About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

2008 coined the Chinese internet meme: 很黄，很暴力 (”very yellow, very violent”). Despite roundly being used in the most humorous of situations, few things truly exemplify the dark side of this meme more than two videos that have spread across the Chinese-language internet this year.

The first video hit critical mass in early July, appearing on various forums and blogs. In the video, a naked and withdrawn teenage girl is commanded to do ludicrous things such as marching in place while enduring beatings by other youths, some classmates, seven girls and four boys in total. It is also suggested that the girl was raped before the video begins.

• Tianya BBS: 女生遭轮奸后又被同学凌辱 并被拍视频放上网 (Chinese)
• ChinaRen BBS: 女生被轮 奸遭凌辱视频引网友热议 (Chinese)
• chinaSMACK: Naked Chinese Girl Attacked By Cantonese Teens [NSFW] (English)
• Sankaku Complex:Girls Preside Over Classmate’s Gang Violation (English)

The second video hit critical mass this past week, again appearing on various forums and blogs. The accompanying story suggests that this girl was being punished by classmates seeking retribution for her stealing from them at least three times. Within the video, the girl offers to appease her enemies by taking off her clothes for the camera rather than being beaten up.

• Mop BBS: 广东女中学生偷东西被威胁脱衣凌辱拍视频 (Chinese)
• chinaSMACK: Naked Schoolgirl Video, Punishment For Stealing [NSFW] (English)

Reactions to both videos can best be described as “expected,” with the overwhelming majority of people all outraged by teenagers ganging up on an girl, beating, exploiting, and humiliating her…all on film. Also expected are the implicit and explicit multitudes of people, both men and women, further spreading or seeking these videos, and the people who lecture them for doing so.

Yet, within the public discourse surrounding these videos, there seems to be two major camps of apoplectic rage:

• Those more outraged by the content of the video, who tend to spread the video to draw more outrage to the video.
• Those more outraged by the video being spread, who insist that the spread of the video is categorically contemptible.

We bare witness to a profound social phenomenon…and conundrum.

1. Are these videos “viral?” Or are these videos a “virus?”
2. Is the rapid spread of these videos natural, illustrating some human social mechanism at work? Or is it unhealthy, revealing something deeply wrong with society? Something else?
3. Should these videos be suppressed, whether to protect the identity or dignity of the participants or to prevent a portion of the population from deriving a socially unacceptable voyeuristic pleasure from it?
4. In the internet age, can these videos realistically be suppressed at all? What ramifications for the “victims”, the “aggressors”, and society at large are there for suppressing or not suppressing? What is “better” or “right” for society?
5. If these videos cannot entirely be suppressed, then how should society react? How should society respond both to the spread of the video and to incident evidenced by the video? Again, what is “better” or “right” for society?
6. What do our responses say about our own worldview, about where we draw the lines separating the individual and society, the private and the public?
7. Is there a difference between the reactions of the average Chinese netizen and the average “Western” netizen? Would your answers above change based upon what society you are in, whether “Chinese” or “Western?”

Speaker: Lu Gang. PhD, TechCrunch (mobinode), blognation (readwritebweb)

Old school BBS: The Chinese Social Networking Phenomenon
China’s Facebook Clones

Research and Development – Jboss and J2EE
Business Development – netvibes Asia

Why Open Web Asia?
In US/Europe Web, becoming an international company is relatively much easier!
And language is not a huge barrier, eg. Le web 3. In Asia, is there any cross country web company or service?

What is really happening in asia?
Korea - naver.com still dominating the market, online gaming is conquering the world, eg. Nexon, CMUNE, CyWorld is operating in the US, StoryBlender won TechCrunch 40, Wisia.us, just look at the design.

Japan – mobile market is probably 5 years ahead of the rest of the world. eg. FelicaNetworks; always the entry market for western service, eg. Youtube, facebook, twitter etc; also clones, but with more innovations, Nicovideo.jp

Hong Kong – small market. Not many startups, but they focus on global market, eg.  AliveNotDead; Some companies have their office set up in GZ/BJ/SH, eg. CityIN, Moochi etc.

India – is not really in Web2.0, but they don’t have the language barrier and very active in western market, eg. SlideShare.net. Startups are getting hot, eg. Buurp, Picsquare etc.

Singapore – small market but its government is very supportive and keeps track on the trend of the web.

Israel – many startups actually are founded by Israeli entrepreneurs, eg. Snapfish

Vietnma - The battle place when those big names decide to go abroad.

