Archive for the ‘people’ Category

mark haas named new head of edelman china ::

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

:: Mark Haas (pictured below), former MS&L Global CEO, was recently named . He’ll be reporting to Edelman Asia Pacific Regional President AlanVandermolen, and his current firm MH Group Communications has also been acquired by Edelman. Follow Mark on Twitter at . For more details about his new role role, link here.  // AjS

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[full disclosure: I'm employed by Edelman Digital, Asia Pacific]

i am afraid of chinese people ::

Monday, January 11th, 2010

:: I was recently having lunch with VICE Magazine publisher Erik Lavoie in Shanghai and as the conversation wandered, he told me about some random Google recommendation algorithm quirks I hadn’t actually heard. Enjoy.  // AjS

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banana monkey’s frontman zhang feng unplugged ::

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

:: the acoustic guitars, harmonicas, and this retro Hohner Melodica came out recently while I was picnicking in Shanghai with friends. One of those friends was Zhang Feng (张峰, aka Bono), the frontman for the well-known Shanghai-based indie rock band Banana Monkey. See below for a short video catching Zhang Feng play a few crowd-pleasers, namely (and in order) Qi Qin’s The World Outside, Wang Fei’s One Little Wish, Luo Dayou’s Childhood, Qi Qin’s Sometime Around Winter, and Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight.

If the VIMEO video loads slowly, try viewing it on Tudou. For more from Banana Monkey on NeochaEDGE, link here. For more from Zhang Feng on NeochaEDGE, link here.  // AjS

This post was originally published on NeochaEDGE, a site I regularly contribute to. To see more of my posts on NeochaEDGE, link here.

NeochaEDGE is a daily-curated, bilingual website and discovery engine dedicated to showcasing leading-edge creative content and emerging youth culture in China.

friday 5 | chinese journalist bloggers (part 2) ::

Friday, September 25th, 2009

:: this week’s Friday 5 takes a second look at Chinese journalists who blog. The individuals profiled here are all quite popular on the Chinese Internet, some because of the reporting they’ve done in the line of work, and others because of their online activities. Their blogs involve journalism and media to varying degrees; it’s interesting to see how much of their own lives and outside interests they bring to the massive online readership they command. Journalists also take advantage of the more open (yet still censored) online environment to post things that might not be able to make it into print.

sports ::
Dong Lu
(董路) was once the host of Beijing TV sports programs and remains an extremely prolific and well-known soccer journalist. His blog posts on Sina get page views in the tens of thousands. He comments on international and domestic football but often strays into other sports, as in a popular post titled “Yao Ming, China is calling you home for dinner!” (a play on the Jia Junpeng Chinese Internet meme mentioned in a previous Friday 5) that has been viewed 70,567 times. Dong Lu is a fan of posting videos to his blog: sometimes entertainment news, such as this discussion of Pan Changjiang (潘长江), a TV actor famous for his peasant roles, his unusually beautiful daughter, and the TV program they have together. There are also some more personal, moving posts about his daughter starting school, and a video of his daughter dancing in front of a KFC. Popular CCTV sports journalist Zhang Bin (张斌) started his career in soccer. Now the deputy director of the CCTV Sports department as well as producer for some of their primary soccer shows, Zhang achieved fame after graduating from Renmin University in 1991, going on to host Soccer Night (足球之夜) on CCTV as well as special sport shows during EURO 2000, also on CCTV. Zhang Bin keeps a blog on Sohu called CCTV-ZhangBin, with page views in the tens of thousands. A recent post on Liu Xiang (刘翔) in which he argued that China’s star hurdler should keep running if he is passionate about sport, received 30,000 page views. Zhang Bin keeps mostly to sports-related topics on his blog. In another recent post, he pondered on whether Caster Semenya, the South African 800-meter gold medalist, was male or female. Zhang Bin is often perceived as a model Sports anchor: friendly and kind. This is reinforced by a public announcement on his blog about drinking up all the contents of a mineral water bottle rather than wasting water by throwing it away half-finished. However, Zhang is also somewhat notorious for a public marital spat in which his wife. Hu Ziwei, another well-known television personality, crashed a live CCTV broadcast to accuse him of having an affair.

