:: David Feng is one of those rare individuals that simply defies the bounds of a proper “introduction paragraph”…in short, he’s extraordinary. Odd and savant-like at times, sane and illuminating at others…among many (MANY) other things, he’s one of China’s leading übergeeks and 2.0 overachievers.

56minus1: Tell us more about David Feng. Ready, set…go!

David Feng: My official bio mentions that I’m some kind of World Citizen that’s been to 17 countries and speaks 10 languages, and those on Twitter know me as a total Mac and subway freak. However, that’s just part of the story. There are actually three “things” that I sink my teeth into deep, and those are Macs (and tech in general), media, and — get this — “other things.”

My tech involvements used to be Mac-only, but they’ve now expanded into more 2.0 stuff. Apart from my uninterrupted Tweeting, I manage techblog86, an English-language blog about China’s tech, mobile and start-up worlds, and keep tabs on the Mac world as a co-founder and current leader of the BeiMac user group — a group that started out as Beijing’s Mac community. It’s a unique group. It’s not just a Mac community group, it’s far more…it’s a bridge linking Macintosh China (as I call it) to the rest of the planet. We’re here to make China a “Mac nation,” much like the U.S. and Japan.

You can find me on , , and even Dopplr.

Like I said, I’m also actively involved in the media…to that end, I host my own shows (and have even produced a few video podcasts some years ago). You can catch me on Radio Beijing every Saturday evening, talking about exotic trips and interesting things around the planet. I’ve also hosted many language contests and have given quite a number of speeches to all sorts of audiences, and am in on the media biz online, covering Macs and technology since 2002, with over 3,000 articles in both English and Chinese to my credit.

In terms of “other” projects, I have this City 2.0 site called Beijingology, which is a city encyclopedia — or at that — a wiki for the city of Beijing. This project alone has been in the works for nearly 500 days…here it is: a city wiki with nearly 1,500 articles that delves into just about every aspect of Beijing. I did this because I’ve been snapping away, something like, over 40,000 photos since 2002, and I wanted somewhere to “dump” all this Beijing data. (I tried the Wikipedia; it’s GFDL license was odd; all my Beijing freeway articles have ended up on official Beijing government Web sites, without the least bit of credit!)

But that’s still just part of me. I also co-blog with City Weekend in Beijing, as well as with the folks at CN Reviews, where I turn out insightful reviews on the Chinese blogosphere / 2.0 space, etc.

I’m thinking of starting a start-up…it’ll either be Beijing-ish or tech-ish focused.

I’m also authoring a Beijing subway guide book at the moment.

I went to international school in Switzerland, starting out in grade 1, and was fluent in about 5 languages by the age 16…I’ve managed to add 5 more languages since then. University studies continued after I returned to China, where I got myself a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of International Business and Economics, and a master’s degree in art from the Communication University of China. I feel terribly old saying this, but I’m already thinking about my doctorate…

56minus1: Where and how did you pick up such a posh British accent?

David Feng: I fell ill in late 1999 and watched an excessive amount of BBC WORLD when I was recovering…the flu went away, but the accent stuck.

56minus1: Your thoughts on Microsoft’s recent anti-piracy / dark screen “black out” initiative in China?

Bad move.

56minus1: As many — I’m sure — are baffled by it, could you please explain your obsessive-compulsive Twitter behavior? What motivates you to such annoying excess?

David Feng: I view Twitter as a combo tool with the power to disseminate everything you’re thinking about — of course, in 140 characters or less. I think of it as a mix of a doodle book, an open mic, a notepad, an IM service, and a propaganda agency.

The doodle book analogy has some history. In 5th grade, we had doodle books, so when our teacher read us a story we could doodle whatever we wanted to…I remembered creating prototypes of super-complex freeway overpasses while listening to haunted witch stories…but, I digress. [56minus1: huh?]

I Tweet about everything. To date, there have been a few classics. For example, after this guy finished a meal at the Terminal 3 Yoshinoya in the Beijing Airport, he dumped the whole thing into the trash bin — including the porcelain bowl! I Tweeted that.

Another classic…once my IKEA laptop bag had a bad zipper and caught the clothes of a passenger on a Line 1 Beijing subway train. I got off at Xidan, but not without dragging her off the train as well! IKEA was instantly given a hate tweet (two actually) in ALL CAPS.

During the China 2.0 tour and the Chinese Blogger Conference, I tweeted minute by minute notes on just about every event, meeting, presentations, etc.

I don’t Tweet to “out Tweet” people, and I don’t Tweet “just about anything” or “Tweet just for the hell of it.” I do @replies, and as of late, they’ve taken a huge share of my Tweets. I also favorite Tweets en masse — I am now hovering around my 2,000th fav’d Tweet.