China – The most active market in Asia! SNS, Video-sharing, Open platform, P2P, B2B, C2C etc. the market is so promising, Those startups founded by foreigners who live in China, eg. Qifang, Neocha, Chinesepod, etc. are doing great work. Mobile market is much larger than wired web market and more mature; web market is still young and still entertainment-centric.

The OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup ‘08
Pepared for 3 months,

Mission
Build an efficient channel connecting the Western and Eastern and web. Bring more Asian countries and regions into openwebasia and bridges Asia local markets. Build an ecosystem that recognizes great startups, individuals in Asia.

OWA is working with netexplorateur to reward 100 innovative companies of the year

speaker contact info:

• uklugang@hotmail.com
• www.mobinode.com

Melissa Sconyers was just announced as the winner of the contest to join the blogger tour to China and blog for Mashable!  The contest was sponsored by VisualCV and promoted by Mashable, and the tour led/organized by The China Business Network, Web2Asia, and CN Reviews.

Melissa’s winning VisualCV

Here’s Melissa’s profile on VisualCV: http://www.visualcv.com/msconyers

UPDATE: Be sure to follow Melissa here:

• Twitter:  girk
• Blog: gee.ky

I asked Pierce Resler, Director of Marketing of VisualCV, what she wanted to say about Melissa and why she was selected. This is what she had to say:

We were impressed by all the contest entrants…However, Melissa’s VisualCV put her in front of the pack. Using several of the features of VisualCV.com, Melissa depicted her experience, passion and talents in a multimedia and visually compelling format allowing all of the judges to understand how she is a perfect addition to the China 2.0 Tour.  The ability to include text to outline your experiences and expertise alongside of examples, supporting documents and links help make a VisualCV powerful. Melissa tapped this to build a VisualCV that taught us about her and sold us on selecting her as the winner. Congratulations, Melissa!

VisualCV is partnered with The China Business Network and also with Guy Kawasaki.  With ardent promoters like Christine Lu and Guy Kawasaki, I think we’ll hear a lot more about this company.  According to Pierce, VisualCV’s can be a resume, online professional profile, business development tool, mini website, speaker’s bio, or any use you can think of.  Ultimate self-promoter Guy Kawasaki says so too.

I learned a lot about Melissa that I wouldn’t have on a traditional paper resume, which by the way I think is totally obsolete.  For example, she worked as a photojournalist for That’s Beijing (now called The Beijinger). Her Flickr photostream really got my attention and I can’t wait to go on tour with her.  Here’s a sample from her China Favorites album:

Congratulations Melissa!

I first met Oliver right after the Sichuan Earthquake

I became acquainted with Oliver Ding’s design work right after the Sichuan Earthquake.  He had put together a SlideShare presentation to help earthquake victims in China.  It may have been the even been one of the inspiration for my putting together the Sichuan Earthquake donation guide.  Oliver saw the guide, and put together a SlideShare version of the CN Reviews donation guide.  I collected 24+ ways to give (eventually 40+ ways) and Oliver cleverly worked it into this graphical image:

In this way, he brought together two powerful images:  (1) the image of the Red Cross, and (2) the image of the Chinese flag.  He used these powerful images to reinforce the intent of the donation guide, which was to provide people with the information they needed to take action and give money. His 24+ Ways to Give SlideShare slideshow was an inspiration to me and demonstrated how SlideShare could be used to spread the word, demonstrating the power of SlideShare as social media.  More about Oliver Ding here.

INTRODUCING: the New CN Reviews Identity by Oliver Ding

I wanted to create some CN Reviews business cards for CNBloggerCon 2008 and asked Oliver to consider putting together a new identity for CN Reviews.  I was pleased when he accepted!  He then asked all the right questions that led to our new identity.  Here is the grand unveiling of his work!

 

Oliver’s comments were as follows:

I designed the new brand identity of CN Reviews.

See attached two pictures.  The idea is very simple:

1. Letter “C” means “China”, “Community” and “Communication”;
2. C is ear which mean listening;
3. C also is wave which mean spread;
4. C seems like splash-ink, a technique of Chinese ink-painting (泼墨 pomo)

This really captured the original inspiration for CN Reviews, our focus on China, our interest in being a bridge between China and the West, and our passion for listening and understanding.

We tried some other variations, at my request, but Oliver’s first version was the best.

