As 2008 winds down to its last gasping breaths here in China, I look forward to 2009 with a mixture of relief and anticipation. Relief because 2008 has arguably been a roller-coaster ride of a year, with disasters and tragedies both natural and man-made, as well as brilliant bright moments of hope and aspiration. Anticipation because we have no idea what 2009 has in store for us. Sure, the world is in the grips of an economic crisis, but life will go on, and people will continue to find reasons to go on, laughing and crying as they will. The following is a list of English-language China blogs I will be watching in 2009. The breadth of coverage these blogs offer reassure me that I’m getting a good general overview with some interesting insights into what’s going on in China, politically, economically, and socially. It is mixture of the “serious” and the “fun” as well. Now, it goes without saying that I am just one person with my own unique set of preferences and interests, so your opinion may very well differ.
chinaSMACK
Updated: About once a day. By now, I reckon most people have heard of this upstart, pioneered by an oh-so-mysterious Shanghainese gal by the name of Fauna who probably only has time to do all of this because she has a Shanghainese slave-man handing over his monthly wages, sweating away in the kitcken, with her spawn slung around his back, as the laundry he just hung up dries in the background. Cough. She, and her ragtag band of contributors, break their backs translating an eclectic mix of popular topics found on the thriving BBS discussion forums that dominate China’s internet culture. What makes chinaSMACK unique? They rarely add any personal commentary, providing only translations of what the Chinese netizens are saying themselves in their own words. While chinaSMACK does a good job adhering to its own rule of not wading into the political topics most other English blogs dive into and slather themselves with, they still often translate politically charged comments made by Chinese netizens. This, more often than not, thankfully reminds us that, yes, there is a healthy plurality of opinion amongst the general populace in China. chinaSMACK’s sometimes more lurid, sex-related content doesn’t suit everyone’s high-brow tastes and while they get lambasted for it, we’re reminded that the Chinese are every bit as human and low-brow as the rest of us.
Danwei
Updated: Multiple times a day. When it comes to English-language blogs about China, Danwei is the one website everyone seemingly must respect and mention. Part of it has to do with how long it has simply been around and part of it has to do with the fact that Danwei’s overlord, Jeremy Goldkorn, is a pretty cool, witty guy (especially in person). Unfortunately, your correspondent finds the amount of book reviews and high-brow culture posts that go on and on (and on…for pages) to be far too esoteric and irrelevant to me personally and, I suspect, to the vast majority of people. Nonetheless, their stream of other more relevant news and points of interests are worth the attention and, in fact, has been growing as of late, thereby improving the ratio between informative posts and the posts that just make me feel uncultured and stupid. Like ESWN’s “Recommended Photos/Videos/Reading” links, the WSJ’s China Journal’s “Best of the China Blogs” posts, or the vast majority of Oiwan Lam’s posts on GVO, Danwei has recently begun churning out posts that simply link to what they’re reading, and think you should read too, making Danwei a good one-stop shop for keeping tabs on what’s going on in China, so long as you trust their judgment and preferences.
EastSouthWestNorth (aka ESWN)
Updated: Multiple times a day, usually. Roland Soong’s one-man translation monstrosity provides a continuous stream of interesting Chinese news media reports, Chinese blog posts, pictures, and statistical facts and figures coming out of China, albeit a bit slanted towards Hong Kong media. He doesn’t shy away from the political, the social, or the controversial…and since he doesn’t allow comments on his website, you never have any bystanders arguing or criticizing him for it all. Other than not being able to comment, the other long-standing issue with ESWN has been his lack of a good RSS feed to subscribe to. While his “blog posts” are syndicated by RSS, Roland’s constantly updated “Brief Comments” section is not, and that is actually the majority of ESWN’s goodness. This forces readers to visit his website constantly if they want to get the latest updates. I think ESWN-fans need to mount an intervention, you know, to implement a proper RSS feed for Roland…unless the Soong has some diabolical reason for insisting on not having one.
Imagethief
Updated: Sporadically. Will Moss, the Imagethief, works in public relations in China, and is about the funniest guy I know of on the English-language China blog scene…but that depends on your sense of humor. Don’t visit or subscribe expecting it will give you a good overview or insight into China, do so because you enjoy his occasional astute observations into certain aspects of China and his own life, and the wit that permeates it all. Being able to laugh is critical in China.
Shanghaiist
Updated: Multiple times a day. Despite its namesake, this -ist website’s bloggers regularly cover news and points of interest beyond Shanghai itself and throughout greater China overall. The majority of posts may not go in depth and they’re often reposts of good material from other China blogs and websites, but they’re concise, easily digested, and cover diverse subject-matter. It is like Danwei but a bit more mainstream, making Shanghaiist a good staple RSS subscription for “what’s going on” in China and, of course, Shanghai specifically.