I mimic Beijing subway announcements with my Tweets before I sleep and after I wake up…I feel there’s got to be something else to Tweet rather than “good night” or “good morning”…

56minus1: You’re a hardcore Mac fan, tell us about your love affair with all-things-Mac.

David Feng: Back in 1989, I first set my hands on a computer. I was condemned to creating DOS batch files (after I failed to create a working executive file / application) on some astronomy project. The thing would roll across the screen, make out-of-this-world beeps at exactly all the wrong times, and play Mary Had A Little Lamb when you least expected it. To advance from one screen to the next, you had to push a different button each time. It was total hell.

(If I wasn’t doing that kinda stuff, I was happily speeding away on Test Drive: The Duel, crashing or overtaking anything that got in my way. Car, trees, canyons, you name it!)

My first-ever encounter with a Mac was in 1991. Back in the day, these things were a far cry from the state-of-the-art machines they are now; we “made do” (very well, in fact) with black-and-white screens, 9-point pixelated text, and the ability to run only one application at a time. I fell in love with this computing environment.

I started begging my parents for a portable Mac and taking laptops from the school’s computer lab. I eventually got my first Mac in 1993. My teacher at the time, Mr. D’Arcy, understood my enthusiasm for Mac…when Mr. D’Arcy’s classes started involving HyperCard — a Hyperlink-based WYSIWYG application that you can program in — it was absolutely heaven on earth. I started creating “click-ready” tutorials for new Mac people. In 1997, I came out with my masterpiece: a simulation travel guide application that could show users which trip they wanted to take, and print out reservation forms.

I’ve used the Mac Classic, the Mac II, the Mac LC, the Quadras, Performas, and even a Centris from Matthias, a classmate from my primary school days. Then, of course, came the Power Macs, the PowerBooks, and all that kind of stuff. The MacBook I use now is my 12-Bth Mac (that’s because I don’t do the number 13 — it’s Mac 11, Mac 12-A, Mac 12-B, Mac 14 for me).

56minus1: If you could advise Steve Jobs on Apple’s China strategy (maybe you already are), what would you tell him?

David Feng: Don’t sell stuff here at USA prices. This is the PRC. China is not the 51st state of the U.S.A.

Localize. Don’t assume that U.S. market stuff will work in the PRC. China is not the 51st state of the U.S.A.

Make an attempt to understand the whole situation — the whole country, the whole people. Sink your teeth into China and make it a long-term effort rather than just establishing a “face project” presence in here or grabbing people’s money and running back to 1 Infinite Loop with the loot. China is not the 51st state of the U.S.A.

56minus1: Is it true you use 3 mobile phones simultaneously (2 of those being iPhones)?

David Feng: I do — and I’m thinking of replacing my badly beaten-up Nokia E62 with another iPhone, making 3. Currently, my Nokia (aka, Number One) is mostly just for Tweeting, checking email, etc….it also acts as a Bluetooth GPRS modem.

Number Two’s only reason for existence is because it does standard traditional Chinese characters. The authorities have a 2001 law to, in essence, force everyone in China to use simplified Chinese characters, but I’m against eliminating traditional characters…I see it as eliminating the true culture of Chinese characters, and at that, Chinese culture in general. I send out traditional-character Tweets by composing them on Number Two and then texting them over to Number One, where they get published via my Twitter SMS number.

Number Three has a new mission — to take photos. At about 5 million megapixels, this is one of the best camera phones ever. I also use Number Three for ringing up and texting friends, but it’s photo capabilities are pretty much unparalleled.

My iPod touch doesn’t count as “Number Four,” but it’s the only mobile WiFi device I have on me all of the time. It does mobile Tweets via Hahlo now, and it also does mobile Facebook pretty well.

56minus1: What are your biggest and boldest predictions / thoughts on trends for the Chinese Internet over the next 18 months? What can we expect?

I’m hoping that, in the foreseeable future, China roles out something big…something on a global scale. Way too often, the Web 2.0 “bigs” are US-based. The Web is a worldwide thing. (Sorry, David Pogue. It’s no longer just a US-Western European-Japanese thing.)

We’re talking about “bigs” with worldwide reach and international recognition like Twitter, Facebook, and TechCrunch. China does have variants or (if you must) “copies” of stuff like Facebook, but too often, the user base is Chinese-only.

Someone needs to start something in the People’s Republic and make waves — both at home and abroad. And they need to do this a la 2.0.

The Chinese Internet will continue to remain rather unstable as long as we have a bunch of nervous people punching policy buttons with their hands a la Parkinson’s Disease 2.0. Encourage free development and growth, dump irrelevant limits, though, and you’ll just have smacked your thumb on the lift off button for PRC 2.0. [56minus1: A la, uh...what?]

56minus1: You recently attended (and spoke) at the annual Chinese Blogger Conference (CNBloggerCon), your impressions on this year’s event? Best presentation / session? Most interesting person you met there?