 

Here’s why:

I later discovered that Oliver had done work for other social media non profits, including Social Brain Foundation and CNBloggerCon

Oliver has also done some incredible branding and logo work for other non-profits and companies.  Here are some that  you might be familiar with:

Social Brain Foundation

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category

According to Oliver, the Social Brain Foundation(SBF) is trying to encourage the use of social media to enable collaboration among free individuals to deliver better ideas and better results. Isaac Mao presented earlier this year at Rebecca MacKinnon’s CIRC Conference on how the social brain is evolving in China.

OOPS:  Opensource Opencourseware Prototyping System

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category  

Read more about the OOPS logo and introduction on Oliver’s blog.

CNBloggerCon 2005

Oliver was also the designer for the 2005 CNBloggerCon, and subsequent logos have continued to use his ideas.

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category

Here is the story of how Oliver came up with the logo for CNBloggerCon 2005.

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category  

Oliver’s visual images have greatly inspired me, and I’m honored and privileged that Oliver judged our efforts worthy of his time and investment.  Thanks Oliver!  I hope I can see you in China wearing a new CN Reviews T-Shirt!

 

Enter NOW to win a FREE trip to blog from China! (or read below if you are interested in the back story)

During a trip to China in May, Christine Lu of The China Business Network and I developed a seed of an idea to bring Western bloggers to China to create more dialogue and mutual understanding between the West and China.  We wanted to build bridges and fight homophily (and read more about xenophilia on GVO co-founder Ethan Zuckerman’s blog).  Turns out this idea (especially inviting non-Chinese speaking foreigners to CNBloggerCon (zh)) was more controversial than I would have expected, at least among you commenters on CNReviews.

This seed has now come to fruition as The China 2.0 Tour, which is hosted by The China Business Network, Web2Asia, and CNReviews, and sponsored by Edelman Digital Media PRC.  More info on joining the tour here.

Mashable just announced that VisualCV is sponsoring one blogger to join us on this tour.

WHO IS GOING:

The tour already includes some amazing people, including:

• Shel Israel, invited international speaker at CNBloggerCon. Please read his post on why he’s excited to go to China. (Global Neighborhoods blog, Twitter: @shelisrael)
• Sam Lawrence (GoBigAlways blog, Jive Software, Twitter: @samlawrence)
• myself (CN Reviews, Elliott Ng on Visual CV, UpTake, Twitter: @elliottng)
• David Feng, speaker at CNBloggerCon (CN Reviews, TechBlog86, Beijingology, Twitter: @DavidFeng)
• Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (Bomega Blog, The Next Web blog, Twitter: @bomega) woops, sorry
• Ernst-Jan Pfauth (The Next Web blog, DutchProBlogger blog, Twitter: @dutchproblogger)
• Also, Robert Scoble will try to join us for part of the tour as he will be touring China around the same time!  We wanted him to join but he is juggling other commitments.

WHAT IS HAPPENING:

We’re going to meet with a variety of companies, entrepreneurs, and bloggers and get a deeper look at China that you can’t get just by reading Western media and Chinese media.  More specifics will be posted on CN Reviews and the official China 2.0 Blog. We’ll be going to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

WHEN IS THE CONTEST DUE:

According to Mashable, the contest to win the trip: October 16th to 27th, 2008.

WHEN IS THE TRIP:

The actual trip dates are: Arrive Beijing Sunday November 9th, Depart Beijing Monday November 17th, 2008.  From the US, you would have to fly out Saturday November 8th.

HOW TO APPLY:

you can see more details on the Mashable site.  You have to create a free VisualCV and then notify them at china2.0@visualcv.com and they will review and announce the winner on October 28th.  Here’s my Visual CV.  Click this link to enter now.

I’ll blog more about the tour in the coming month.  I’m leaving for China November 4th and will be in Beijing before the tour.

On CNReviews, we showcase the best, the most innovative, and the most interesting debate about the Chinese Web 2.0 as the week draws to a close…

This week has been the first “real” week after the October Break, which this year was moved ahead two days to start September 29, 2008. We’re starting out with some of the most known tech-related sites in China; we’ll expand our view a tad later on and help shine spotlights on some of the lesser known sites that have interesting views to share…

Kaiser Kuo’s Digital Watch

Probably one of the most notable and Must-Keep-Your-Eyes-On-This tech blogs in the PRC is that from Kaiser Kuo. The bilingual Digital Watch posted quite a number of interesting posts throughout the past week…

• The US markets have plummeted beyond recognition, and the very same can be said for much of the world’s economy, so there’s a post about how the downturn will impact China’s Internet sector. Kaiser spoke with David Wolf of Wolf Group Asia. Funding is expected to get tight, but at the same time, local VCs with RMB-denominated funds could really jump into the limelight.