arts / Entertainment ::
Meng Jing
(孟静) is a senior reporter for the news weekly Sanlian Life Week (三联生活周刊) who is well-known for her celebrity profiles and interviews. Her blog, which she updates in periodic bursts, follows her work fairly closely. She writes about the practice of journalism (as in one recent post on the uncomfortable necessity of flattering an interview subject), and posts intriguing snippets of interviews that didn’t make it to print. However, her interests range widely, from feminism to groan-worthy jokes. Yuan Lei (袁蕾), who blogs under the name Milk Pig (奶猪), is often called the southern counterpart of Meng Jing. Yuan, who writes for the culture section of Southern Weekly (南方周末), is a keen-eyed interviewer in her day job. Her blog is considerably less formal, and employs a curious writing style that approximates a sort of girlish tone through the use of character substitutions and odd vocabulary choices. Ahead of the publication of major interviews, she’ll often present pull-quotes or teasers, and she also puts up interesting observations and anecdotes that may not amount to proper news stories (such as an account of a telephone scam). Other posts are devoted to media and policy rumors and wry comments on spiked stories, but the cutesy language distances her from other journalists who trade cynical comments about media and politics. Lately there have been quite a few photos of her dog.

columnist ::
Chang Ping
(长平 real name Zhang Ping 张平) is a journalist who has served as director of the news department of the prestigious Southern Weekly and as the deputy editor of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) but was forced out from his editorial position after publishing “sensitive” editorials around the time of the Lhasa riots last March. Chang Ping has abandoned blogs on Tianya, Sina, and iFeng because of frequent deletions by blog administrators, and opened a blog on an independent domain. Most recently, Chang Ping blogged about the Kunming prostitution case, before “technical problems” took the blog down for three months before August. Thanks to Isaac Mao and Zuola (Chinese Internet insider and citizen blogger respectively; see these interviews from the CNBloggercon), it is active once again. Chang Ping has an as well as a column on the FT Chinese website where he writes about issues such as civic society. Xiong Peiyun (熊培云) is a European correspondent for the newsweekly Window of the South (南风窗) and a senior commentator at The Beijing News (新京报). This year he launched a new group commentary blog, 21Pinglun to replace his personal blog la république d’esprits which is blocked on the Chinese mainland. Posts concern a wide range of subjects, with a particular emphasis on rural issues (which Xiong occasionally writes about for the magazine and other media outlets). Xiong recently wrote about Internet Addictive Disorder and shock treatment, referencing the Ludovico Treatment from A Clockwork Orange. Much of the content consists of reposts of op-eds originally published elsewhere, with deleted portions restored in many cases, a common practice on blogs kept by print media columnists.

business ::
Apart from his day job as a host and anchor for various TV programs on CCTV’s international and business channels, Rui Chenggang (芮成钢) is also a blogger who keeps a high-traffic, influential blog where he regularly posts photographs in which he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his world leader interviewees who usually have his book in their hands (former British prime minister Tony Blair, for example). With his established career in the media, his young, energetic screen image and good looks, Rui is idolized by numerous young students, who see him as a mentor and role model. His international outlook and rare fluency in English among his state media colleagues earns him the title of best qualified candidate for China’s ambassador to the world among some Westerners. However, Rui has no shortage of critics. He has been called an egotistic self-promoter, an unprofessional journalist who has overstepped the boundaries of his field by playing economist, a dyed-in-the-wool nationalist for his crusade to drive Starbucks out of the Forbidden City in 2007, and a propaganda mouthpiece for the government. Recently, Rui stoked controversy again with his questions to American president Obama at the G20 summit in London. After writer, car racer and blogger Han Han posted Rui’s questions and Obama’s answers in both English and Chinese on his blog below characteristically sarcastic comments, the topic was picked up by other netizens and heatedly discussed in various forums. Most netizens found Rui’s wording “on behalf of China” and “on behalf of the World” an inappropriate expression of a typically condescending attitude of the Chinese government toward the Chinese people. Rui’s upbeat blog post about his performance at the Summit only exacerbated netizen ire and heaped more ridicule upon him.