This year’s event showed the grassroots nature of the Chinese blogosphere at its very best. Far away from any five-star hotels or deluxe conference centers, we held the event at something that I can only describe as Guangzhou’s version of Beijing’s 798.

The best sessions came from a number of people. David Feng (the other David Feng, on Twitter) launched into tech details that I could actually make sense of. Goldred from Taiwan did easily the most impressive, and close-to-the-audience presentation of day 1. Day 2 belonged to Shel Israel ( on Twitter).

The most interesting person I met there was none other than the Scobleizer (Robert Scoble, on Twitter). I had been tracking this guy since late 2007. It was refreshing and a real pleasure to meet the real Scobleizer in real life. Robert was true to his Tweets — little difference between the Scobleizer on the Web and the real guy.

56minus1: Tell us about your presentation at CNBloggerCon?

David Feng: The inspiration behind my presentation is rooted in the events of, about, April 2008, when “stuff happened” in China…Tibet. Olympic torch relay protests. Global media distortion. Not good. Beijing 2008 was being compared to Berlin 1936. Stuff like the Dali Lama, Tibet, and all that stuff became all the rage.

I have a Swiss passport and stand up for Western values such as constitutional rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, equality, etc. But, when the Chinese nation is in trouble or being unfairly attacked, it didn’t matter that I no longer had a PRC passport, I took it to heart — it’s my China.

I couldn’t have agreed more with the fact that China was “in the pits” and needed help getting itself out…so, I dispelled some of those myths about China with my presentation. Yet, I also wanted to side with those who wanted more freedom — the harmonization, it seems, is way too much. I had two views — a Chinese one and a Western one. I wanted to be a bridge who understand sentiment from both sides. I wanted to make both sides talk. Most importantly, I wanted to show that the Chinese could be more “international” — as in, world-oriented and aware of stuff happening in foreign lands.

With all that in mind, I came up with the idea of an “international Chinese” for my presentation, and did my bit on CN Reviews too.

56minus1: Who will win the SNS war in China? The C2C war? The microblogging war? The video sharing site war?

David Feng: Xiaonei will probably clinch victory in the SNS war. I know that Twitter has massive momentum to make it big in China, but microblogs aren’t that popular here…there could also be local victories too, as one deciding factor could be that local microblogs have local text message numbers. The video sharing site war will yield two winners: Tudou for harmonized content and YouTube for un-harmonized content. I’ve been to both Tudou and Youku offices, what I saw at Tudou gives it the upper edge.

56minus1: Who wins your “Best or most ‘Web 2.0′ Web site” award in China? Why?

David Feng: Sorry — don’t seem to have any that stand out real well…

56minus1: When do you see Internet censorship no longer being an issue in China? How can China get there?

David Feng: Harmonization and censorship will be around, I think, until there’s a big “reshuffling” at Zhongnanhai or with the Censorship Gods. Those folks want to keep the People’s Republic stable by all means, and the effort they put into doing so defies explanation.

China will be un-harmonized, eventually, but not for another 10 to 20 more years, I guess. Social improvements and better education will be key. But then again, miracles can happen. The Berlin Wall fell just months after the (former) East German press boasted that it would stand for another hundred years.

Anything is possible in the People’s Republic.

We’re already seeing some efforts being made. We can use Wikipedia.com these days. Then again, we might get Wikipedia harmonized after you publish this interview…!

56minus1: You are an “expert” on the Beijing subway system…how did your fascination with the local underground come about?

I went underground because I was trapped in mass jams during rush hour in Beijing. To me, the subway is one of those “GUARANTEED jam-free” ways to get around. Once I’m shown something good, I can never get enough of it…I’ll always come back looking for more. So, when I heard about Line 5 opening up late last year, that was it….and then, when in 2006, they expanded Super Pass usage to all lines, that (also) was it. 2007 brought Line 5 into the system, and 2008 added three more lines…wow.

I won’t say I know everything, but I have an idea of how Beijing will look with 19+ lines in the year 2015. I have an idea of where all the stops will be on future subway lines (except for the link to the Fragrant Hills). I also know quite a bit about the history of the subway system, and even (maybe just a bit) about those hidden stations in the northwest on Line 1.

The craziest thing about the Beijing subway system is — of course — the announcement system. THe Line 13 and Batong Line announcements (when trains arrive) sound like the announcer is about to doze off over the microphone…the newer English announcements have a pitiful laowai (non-Chinese) announcer making magnificent botch-ups with the pronunciation of station names…I also can’t stand those non-automated announcements — that “Jing Er Hua Yin” (Beijing accented Mandarin)…cringe.

I’m keeping an eye on where this thing’s next sprawl will be. And when Line 4 opens next year, I’ll be there…

56minus1: Thanks David.

// AjS

Tags: chats, david feng

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