The DF (David Feng) Take: I chatted with my best friend in Singapore just days ago, and the consensus is that the world economy has taken a hell of a beating. China is likely to face less impact, though, as its economy is not exactly USA II (either in terms of policy, or “opennness”, or the somewhat-convertible Renminbi Yuan). However, bits and pieces of the PRC economically connected with the US on a larger scale will likely get hit — quite a number of export factories around Guangzhou and Shenzhen have apparently felt the punch.

As an entrepreneur-to-be (I do, after all, want to start my own company), the thing that gets you out of the starting gate is MONEY. The CNY still buys less than the USD if you’re looking at the whole thing on a “How-Much-Is-This-Dollar-Worth-In-Terms-Of-Actual-Renminbi” basis (as in USD 1 = approx. CNY 6.8 or something like that), but the Renminbi is the currency of the future. It will appreciate. Money from any (legit!) source is what gets your company out of the starting gate. If I had to start a company the next second, I’ll look for both local and global players to get the money in — never discount the local VCs!

The Mobinode

• Gang Lu’s excellent (and equally bilingual) The Mobinode tells of the imminent inaugural Open Web Asia 08 Conference. There’s a 10% discount (if you act really quick — they could’ve already disappeared…)

The DF Take: If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve commitments in Beijing that have more than implanted me here, I’d have flown over to South Korea in no time. I wish the inaugural Open Web Asia 08 Conference nothing but the best, and am confident that they’ll do more than well. I hear that @loiclemeur’s headed to Seoul.

China Web 2.0 Review

China Web 2.0 Review, written mainly by Tangos Chan, but also by others of note, has been tracking the next-generation Web in China for quite a while and is worth a read.

• BlogBus is about to launch an SNS service — this is of note as Blogbus is a relatively well-established blog provider based in Shanghai. 100 users have been invited to test the new SNS service. Also of interest: the new SNS will not have games such as “Friends for Sale”. The report rounds up saying:

2008 will be marked as a year of SNS in China, but most of those social networking sites look similar. Can Blogbus bring some surprises to us?

Well said, Tangos. The PRC web needs more innovation and less imitation.

The DF Take: First of, I’m really pleased that the new SNS will not have pointless (the way I see it). Second of all, this is going to be a brave new step for an established blog provider.

Just before this post went to press the Internet, I heard by way of a few tweets that China Unicom may also have did its own SNS thing. There’s nothing wrong with SNSs — and do note that the Chinese as a whole are more group-oriented than individualistic — but doing 1.3 billion SNS services pushes the whole thing to saturation point. Things will eventually happen — and for some, it won’t be all that good.

• Also of note: Don’t Just Talk At Me, Talk With Me — two video clips about how to be newly successful in China’s changing branding environment.

Not enough on the previous go?  I thought so, but hey, writing a million-word post is probably not the best thing out there. The average attention span for the average human being is more along the lines of — something like two minutes.

And that’s why we need to start chopping things into chunks.

Now on with the show… a look at the rest of the year 2008… (or what we’ve had so far…)

A Freer Internet With Less Walls

You know the funniest stuff about the whole Internet thing in China as the Olympics drew close? We started hear less and less from the Great Firewall!

太阳从西边升起… (tai yang cong xi bian sheng qi; Chinese for “And the Sun will rise from the West”) …this was, in essence, the mood on the Chinese Internet. Auntie Beeb news — wall gone.

The blocks were soon lifted on the Chinese Wikipedia, ET Today (from ETTV Media Taiwan), and even on the — get this — Kuomintang’s website! All of a sudden, the blocks were gone.

But not in full. Falun Gong-related sites were still blocked. And websites that were shut down in mainland China domestically were gone from the public eye. But for a lot of us, the unblocking of the BBC and the Chinese Wikipedia were already big things. (They still remain unblocked to this very day as we write this.)

#080808: @flypig & Co Start A Classic

Nothing is more of a classic — or was more of a classic — than the #080808 invention just before the Beijing Olympics. While it was a bit too “obvious” that @flypig came up with the invention, others did come up with the very number as well, and thus to call @flypig the “sole inventor” is surely a tad on the unfair side.