society ::
Chai Jing (柴静), a television journalist with CCTV’s News Investigation program, resumed blogging this year after a lengthy hiatus. Chai is conscious of the possibilities of her blog as an interactive platform, typically using videos of her programs as a prompt for readers to discuss the key issues at hand. She then responds to netizen questions. In two recent posts, she explained her view of the comments section and her moderation practices. Other posts address the practice of journalism in general, like a recent selection of excerpts from a Walter Cronkite book. Chai’s high profile, accentuated in the past month by her involvement in the exposé of shock therapy clinics for Internet addiction, means that she’s sometimes the target of nasty rumors. She recently had to fight back at online rumors that she had been arrested for accepting bribes in return for providing CCTV advertising spots to a Chongqing textile mill. Chai also occasionally contributes to Xiong Peiyun’s 21Pinglun (as in this anecdote about gentrification and cultural heritage). Wang Keqin (王克勤), a journalist with the China Economic Times (中国经济时报), has been called China’s chief anti-corruption journalist for exposing “the dark side of society.” Wang is unique in working up to a story to post on his blog, probably with the knowledge that the full version will not be published in print. For example, he tried to visit Deng Yujiao in June, when she was released from a trial centering on the murder of two officials in Hubei province. She was acquitted on self-defense grounds (she had stabbed the two after they tried to sexually harass her), but Chinese and Western media were prevented from visiting her at home. Wang’s record of his futile efforts to get there has since been taken down by Sohu, but is available in a reposted version. Wang’s accounts of his journalistic activities end up widely reposted: another account of violent attempted visit, this time to to the family of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陈光城), was cross-posted to liberal blog service my1510 by Zhai Minglei (翟明磊), who is also a well-known muckracker (See this interview from the CNBloggercon). Wang is sometimes called China’s Lincoln Steffens as a salute to his muckraking tendencies. A list of his articles up to 2006 is collated at the China Elections and Governance Chinese website.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work for Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]

周五5 | 中国记者博客 (第二部) ::

Friday, September 25th, 2009

:: 本周的Friday 5 将再次关注中国的记者博客。在本篇中予以介绍的记者在互联网上都享有较高的知名度,其原因或是因为其在传统媒体的成就,或者是更偏重其在网上的努力。这些博客不同程度涉及他们所从事的新闻媒体工作,另外,他们向大量网上读者所传达的关于他们日常生活的点点滴滴也相当有趣。而这些记者也大多利用互联网这个更加开放(虽然依然被审查)的环境来发表那些不能被传统纸媒所接纳的文章。

体育 ::
曾经作为体育节目主持人而任职于北京电视台的董路在转型为文字记者之后仍然保有相当髙的知名度。他在新浪网的博客上刊登的文章往往获得了数以万计的浏览量。除了对国内外足球赛事作评论,董在博客中对其他体育运动也多有涉及,例如他的一篇标题为“姚明,中国喊你回家吃饭”(该标题源自互联网上的流行语,详情参见前期的Friday5)。文中作者表达了自己对这位篮球明星的看法并获得了多达70567次电击量。董路喜欢在自己的博客上上传视频,其中既包括一些娱乐节目:例如一档由以扮演农民而著称的演员潘长江和他的漂亮女儿共同主持的娱乐节目。此外还有一些对自己家庭生活的温馨记录,例如小女儿第一天上学和在肯德基门前跳舞等等。央视知名体育记者张斌最初也是足球主播:在1991年毕业于人民大学之后,张开始主持央视的《足球之夜》并在欧洲杯的赛事转播中担任评论员。目前张担任央视体育部的副主任,兼任几档主要足球节目的制作人。张斌在搜狐的博客发表的文章浏览量往往逾万,并且多数都是关于体育的话题。最近的一篇被浏览超过三万次的关于刘翔的文章中,张写到“期望刘翔可以因为爱这项运动而继续跑下去…”而关于南非八百米跑冠军Caster Semenya的性别问题也是张斌另一篇文章索讨论的话题。张斌在体育主播界向来因待人诚恳友善而颇有声望,还为倡导环保而在博客上号召人们饮用瓶装水时务必饮尽而不是剩下半瓶随手丢弃。但是张的婚外恋风波也一度让他声名狼藉。他的妻子,也是电视节目主播的胡紫薇曾经在央视节目的录制现场对张的风流韵事痛加揭露。

