui) in Hubei. Elliott posted on northern Chinese vs southern Chinese differences in celebrating Chinese New Year and the Yew Chung Silicon Valley gala.
South China storms – February also marked the first major disaster of the year, with South China freezing rain and ice rain.
Web 2.0 and blogosphere – We posted an interview with Livid, founder of V2EX and then broke the news that V2EX was shut down due to harassment and his loss of interest. Min also visited Silicon Valley and attended the BIL Conference where we met Robert Scoble.
Culture and society – David noted the rising trend of zijiache, or self driving. In Mind the Gap we posted about cultural differences in timing, authority, driving in lanes, and spending money. David also famously compared Beijing hairstyles to Beijing Subway station architecture. Elliott highlighted some interesting infographics by Yang Liu on cultural differences.
Travel and practical tips – Beijing Airport Terminal 3 pre-opening drive-by, Beijing and Tianjin subway comparison, misinformation in mainstream media about transit details.
March 2008
March saw the opening of Beijing Airport Terminal 3 (T3), Shanghai Pudong Airport Terminal 2 (T2), and some beginning anticipation of the Olympics.
Web 2.0 and blogosphere – As a guide to foreigners unfamiliar with the Chinese blogosphere, Min put together an incomplete who’s who in the Chinese blogosphere. David also discussed microblogging in China and the lack of adoption. In Beijing, David attended a Peking Duck blogger meetup, the first Beijing Tweetup, and Elliott noted the first Twitter marriage proposal (in the US). We also commented on the BIL conference in Monterey, CA, and offered some useful blogging tips from Avinash Kaushik of Occam’s Razor.
Culture and society – Our Mind the Gap continued with cultural differences on perfection, smoking, freelancing, public speaking, and gender roles in business. Elliott also wrote up a post on cross-cultural bonding in Beijing KTV complete with a song (Wang Qing Shui 忘情水) with lyrics in pinyin. Meg Stivison posted about Wang Ba, internet cafes in China.
Business and economy – Kai blogged about The China Business Network Xintiandi Racks meetup in Shanghai and Elliott blogged about Christine Lu’s Vlogging tour, including Eric Kerner of Adidas, Jeff Hu of HealthOne.cn, Shaun Rein, Siok Siok Tan, and Tracy Deng, VP of Marketing at Tudou. While Kai blogged about the decline in Alibaba stock price, Elliott started blogging about dollar decline, hedging RMB appreciation, and the RMB-USD exchange rate.
Beijing – The exciting transportation news of the month was the opening of the new Beijing Airport Terminal 3 (T3). David also provides some remarks on Beijing clear skies, Beijing subway updates, an advertorial for his Beijingology sites, and pictures of the surrounding countryside around Beijing. Elliott blogged about his quick art tour at Dashanzi 798 Art District (part 1, part 2).
Shanghai – We also wrote about Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport Terminal 2 (T2), which opened March 26. Kai also blogged about an exciting Shanghai Olympic Games concert in anticipation of the games later this year.
April 2008
In April, we were excited about China’s prospects in technology and the overall economy.
Web 2.0 and blogosphere – CN Reviews is recognized on China.Alltop.com! We wrote about some technology trends: what do Chinese netizenry actually use,on Tencent’s plan to build a 3000-person search army, a skeptical look at Alibaba’s TrustPass, and translated an online travel report of 2007 from Baidu. We also highlighted an exceptional Plus Eight Star intro to Asian social networks. In the Chinese blogosphere, 1kg.org celebrated their 4rd anniversary on April 18, and CNBloggerCon polled bloggers on where to hold the 2008 event. We engaged in an analysis of China Twitterati that smelled like “excitable dorkitude” and “self-referential narcissism” to Kaiser Kuo. Guilty as charged.
Min and Kai also put together some excellent tips to using a proxy server in China (China proxy server part 1, China proxy server part 2).
Society and culture – David continued to Mind the Gap about ancestral authority, workplace relationships, focus of mainstream news, qianxu (modesty), hunong (badly done) vs. zixi (precisely done). Elliott noted some interesting world opinions of the U.S. and China from BBC World Survey…basically the world likes China more than they like the U.S. David also pioneered a concept of “International Chinese.”
Business and economy - Elliott suggests that the RMB will emerge as a new Asian reserve currency, and noted that RMB broke the 7:1 mark on 4/11. Elliott also provides some cool charts about cross-Asia residential real estate. Kai finds a great list on 10 reasons why China matters, and reviews NextStep Shanghai mixers.
Beijing - David shares some rants about when the Beijing Subway starts not making sense, comments on Beijing subway station design, and posts pictures of Beijing in the rain.
Shanghai – Min put together a useful post on Shanghai South Railway Station, and Kai posted another useful article on how to get from Shanghai airport to city center
Practical tips – One of the most useful posts of the month: China public holidays 2008
That sums up our first four months. The next post will include the momentous Wenchuan earthquake and the Olympic Games. I’ll post the rest of our 2008 internal review in the next few days (yes in 2009). Happy New Year to everyone!