The Chinese Twittersphere went completely crazy with #080808. #080808 found itself in many a tweet and, indeed, in many a Twitter icon. If “Chinese reunification” were to be attempted, #080808 would be the first unifier, as tweeters from both side of the Taiwan Straits went mad #080808-ing.

@flypig and Co’s invention were good enough to land themselves airtime in the New York Times. This is the Chinese Twittersphere in full force, and what a job they did.

Post-Olympics & Paralympics, What’s Next?

So the Games came and went. What’s next at the Olympics and Paralympics end? Here’s a more recent recap of what’s big on the Chinese Twittersphere:

• Chrome: When Google Chrome came out, the Chinese Twittersphere almost immediately reacted. Some of us went crazy downloading Chrome (while those on Macs presumably had to sit out and wait). Views were mixed — however, one of the more un-good piece of news was that Chrome for China was still unavailable (it was pretty much a case of an English-language-only case of the browser).

• New Twitter interface: @flypig famously remarked that this was nothing too new — “I’m convinced the new Twitter interface is merely a case of changing the soup, not changing the medicine.” On a more personal note, yours truly is just getting used to the fact that tabs are on the right — you see, almost everything he uses has tabs on the top.

• Sanlu: Sanlu got itself a whole load of trouble when its milk got tainted with poison. The Chinese Twittersphere took Sanlu to task, and when it was heard that all (or nearly all) Chinese milk producers were hit, talks of boycotts and “don’t-buy-Sanlu” rhetoric were all the rage. Jokes about Sanlu were also part of the fever. Finally, news proclaming Sanyuan’s takeover of the now-tainted Sanlu prompted calls to boycott Sanyuan, hitherto the only “clean” brand.

Closing Notes from @DavidFeng: Watch the Balance

Being a mass tweeter, I often spend too much time in Twitter — it’s only as of late that I’m moving back to my blog Raccolta Online, which served like a propaganda ghost town prior to the mass personal blogging beginning earlier this month.

I’m also appearing on Facebook more and more frequently. Those are good moves. Web 2.0 should not only be about Twitter and/or Facebook. There should be more to this.

Watch the balance is my word of the day. By all means, tweet like mad — but if you’re just having accounts on Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites “for the heck of it”, you’re missing out on a lot.

You may have noticed a recent reduction in my otherwise uncontrollable tweeting. Think of it this way: after dumping a huge chunk of butter on the bread, I’m finally spreading it thin throughout the whole thing. Facebook… blogs… it’s good to do multi Web 2.0 sites.

Just maybe not too much…

It’s just about two months before the Chinese Blogger Conference 2008 is reality — I’m already thinking of making a second trip back (last year was my first). Since that 2007 conf in Beijing (which was really close to where I lived), the Chinese Internet has changed quite a bit.

Ten months. Maybe not the best time for a Year in Review. Or maybe, a Year-Minus-Two-Months in Review. (They told me to lay off slashes in conversation, but they never said anything about dashes)…

Start of the Year: The Whales That Failed To Tweet

At the start of the year, it was obvious that Twitter was on the way up. Even if it was the Chinese Twitter, Jiwai.de, that had stolen the spotlight at the Chinese Blogger Conference in 2007, Twitter took significant leads in 2008 as its popularity continued to explode.

Of particular note was when @christinelu “did her magic” to get @goldkorn (of @danwei fame) tweeting. This was not the kind of thing a mere mortal could do. In the meantime, we got, by way of Twitter, news about Beijing gearing up for the Games, the occasional “must-check-this-out” link, but also, to some extents, more sightings of the infamous or even, at that, notorious Twitter whale. You know — the thing that comes up when Twitter’s on its last legs.

Sightings of the whale became disturbingly regular in April and May 2007, as even my occasional Subway tweets were fed to the whale. The semi-crippling of Twitter for WWDC 2008, it seemed, got Twitter through the worst (@TechCrunch was watching you), and apparently, since early summer 2008, we’ve seen less and less of the whale.

(Now that I posted this, though, we’re sure to see the thing back. I should have never posted this…)

Lhasa Riots + Clipped Photos = CNN Gets Taken To Task

When violence broke out in Lhasa, fellow tweeters were immediately informed of this. The Chinese media, for the first time, broke with precedent and showed “controversial content” that previously could not be shown — such as (in particular) the Tibetan flag and actual violent scenes.