文化娱乐 ::
三联生活周刊的文化娱乐记者孟静以其对娱乐圈名人的采访而在媒体圈名声颇著。她的博客与其媒体工作关系紧密,内容涉及媒体圈的各种规则(例如在最近一篇谈媒体行业中无可奈何的拍马屁现象的文章),以及没有在纸媒刊登的精彩采访片段。此外,她的兴趣还包括女权主义和各种冷笑话。以“奶猪”为笔名写博客的袁蕾是一个经常被与孟静相提并论,并称“南袁北孟”的另一位文化娱乐记者。袁为《南方周末》的文化版撰稿,以思维敏锐的采访而著称。她的博客更加随性,喜欢在博客中运用一些女孩子中间流行的同音字替代法和别的稀奇古怪的词语。袁喜欢在采访正式发表之前在自己的博客上发表节选一小段。此外,她还常常发表一点对日常生活别具眼光的观察(例如对一起未遂的电话诈骗案的描述)。其它的文章有关于媒体和政府政策的各方传言,以及对各种杜撰的新闻的评论。卡哇伊的语言风格让她显得与喜欢讥嘲语调评论媒体政治的其他记者有所不同。她的博客上的最新更新是她的宠物狗“熊总”的照片

专栏作家 ::
原名张平的长平曾任《南方周末》新闻部主任兼《南方周刊》的副总编。在去年三月“拉萨”暴乱之后因出版涉及“敏感话题”的社论而被免职。因自己的博客经常被服务商删帖,长平停止了天涯新浪凤凰博客的更新,并开通了具有独立域名的博客。最近,他在自己的博客上发表了一系列关于云南卖淫事件的文章,随后博客因技术故障停服三个月,直到八月份才在毛向辉和左拉的帮助下重新上线(参见单位的中国博客大会采访:左拉毛向辉)。长平还是一个活跃的,并在Financial Times的中文网站上撰写专栏熊培云是新闻周刊《南风窗》的欧洲通讯员和新京报的资深评论员。今年,熊开通了一个名为“思想国21世纪评论”的团体博客,用以替代自己以前的在大陆地区被屏蔽的“理想国”博客。博客涉及内容广泛,其中包含大量关注农村问题的文章(熊本人经常围绕此方面为一些杂志和其它媒体供稿)。在一片关注网瘾治疗的文章中,熊将电击疗法和小说《发条橙》中的Ludovico疗法做了类比。博客的很大一部分内容是在媒体上刊发的文章的未删节版本,这在纸媒专栏作者中是较为常见的做法。

经济 ::
芮成刚是央视的国际频道和经济频道的主播,同时他有着很大流量的博客在互联网上也很有影响力。芮经常在自己的博客上发表自己与世界各国领导人比肩而立的合影,而这些领导人的手里往往会拿一本芮自己新出版的著作(例如与英国前首相托尼.布莱尔的合影)。年纪轻轻就在媒体界获得如此成功,又兼具英俊潇洒的气质的芮成刚是无数少男少女的偶像;在不少年轻学子眼中,芮是他们的导师兼榜样。他流利的英文在自己同行中更是凤毛麟角,因此被一些国外人士认为是中国形象大使的最佳人选。然而,对芮成刚的鄙夷之声也不绝于耳:他被视作一个自我炒作的作秀高手,一个跨越界限试图扮演一个经济学家的不称职记者,一个在领导了07年从故宫驱逐星巴克的极端民族主义者。最近,芮又因自己在伦敦G20上对美国总统奥巴马的提问而再惹争议。作家/赛车手/博客韩寒首先发难,在自己的博客上中英文双语全文刊发了芮成刚与奥巴马的问答,并用他一贯的反讽语气对芮进行了一番挖苦。其它网友也随后展开讨论,纷纷指责芮在提问中所用的“on behalf of China”(代表中国)和“on behalf of the world”(代表世界)不恰当,并体现了政府以民意代表自居的高高在上。与此形成鲜明对比,芮本人在博客中对自己的表现十分得意,而这更激起网民都反感,和更多都讥讽