Time’s China Blog and WSJ’s China Journal
Updated: Once a day – Multiple times a day. You’ll subscribe to these blogs because of the brand names behind them, with the expectation that such reputable brand names will feature good writers and quality written content. You won’t be disappointed but you won’t be blown away either. Much of the content from these blogs tend to have appeared elsewhere on other China blogs earlier and often times, the reporting or blogging has a distant and removed feel to them, especially in comparison to the bloggers and voices on the ground whose first-hand observations, thoughts, feelings, and even deep-seated contradictions and rationalizations are evident in what they post about, rant or rave. Time will have heavier pieces, though usually about cliche political subject matter, while the Wall Street Journal will have far more “A daily look at what we’re reading…” posts recommending what you should read about China from, er, non-WSJ bloggers. The Time China Blog is blocked in China as of this posting. If you want to subscribe, you’ll need a proxy or friend to give you the RSS feed address. These are not the only China blogs I am subscribed to. However, they are a good core set for me, guaranteeing that I’ll have something interesting to read or start from each day that is relevant to China. Several of them are quite general and thus will often be redundant, but if a specific news item gets mentioned on more than one of these websites I trust, it alerts me to how significant that news item may be, allowing me to go search for more in-depth sources if I need to. A few notes about my choices:
- Time and WSJ remind me of how “the West” is watching China.
- Danwei and ESWN consistently show me glimpses of what’s in the Chinese news media.
- chinaSMACK and ESWN give me tons of translated content to help me understand what Chinese people are thinking, rather than just what foreigners in China are thinking.
- chinaSMACK and Imagethief remind me to laugh.
- Okay, I admit that Imagethief is actually just the one luxury “personality” blog I insist on having. I secretly hope more things aggravate him so he would post more funny banter.
I was tempted to write about many of the English-language China blogs that failed to make my above list, especially those I feel have gone downhill…but I’ll save that for another time. Today, we celebrate our last day for 2008. What English-language China blogs do YOU plan on watching for 2009 and why?
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Since chinaSMACK popped into the scene, other English China blogs have increasingly copied its formula of translating Chinese discussion forum news and content.
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While there may be fewer women English China blogs, these blogs add voices that may hint at the differences in experience between foreign men and women in China.
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A list of 10 “atypical” English China blogs for when you’re tired of the “standard white-dude-in-china” blogs that always talk about current events, politics, media, business, commerce, and law.
English China Blogs Increasingly Translate Chinese Forum Content 
Directory of 72+ Women English-language China Bloggers 
China Blog Guide: Ten Eclectic China Blogs You Should Follow 
This might be the most worthless “watch list” that I’ve ever seen. Danwei, Shanghaiist, ESWN … these are all great blogs. And everybody who reads this blog already knows they’re great blogs. What’s next? A CN Review post on television you’ll be watching that points readers to CCTV channels 5 through 9? Groundbreaking stuff, here!
Sorry, you must be part of the “in-crowd” that is outside of this post’s target audience. ;) Happy New Year!
So what hidden gems of blogs do you suggest Candace?
Candace, LOL!!! This is like living in NYC and somebody telling you that the “must watch” newspapers for 2009 are the Times and the Post!
Who has time to read – much less, write – this kind of totally conventional banality?
So do you have any suggestions for great blogs that are less well known that we should follow?
The recommendations might be conventional in promoting already well known blogs among the tightly-knit expat community in China, but take into account that 50%+ of our traffic is U.S. based and a significant % comes through search engines. Those people might not know about all these sites.
Banality huh? I’m happy to get criticized for this. It shows that we are not playing the “I know more about China than you” and “Let me impress you with my obscure insights” and “Lets increasingly focus on topics that only the most elite readers can follow or care about” games over here at CN Reviews! We want to reach people who don’t know about Danwei or Shanghaiist!
Are there other blogs that you think we should be promoting instead of these? Interested in your feedback! Thanks again for the comment.
China Beat should definitely get a mention for being well-rounded and insightful.
China Law Blog, Granite Studio, China Media Project, Shanghai Scrap, China Environmental Law Blog, CDT. China Law Blog maybe the best of the lot. CDT way better than Time or WSJ. The blogs that you originally mentioned do aggregation as much as original posting. But the original voices in the China blogshphere are elsewhere. If you guys are averaging around 50% US readership, I’d guess that your viewer numbers are under 20,000/month. Try a little harder.
Yes I follow all those blogs except for China Environmental Law Blog and China Media Project. I’ll check those out. Dan Harris CLB’s blog rocks. CDT rocks too (but it is blocked). WSJ is a great blog too IMHO.
Traffic? January we got 588 visitors. Yep, that’s right. August we got 120k. December was 20k. We *want* to get the rest of the world interested in China so we want more traffic outside China. You seem knowledgeable about China blogging, any other metrics we should consider? How many visitors should we aim for? What topical focus should we focus on?