Chinese central television continued to blame what they called the “Dalai Lama clique” for the unrest. Yet in an interesting twist to the story, Netizens discovered that western media organizations (notably CNN) appeared to have clipped photos to distort the facts. An anti-cnn.com site went up and was all the rage. People posted those pics across Facebook and took CNN to task. Jack Cafferty apparently insulting the Chinese — either the government or the people — proved to be the last straw, making both civilians and the Chinese government furious.

This was not the way to get into action in the final 100 days to the Olympics. Smear campaign, bad timing, whatever; even in “far-away” Beijing, things turned out to be not all that “harmonious”.

May 12, 2008: When The Earth Shook

The whole situation in Tibet was spiralling out of control. It looked like things couldn’t get worse.

Turns out it did.

At 14:28 on May 12, 2008, a massive, 7.9-magnitude shook Wenchuan, Sichuan, first burying schools, then causing a whole series of aftershocks. The death toll climbed to 70,000 (missing 17,000+). This was the worst quake since Tangshan, and the fact that the epicenter was pretty close to the ground made the whole thing a lot worse.

The Net was immediately abuzz with pictures of frogs crossing the street. In an interesting spin, local media reportedly reported (pardon the pun) that these frogs, scrambling for their lives, appeared to be “normal”. A cover-up, it seemed, may have been underway before the earth shook. YouTube also showed movies of what could have very well been earthquake lights.

The reaction from Zhongnanhai was almost instantaneous. Wen Jiabao rushed to the region, followed by Hu Jintao a few days later. In memory of those who died in the quake, and for the first time in PRC history (due to natural disasters), flags were lowered to half-mast from May 19 through to May 21, 2008, during the national period of mourning.

The Chinese Web immediately reacted to all this. Web sites in China went grey or black-and-white during the three days of mourning. Even sites like the Beijing Subway fan forum went grey; network maps, once a joyous mix of orange, green and aqua, went grey. Entertainment sites were sealed for 72 hours.

The Twittersphere observed three minutes of silence from 14:28 through to 14:31 as the Internet world appeared to stand still. Search engines recorded a massive drop in search requests during these three minutes. The effects of the quake and its aftermath were felt across the nation, and across the Internet. Even before and after the three minutes, Chinese tweeters turned themselves grey, or black-and-white; yours truly went totally black.

Outside in the “real world”, cars stood still and horns and sirens sounded at 14:28. Radio announcers were full of emotion — the kind that jerked tears from many a listener. People who were totally unaffected by the quake burst spontaneously into tears as the sheer force of a nation coming to a complete full stop at 14:28, to the sound of wailing sirens and car horns, was too much to bear. Even the platform TV screen on the Beijing Subway’s Line 5 service, which used to announce when the next train was about to come, went black. Flags across the PRC were at half-staff. Newspapers turned totally black to mourn those who lost their lives in this tragic quake. Museum guides prefaced every tour with a note of the quake.

Socials Through The First Half of 2008

Yet despite the tensions in Tibet and the tremors in Sichuan, the Chinese Web 2.0 world continued — and feasted through the first six months. Yours truly, along with @sioksiok, co-hosted a number of Beijing Tweetups (and they’re about to make a comeback). The tweetups were incredibly good opportunities to get to meet the people behind the tweeting, to share a few good pics and laughs, and just, all in all, to have a good time. Some people, though, started tweeting during the tweetups — which could be little short of just an amazing practise.

Also of note was the CHINICT meeting in May 2008, which brought together noted Web 2.0 bigs in the Chinese blogosphere. The meetup co-organized by sites and groups including CN Reviews at the Loong Bar, in particular, proved to be a fantastic chance to meet Web 2.0 key leaders and players. Also, meeting people while subscribing to their Twitter feeds turned out to be a good thing (on a personal note, though, it’s just “too bad” that yours truly turns out to be too prolific, thereby drowning out the conversation).

You know what? There’s too much that happened in the ten months leading to this year’s Chinese Blogger Conference. We smell a sequel.

Several days ago, ESWN posted a translation of a Tianya post titled “What is the reason China’s younger generation is losing confidence in the Western media?”

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The Chinese representative retorted, “Your country has been promoting democracy in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?” The British representative shut up …

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values. They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve the western media using their international speech rights to say awful things about countries which do not have western-style democracy. China appears to be the constant target of the western media. This is understandable, because Chinese-style democracy is different from the western style and China has blazed its own trail. The easiest to say that your stuff is good by sayingthat the stuff from the other side is bad. The western media are very good at that and they can pull these types of reports out of thin air. If you want to go back further in time, there was the front page story in TIME magazine in 1997. If you want something closer in time, there are all those stories about the Olympic torch relays earlier this year.