社会 ::
柴静是中央电视台一档深度报道节目的记者。她的博客在经过很长一段时间的停顿后再次更新。柴自觉将博客作为一个与观众进行交流的公共平台,经常在博客上发布一些自己节目的视频片段以激发读者的讨论。作者本人也常常加入讨论,回应网友的观点。在最近的文章中,她解释了自己关于评论部分的看法,以及她对评论的删贴的原则。其它还有更多关于新闻职业的主题广泛的文章,例如一篇关于Walter Cronkite自传的读后感。柴在新闻界的髙调,尤其是在电击治疗网瘾报道中所做的工作,使她不断遭受恶意流言中伤,其中包括她因接受重庆某纺织厂为获得央视广告时段而支付的贿赂而被逮捕的传言。对此,柴不得不出面进行辟谣。柴也偶尔在熊培云的理想国21世纪评论上发表文章(例如这篇关于农村变化和文化传承的文章)。王克勤是《中国经济时报》的记者以其对社会黑暗面,尤其是腐败问题的深度调查而知名。王倾向于在自己的博客上发表文章那些他自认为难以在传统媒体发表的文章。例如,他在六月分试图采访因杀死政府官员而被短暂拘押的邓玉娇。邓虽然被认定属于正当防卫,并被释放,但中外媒体并未获准采访她。而王对自己申请采访未果的过程的记述在发表在网络上后不久就被搜狐删除。这篇文章的转帖仍然可以在网上被找到。王的其它文章也往往大量获得转载,其中包括一篇他访问失明律师陈光城而遭遇暴力的文章被翟明磊在“一五一十部落”博客群中转载,而翟本人也是一位知名的反腐斗士(参加单位的中国博客大会采访)。一篇CNBloggercon对他的采访。王有时被称作中国的林肯·斯蒂芬斯。他从2006年来的大量文章被收录在中国选举与治理网上。

// AjS

[Friday 5是我服务的爱德曼数码(中国)的一项产品。这里是全部Friday 5 的存档。 有意通过电子邮件订阅双语Friday 5者可通过以下地址向我发送邮件索取:adam 点 schokora 在 edelman 点 com。]

words | nothing is original ::

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

:: “…nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to…”

– Jim Jarmusch, an American independent filmmaker

[I stole this quote from a passage in Paul Arden's book Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite.]

things well done | pterodactyl squad ::

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

:: there is nothing that makes me smile more than 8-bit music and ice cream. Check out this new website / video game music netlabel called Pterodactyl Squad. Pretty amazing. I just downloaded their 8-bit Weezer album – which btw has all the classics! Link here to check out their other releases. H/T to Jenn Wong. Bravo, well done.  // AjS

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ben houge, 29 giraffes ::

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

:: don’t miss this. For more info, link here. Ben is also a Neocha.com user, link here to check his profile, which is loaded with his original music. // AjS

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friday 5 | chinese ethnic minorities 2.0 ::

Friday, July 17th, 2009

:: in light of the role Web 2.0 and online communications played in the recent unrest in Xinjiang, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at where and how China’s ethnic minorities congregate via online community in China. A bit of context for unknowing readers: China has 56 officially recognized ethic groups. 55 of them are minorities, with the majority ethnic group, Han, accounting for 90+% of China’s population.