We absolutely want to try harder!!
Candace tried emailing you but alas I think you put in a fake email. here’s my email:
Hey…appreciate the comment…yes we will try a little harder.
I’m interested in your insights into traffic patterns around the China related English blogosphere. You seem to imply that there is only a hardcore 10k/month audience from outside China. So if we are 50%, then we must only get 20k.
But our goal is to grow that. The people inside China have plenty of blogs to read. But the people outside China who know a lot less about China are really who we want to reach. So that is who we want to address, not the elite.
Any thoughts on that front? What topics would be most appealing? What is missing from the Chinese blogosphere for general China-interested audience not just expats in China? Thanks for you thoughts!
Candace, note my preface that these blogs should give people (especially those new to China or China-watching) a good general overview of China politically, economically, and socially. I love Dan @ China Law Blog like Elliott does and I subscribe to a lot of the other blogs you mention as well, but my personal opinion is that they’re a bit too niche for my criteria. I found Danwei’s esoteric literature-buff pieces to stretch my own guidelines as it is.
I explicitly mentioned the fact that many of these blogs aggregate or repost from other blogs. Arguably, a good “general overview” source tends to do that. It is inescapable. As for being original, I think chinaSMACK is original. I think Imagethief is an original voice. I even think Danwei’s esoteric posts, however I ribbed them for it, is original.
Whatever our viewer numbers are, this wasn’t meant to be a pissing contest with you nor was this meant to devalue the many other good China blogs out there. You’re free to disagree and, remember, “it goes without saying” that these are just my picks. You were invited to share what blogs you’ll be watching “and why,” were you not?
Inspired by your post, I’m set up a post2rss feed ESWN. This link should update whenever the ESWN homepage updates. The service seems to check every six hours. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
Thanks for the mention of our site (even if my own contributions to Danwei don’t seem to get the appreciation they most certainly deserve). One clarification: “Danwei has recently begun churning out posts that simply link to what they’re reading” – we’ve actually been doing this for a year and a half, but we only recently decided to merge our links feed with the main post feed. Nice to see that it’s been noticed.
Wow. That’s cool. I just added to my feedreader and will see how it works. I had not heard of post2rss. Happy New Year and thanks for the gift of this new RSS feed. Lets see how it works out.
One other thing, Joel, your contribution to Danwei is totally appreciated and I think the most difficult thing for a blogger is to balance between the posts that you pour your heart into but the traffic isn’t there for it, and the posts that generate traffic (e.g. sexy-photo-gate stuff) but breaks your heart to post about. We haven’t figured this one out yet at CN Reviews!
Joel, nothing personal, buddy. Not everyone gives a crap about my disillusionment with City Diner in Shanghai or the esoteric connection I felt Arrington and Le Meur’s tiff had with Chinese people’s hurt feelings. ;) You’re a writer, just write. Don’t worry too much about other people’s opinions. I’m just too stupid and uncultured to appreciate your contributions. That’s my dose of humility. :)
I love the podcasts from Danwei ;)
Great tips~
BTW, good luck in 2009, every CNReviewers ~~
Wow. I really mangled the first sentence of my comment up there. Page2rss is the site. Anyway, the issue of mission and balance is one we always have in mind, and it’s a fool’s errand to seek to please everyone with every post. I used to keep an image of Li Bingbing on my desktop as a reminder to balance political esoterica and “highbrow” culture with more accessible topics (at least, that’s what I told myself the image was there for).
Oh the pain!!! the pain!!!
Huh?
zhwj – all of which (maybe) explains danwei’s awful excursions with xu jinglei in the past year or so. But not the “intern” photos from the earthquake zone. or the even worse “photo essays” from houhai that popped up over the olympics (like a high school exchange student’s personal blog – “Chinese people drinking beer in the open air”).
a great website that has made some odd editorial choices (indulgences) lately. still, can endure the crap for the good stuff.
You should check out This Ridiculous World, a humorous blog containing all original content. It gives a completely different view of China than everything else on this list or any other list.
bon, attends moi, je traduit ceci aux Français. thanks!
If Danwei was honest about the website being part advertising friends and associates and part examinations of media trends (translations done by Martinsen and the Chinese staff), then it might be worthy of watching.
But its founder likes to disguise free advertising for people he likes or hopes will use his site as a platform as news and trends.
And how you can analyze the media in China without being able to read Chinese–which is what Mr. Goldkorn cares not to share with readers–is beyond me.
By the way, all compliments to Joel, whose work is the only feature of Danwei that is honest and excellent. Much of the rest of that site is designed for other–more mercenary–purposes.
Thanks Kai, all good selections here in your list, I read them all, chinaSMACK is great. I’ve also found Chinalyst to be a very good source for English language China blogs.
I like such English language blogs for chinese who want to learn english with proper guidance.
English-language China blogs provide good platform for the english learners to share your feelings.