If there are no western tourists coming to China and no Chinese studying overseas, the western media could say whatever they want and they own the international speech rights. If you cannot see for yourself, you have to trust them. But times are different, as more and more western visitors come to China and more and more Chinese tourists travel overseas.

According to the statistics, only 280,000 persons traveled from China to overseas between 1949 and 1978. That would be fewer than 10,000 persons per annum. In 2007 alone, 40 million Chinese citizens traveled overseas, while 56 million foreigners came to China.

The western tourists are perplexed because China is completely unlike what their own media are reporting. The overseas Chinese students are perplexed because very few western media reports have anything good to say about China. Why?

The western media which own the international speech rights think that this is the only way to show off the superiority of western values. But they are mistaken. Those who have seen the real China realized that they had been deceived by the western media. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the western media are made known to the Chinese people going abroad and they become ever more patriotic. Even if the majority of western media were to switch positions today, they are merely reflecting the true state of affairs because the western tourists have seen too much and the television broadcasts are live. However, the western media will inevitably revert to true form.

Some western media may be perplexed by the fact that they used to be able to report whatever they want without meeting any protests from China. How is it that any negative comment that they now make will draw a lot of protests?

This is because the customarily arrogant western media may not have realized that they had lost China! They are losing the admiration and trust of the Chinese youth. Over the past three decades, the Chinese government has led the country to an astonishing economic growth, and many citizens have benefited from it. The Chinese who travel overseas during this period are the rapidly rising middle class and the intelligentsia. When they see the good things in China being badmouthed in the western media, what else is this but hypocrisy?

Ultimately, the Chinese people want to achieve prosperity and national power through democratization. But the western media seem to only want democracy for the sake of democracy and they don’t care what happens to China afterwards.

The Chinese form of democracy guarantees first and foremost the right to survive and develop. But the western media wants to promote its own form of democracy according to its own ideas. They don’t care what happens to a country afterwards. For example, the United States went into Iraq to promote democracy. When things don’t work out, they bail out. What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States? In the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until the continent became the Third World within the Third World? What does democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?

The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy in front of the Chinese and foreign people. This is something that the western media did not imagine. If they want to keep up with the times, they should correct their mistakes. Since they are the media, truth should come first. In reply to a question a few days ago about the suspension of a Chinese journalist in Germany, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said that the media ought to observe the basic rules — to report in an objective and fair manner. This is easier said than done for the western media.

Following that original post were dozens of comments in agreement:

作者：声声夺人 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:45:28

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.

作者：加密之心 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:46:51

我从来不相信西方媒体
所以自然没有西方媒体失去我这一说
那些垃圾新闻机构
都是反-=华势=-力的帮凶！

I never trust Western media
so I can say the Western media did not lose my trust.
Those garbage news agencies
are all accomplices of anti-China forces!

作者：人间美丽 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:48:42

我一般只看国内的新闻
因为外国人不了解
难免戴上有色眼镜
支持楼主！

I usually only watch domestic news
because foreigners do not understand
and inevitably wear colored glasses.
I support the OP!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…and it’s pretty much what I’m thinking.

But let’s take a look at what some other Chinese posters on Tianya were thinking:

作者：公子为 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:59:10

奇怪！
西方媒體怎會失去中國年輕一代的信任呢？
你能看到西方媒體嗎？
反正我是看不到。

Weird!
How can the Western news media lose the trust of China’s younger generation?
Can you see the Western news media?
I know I can’t.

作者：不知道风向 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:08:16

咱看过西方媒体吗？连凤凰台都看不全，总是莫名其妙出广告。

Have we watched Western news media before? We can’t even watch Phoenix TV in its entirety, always strangely cutting to commercials.

作者：做玻璃砸弹弓 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:15:36

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！
————————————————
是呀，哪有我们新闻联播真实啊，
我们新闻联播第一句都是：今天是某年某月某日农历某月某日，从不出错，太真实了。

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.
————————————————
Yeah, no where as true [accurate] as our news networks,
Our news networks always begin with the sentence: Today is what year, what month, what day and what month, what day of the Lunar New Year. Never wrong, exceedingly [accurate].