The scale and diversity of the Chinese Internet means that members of China’s 55 ethnic minorities looking for online communities that reflect their offline culture have a wide variety of options available to them. Although there are occasional problems, as in the case of Uyghur discussion forums suspended after the Urumqi riots, or when community websites of groups in China’s more “restive” regions sometimes have to deal with the firm hand of government authorities, the Chinese Internet still has a wealth of resources for people who want to meet others like themselves online, or who want to converse in their own language.

Below is a snapshot of some online communities for five different minority groups in China: Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian, Hakka, and Manchu. Non-Chinese languages might require installing special fonts or viewing pages in a particular web browser, but discussion on many of the linked sites is conducted in standard Chinese script.

Uyghur ::
The most visible forum for Uyghurs in Xinjiang was the Uighur Online BBS discussion forum (维吾尔在线), run by economist Ilham Tohti. After the recent Urumqi riots, the website was blocked because of its use as a communication tool for rioters, and Ilham was detained by police. It’s still available through a proxy, though. It has active sub-forums for Uyghur issues, ethnic thought, and Han society, and even one for Hui people in predominantly Uyghur areas. On the newsy side of things, sub-boards range from current events to Uyghur issues in the foreign media. Translation between traditional ethnic languages, Mandarin Chinese, and English is a featured activity, with assignments handed out to interested members in exchange for system credits. A companion Uyghur-language BBS has a wide range of posts written in Latin script. My Uyghur is a Xinjiang-registered portal written in Uyghur Arabic script, and hosts BBS discussion forums in both Uyghur Arabic and in Chinese. Interestingly, many of the discussion threads on the Chinese forum are written in a mix of Chinese characters and Latin-script Uyghur. The My Uyghur website has an associated blog group on Netease with around one thousand members who post about Uyghur culture, faith, and customs, mostly in Chinese.

Tibetan ::
Tibet Culture, a Gansu-registered blog host and discussion forum, is an active community for Chinese-language discussion about Tibet and Tibetans. The BBS discussion forum has a range of sub-forums including Tibetan culture, literature, and Buddhist texts, but the blog section is far more interesting. pulls down several dozen blog posts a day ranging from art to t-shirts to current events like the Urumqi riots to Tibetan Buddhism. Most of the blog posts are in Chinese; occasionally Tibetan-language posts will be put up as image files. The government-run Tibet Information Center also hosts a blog service that covers many of the same topics; judging from the tag cloud, education is a major focus, as is the Dalai Lama, who takes a major drubbing from the site’s bloggers. Displaying Tibetan script is still an issue for many web browsers today, so Tibetan-language websites are doubly impenetrable to outsiders (you may have to try some of the links listed here in a number of different browsers to get them to render properly). ChodMe is a Tibetan-language blog host associated with the news portal TibetCM. Discussion-forum-wise, the Tibetan Youth BBS gets a fair amount of traffic.

Mongolian ::
The Mongolian Youth forum is a bilingual BBS that hosts discussion in both Chinese and Mongolian. On the Chinese side, the sub-board for international Mongol issues is quite popular and focuses largely on the country of Mongolia, with threads like this look at the army. The Mongolian-language side has less traffic, and the most popular sub-board seems to be about the environment and customs. The Mongolian Teacher Forum describes its mission to be “saving ethnic education” (拯救民族教育). The forum is mostly dedicated to pedagogical topics, with discussions over ethnicity-related issues quite common. In one re-posted article, the author questions why Inner Mongolia has no real Mongolian university: “Why can’t the Mongolians, who once founded the mightiest empire of the world, even build a Mongolian university in their own autonomous region?” Many of the active posters are teachers. For example, “Chasna”, a female Mongolian elementary school teacher has 541 posts. In one post, she talks about her experiences teaching ethics to young students. “Taliinhan” (塔林汗), which means “friend of the prairie” in Mongolian, is a forum about environmental protection issues in Inner Mongolia. A large proportion of discussion is dedicated to laws and regulations. The “Taliinhan environmental protection association,” an NGO founded in 2004, is the force behind the forum. Taliinhan seeks to “protect the prairie and the interest of the farmers within the boundary of law,” and one of their offline activities is the distribution of law texts to Mongolian farmers. QQ (57162485) and MSN () groups are available to further facilitate group communication. Sites in Mongolian occasionally give users a choice between a Cyrillic version (used more in outer Mongolia) and vertical Mongolian script (which has only become practical since the introduction of Windows Vista, and which still generally requires the use of the Internet Explorer browser). This BBS discussion forum, affiliated with the Mongolian News Portal of China, uses software from Inner Mongolian IT company Menksoft. Other solutions exist: The MGLBlog host uses Flash to display Mongol script.

Hakka ::
Although it arguably should be, Hakka (客家) is not officially recognized as one of China’s 56 ethnic Groups. Hakka speakers are classified as Han Chinese, and they live mainly in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian. The lack of official recognition rankles some young people, who discuss various propositions for a “Hakka Province” or a “Hakka Municipality” (or even, tongue-in-cheek, a “Hakka Kingdom”). A thread on the Hakka Online BBS discussion forum argues in favor of a Hakka homeland, which one commenter suggests establishing around Meizhou, Guangdong. Earlier this year, Hakka Online launched its first annual pop music competition, which solicited original videos for Hakka-language songs (most of them from Taiwan). Another website, Hakka Forum, receives a couple dozen posts a day and has message boards for topics ranging from Hakka folk music and films to famous Hakka people, including an analysis of the family tree of Sun Yat-sen, who was born into a Hakka family. Hakka identity is a factor here, too: the discussion forum carries the tag-line, “The 56 ethnicities are like 56 flowers. One flower is the Han, and it has eight petals. One of these petals is the Hakka.” Hakka musicians and political figures are also featured on China Hakka Hall. The Hakka Sky BBS is a relatively active forum with about a thousand comments a day, most of them in the Hakka News and Cultural Encyclopedia boards. As Hakka people are spread across a large part of China, there are numerous smaller, local forums like Guangzhou Hakka, and Meizhou Hakka, which launched just this past April. Recent posts of interest include a student’s account of a trip to Yongding in Fujian, where he enjoyed ancient streets and earthen buildings that have been granted World Cultural Heritage status. Another post is about the “brewing” (酿) of food in Hakka culture, in this case, how to make brewed bitter melon. Interestingly, despite the unique language that defines part of Hakka identity, most of the conversation on all of these Hakka forums is conducted in Mandarin, except in cases where the finer points of Hakka itself are under discussion.

Manchu ::
Although a sizable group of people identify themselves as Manchu in China, the language and culture has practically vanished. Consequently, online Manchu communities feature discussions of traditional Manchu culture and introductory language materials from a learner’s perspective. Solonju, for example, has an online Manchu textbook and a BBS forum for discussion in both Chinese and Romanized Manchu. The Manchus website and BBS discussion forum, registered in Beijing, is written almost entirely in Chinese (except for a title written in Manchu and Jurchen script). One of the popular sub-boards is “Root finding,” where netizens can trace their genealogy based on their family name and the area they once lived. Other active boards include discussion of Manchu history and “Modern Manchu,” which consists of notifications for current Manchu cultural activities. Similarly, in the iManchu discussion forums, the hottest sub-board is devoted to the discussion of ethnic history. A Manchu blog group on Sohu has moderately active discussions of topics like Manchu script and traditional culture in a modern setting. The Internet also provides a number of Manchu language tools. A Manchu script creator converts Romanized Manchu into vertical Manchu script, and Enenggi hosts a Manchu word of the day and an online Manchu dictionary. Although the Manchu people of the northeast may have lost their language, the Xibe people of Xinjiang, who are related to the Manchu but are classified as an entirely separate ethnic group, retain a language that is quite close to classical Manchu. Xibe Web has a low-traffic BBS discussion forum where posts are made in Romanized Xibe. The website Xibe Culture has a similar Xibe-language BBS discussion forum.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]

su dabao’s tribute to michael jackson ::