作者：干死楼主全家 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:19:38

不好意思，作为中国年轻一代，还不知道信任为何物。
也不知道什么是媒体，只知道CCTV。。

Sorry, but as part of China’s younger generation, I still do know what trust/confidence is.
I also do not know what is news media, I only know CCTV…

作者：sccdzm1188cn2 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:20:56

声声夺人
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==========================
快来看庞大的四字4+1毛队伍啊，靠，发了３次都发不出

[List of users, their registration dates/times, and their last activity on the website. It shows that many of the "replies" supporting the OP came from accounts that were recently registered in rapid succession]
==========================
Quick, come look at the enormous amount of Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party], shit, it took me 3 tries to post!

作者：几许悠 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:24:25

楼主能看到西方媒体吗?我咋看不到了.

The OP can see western news media? I can’t see anything.

作者：stackhouse1201 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:25:04

哇靠，恶心透顶的five 毛

Holy shit, the Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party] is too disgusting.

To be sure, many Chinese are still quite wary about the Western media, especially following the coverage of the T!betan riots earlier this year. Most educated people around the world definitely acknowledge that biases do exist in Western media, for many reasons and of which some of which are understandable while others are not. Moreover, we also know that bad news sells in the West and hearing the Chinese demand that Western media do more “balanced” reporting by including more positives about China just isn’t going to happen.

Westerners often scoff at the Chinese for having the audacity to criticize Western media. Just look at how blatantly propagandist and biased the Chinese media can be. But, to their credit, many Chinese are fully aware that their own domestic media is far from objective even as they chastise Western media. To them, it isn’t about Chinese media being better or Western media being better, it is simply about pointing out the fact that when one side is wrong, they’re wrong.

For those of us observing the often heated dialogue between the critics and defenders of China, we sometimes forget that the Chinese are not a homogeneous band of stark raving protesters, internet vigilantes, and comment trolls. True, the Chinese often don’t help themselves by reverting to defensiveness whenever a foreigner is part of any discussion on China’s problems, but we do have to admit that them doing so isn’t wholly incomprehensible.

There is ample diversity of opinion and thought amongst the Chinese even if that expression is sometimes controlled and threatened by the central government. Unfortunately, most Western observers are incapable of reading the Chinese required to venture onto the major Chinese-language internet forums like Tianya. If they could, they would certainly see much that would upset them, even disturb them, but they would also hopefully see much to reassure and encourage them from comments like those above, made by Chinese who are not only rational and reasonable but also blessed with well-tuned propaganda bullshit meters and incisive wit.

The Chinese are not idiots. If nothing else, they’re survivors. Unlike many of us who have somewhere to escape to, they often have little choice but to deal with the world they live in, state-sponsored mouthpieces and all.

By the way, Roland Soong @ ESWN is one of my favorite blogs covering China, always providing tons of translated material (along with Jack Kennedy @ GVO and Fauna @ chinaSMACK). I simply wish Roland would set up an RSS feed for his Brief Comments Section, as he posts a ton of good stuff there that I often miss. His RSS feed only seems to contain his less frequently updated material from his Blog Posts section, and I don’t always get a chance to visit his website. If anyone knows something I don’t about that, please let me know.

OK, maybe not a full-blown meme yet, but look at this:

Notice something that you’ve seen about four times in these seven tweets? The string #080808.Thanks to the efforts of @flypig (of Chinese Twittersphere fame), the #080808 tag campaign is well underway. Everyone’s going crazy with sticking in the #080808 icon or sticking a photo of them going “#080808“!Check out some of the cooler ones we’ve seen from…

• @thecarol (the original)
• @evilape (neat)
• @christinelu (saw hers after @thecarol)
• @isaac (self-harmonization?)

Yours truly actually came out with a very David Feng, and at that, a very Beijing Subway version:

Subway Line #080808? Please get ready for your arrival!Here’s how to take part in the whole thing:1. Nab an icon. Some are at http://tag080808.com/
2. Add “#080808″ to all your tweets
3. That’s it!

This is the third time that the Chinese-language Twittersphere has gone in a “Twitter movement”. It started earlier this year when people started rooting for the Chinese Taipei team, then spread throughout all of China when the earthquake hit on May 12, and finally, everyone is getting ready for Olympics mood.

#080808 away!

UPDATE from Elliott:  Contributor Meg Stivison added her own thoughts on us meme-sheep (a pretty cool meme-related-meta-meme) and her own version of #080808 straight from the town of Hohhot (in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, 内蒙古, Nèi Měnggǔ):

Photo courtesy Meg Stivison, Simpson’s Paradox