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

:: see below for an excellent tribute to the late Michael Jackson by famed Chinese sand-painter Su Dabao. The soundtrack is a Jackson song titled 2 Bad, one of his lesser-known but better tracks (a personal favorite of mine actually). Enjoy. // AjS

[To give credit where credits due, Youku Buzz also featured this today in its email newsletter; however, I first saw it on Kaixin001.com.]

shanzhai | wifi internet connection ::

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

:: while white collar workers in China’s cities take the Internet for granted, it’s not quite the same in the countryside.

After Lu Hui (卢慧) finished her studies, she went back to being a rabbit farmer in a remote village in Sichuan. She had the benefits of Internet during computer studies at secondary school, but unfortunately her home village was too remote to get a connection.

She first tried wireless Internet (GPRS) at her house in 2005, but it was too expensive. After a few years of self study, Lu Hui and her boyfriend came up with an ingenious solution.

They re-purposed 2 satellite dishes, off the shelf TP-Link wifi routers, and buckets (for rainproofing!) with a 3km line of site connection going from her boyfriend’s place in town to her home in the countryside. They managed to get the connection working in September of last year (2008), and it’s been running successfully ever since.

The “rabbit beauty lady” (as she’s known as on the IT forum ZOL) posted details of her DIY Internet connection two months later in the ZOL forums and almost immediately rocketed to unanimous acclaim. Her ingenuity has led to two TV interviews, as well as a number of media appearances. Link here for more on the technical details of Lu Hui’s Internet connection. Link here for Lu Hui’s QQ blog. Link here to learn more about a DIY microphone project in China.  // XD

dirty car art ::

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

:: the work of Austin, Texas-based artist Scott Wade, link here for more.  // AjS

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panties on the square ::

Monday, June 8th, 2009

:: a special thanks to Danwei for helping me learn that this image is actually an Ai Weiwei photograph. I honestly had no idea. For the longest time I thought it was just a Zuo Xiao Zu Zhuo (左小祖咒) album cover, which, incidentally, hung framed on the the wall of my Beijing apartment from 2003 to 2006. Does anyone know where I can find more information about this photo?  // AjS

Ai Weiwei

lindi’s bad himo ::

Monday, June 8th, 2009

:: last week, Lindi (林笛), the lead singer and pipa player for the well-known Shanghainese band Cold Fairyland, shared with me some videos from a recent performance by her new band Bad Himo at Shanghai’s Yuyintang music club. Bad Himo is a two-person band (Lindi and her husband) whose songs are written entirely about the couple’s cat, Himo. In chatting with Lindi about Bad Himo, she said they formed the band because she has always wanted to play more straight forward rock and punk-styled music, but is too shy to actually write overly aggressive / provocative lyrics with curse words, etc. According to Lindi, the next best thing was to write songs that complain about her naughty cat, Himo.

The songs are silly, playful, definitely not punk, and sung in Mandarin, Shanghainese, and English, as those are the three languages Lindi and her husband speak to the cat at home. However, Lindi admits that during the show she forgot most of lyrics and just sorta made them up as she went along. Lindi is unsure how often, or even if, the band will play again, but they are looking for a drummer if anyone knows anyone.

Below I’ve shared a video from the performance last week. The song in the video, titled Little White Horse (小白马), is mostly sung in Shanghainese. For videos of all the songs from the Yuyintang performance, link here. Related, I recently produced a short video with Lindi performing solo / acoustic out of her home studio, link here to check it out. // AjS

snaps | xiao bao ::

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

:: taken at the home of Shanghai-based illustrator Nial O’Connor while filming part 2 of a video project that introduces characters from his comic Jing Squared (晶²). The first character introduced was Jing Jing, the character below is Xiao Bao. In a couple weeks we’ll be releasing the Xiao Bao video, stay tuned.  // AjS

Nial O'Connor

Xiao Bao