2006 March Archive at Virtual China

Monthly Archive for March, 2006

China’s top keyword searches: hard to find on english language web

Published

on March 31, 2006

in Games, Search, South Korea and Translation

. 3 Comments

The leading Chinese search engine, Baidu, lists top searches of the day just the way Google Zeitgeist does. Link to today’s top keywords. Arrow indicates growth rate, followed by number of searches, and my translations.

1    mp3    ↑    99199
2    qq    ↑    78692 [QQ is China's most popular instant messaging platform]
3    电影    ↑    72689 [movies]
4    跑跑卡丁车    ↑    72299 [Popkart "Crazy Racing" game, found here]
5    小说    ↑    68450 [novels/fiction]
6    音乐    ↑    60760 [music]
7    游戏    ↑    60152 [games]
8    迅雷    ↑    59328 [Thunder, a download manager, found here]
9    劲舞团    ↑    57656 [Audition beta Chinese version of the Korean dance game, found here]
10    nba    ↓    44572 [NBA...yes, the same NBA]

What’s so striking is that a brief parallel Google search for the English names of two of the keywords, even with additional keywords, yields little or nothing. I couldn’t find anything on Popkart at all, while a search for Thunder eventually led me to some comments on message boards. Audition turns up on a few specialty gaming sites such as Raph Koster’s, or posts on the Chinese gaming industry at Pacific Epoch. Of course, a more strenuous search would probably yield more results, but it just shows where some of the gaps lie.

Play on Cosplay

Published

Jason Li

on March 31, 2006

in Art

. 1 Comment

Cao Fei (blogged about here) explores the interplay between cosplay and the real world in a set of clever photographs. For example:

Which alludes to the manga/anime Saint Seiya:

The set of photographs can be found here. (Sidenote: they use Macs!?)

aesthetics of abundance, cont.

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 31, 2006

in BBS, Design, Portals and Virtual China

. 3 Comments

Check out the difference in number of categories to search at the very top of the page for 2 major American portals (Yahoo and MSN) and 2 major Chinese portals (Sohu and Sina).

aesthetics of abundance

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 30, 2006

in BBS, Design and Virtual China

. 2 Comments

Hans Juergen-Bucher (Media Studies, University of Trier) has a provocative 2004 paper titled Is There a Chinese Internet? which reports the results of user studies he conducted in Germany with Chinese Internet users. One of his most interesting points is about what he calls an "aesthetics of abundance" that shapes Chinese website design and interface.

In Chinese culture we can find two different kinds of aesthetical systems: the “aesthetics of abundance” and the “aesthetics of emptiness” (see Pohl 2004). Websites in China are usually designed along the principles of the “aesthetics of abundance” which refers to the Chinese popular culture and what can be seen in New Years pictures, calendars or paintings on dishes. The “aesthetics of emptiness” is part of the Chinese high culture and heavily influence by Zen and Chan Buddhism. The principles of this kind of aesthetics did not influence web design up to now in a significant way. The attractiveness of the “aesthetics of abundance” not only relies on its integration into popular culture but also on its symbolic meanings: strong and rich colour, density, and opulent presentation symbolize happiness and wealth.

Well, I just came across a delightfully abundant Chinese web experience, while exploring a city-level forum on the nationally popular Xici BBS. Xici’s Chongqing forum (a megacity in China’s most populous province, Sichuan) today has a photo thread dedicated to a recently married friend, showing off the friend’s wedding photos. The photos aside, what’s so busy about the whole thing is that you have photos, text, and multiple user icons (some that move), scrolling transparently against the colorful background image of an idyllic rural scene. Very…sweet.

link
Juergen-Bucher’s paper

a list of favorite Chinese blogs

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 30, 2006

in Blogs

. 1 Comment

The folks at Danwei have done us all a good deed by listing their favorite Chinese-language blogs–and a few of the most popular BBS. You’ll have to read them in Chinese. If not, you can at least check them out to see if you spot anything that’s visually interesting.

link

Stripper-Blogger Bids Farewell

Published

Jason Li

on March 30, 2006

in Blogs

. 0 Comments

Stripper-blogger 木木 bids her farewell. See the (very) lengthy post about it at her blog. Hats off to PostShow, for both the link and the image below:

060325_mumu

CyberAsia conversations

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 29, 2006

in Games, Politics, Religion, Video Clips and Virtual China

. 2 Comments

There is a series of conversations being organized in the Netherlands on Chinese online politics and culture, which appear to be things you can stream live and participate in via IRC, or at the least, download and view after the fact. One took place last night (ahem…should have read those emails earlier!), but the others are happening tomorrow and later in the month. Here goes:

V2 and IIAS (both based in the Netherlands) are organising a debate on Chinese Media Culture. The event itself takes place in Rotterdam, but it will be streamed online, and it will be possible to ask questions and take part in the discussion through IRC.

Tangent_Leap: An evening on emergent media culture in the People’s Republic of China

featuring
Isaac Mao, activist blogger and software architect, Shanghai
Zhang Ga, media artist and curator, Beijing/New York
Karsten Giese, political scientist and sinologist, Hamburg
Guobin Jang, social scientist, New York online

moderator: Stephen Kovats, media researcher, V2_Institute
respondent: Martijn de Waal, journalist and media theorist, Amsterdam

Thursday March 30m 19.00 - 21.00 (CET)
V2_Institute for the Unstable Media
Streamed live: 02.00 - 04.00 (Beijing, Hong Kong), 19.00-21.00 (Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris) 13.00 - 15.00 (New York), 10.00 - 12.00 (San Francisco)
www.v2.nl/live

In addition there are 3 seminars organized by Peter Pels (Anthropology, Leiden University), bringing together Asian activists, academics, and industry folks to discuss some ripe topics:

Asian Cyberpolitics, with Isaac Mao and Merlyna Lim. How successful is the Chinese regime in silencing digital voices? Why was Isaac’s website <www.isaacmao.com> blocked so quickly? How does the Internet produce new forms of politics? Does the Indonesian cyberspace still facilitate critique on the political system the way it did before the downfall of the Soeharto-regime in 1998? Wed. March 29 8-10 pm Amsterdam.
Asian Cyberfundamentalism, April 18
Asian Cybergames, May 10.

Looks like you have to make a reservation (email: reserveren@waag.org) to view the seminars live, but also that they should be available to download at the Waag Society/Connect Media site after the fact.

(via Chineseinternetresearch)

radical vocabularies in virtual China

Published

IFTF

on March 29, 2006

in Politics

. 0 Comments

According the blog China Confidential, China’s Internet monitors are becoming concerned about radical "leftist" (meaning, ultra-socialist or communist) language online. The kinds of things that might warrant special attention?

Unorthodox, repeated references to Lenin, say, or Lin Biao (Mao’s Long
March comrade-in-arms, who disappeared after a supposed coup attempt
during the Cultural Revolution but nevertheless remains an inspiration
to heretical overseas Maoists because of his theory of guerilla warfare).

link
(via Global Voices)

Vblogging from urban China, in English

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 29, 2006

in Blogs

. 1 Comment

Jeremy Goldkorn has been one of the most visible people behind the Chinese advertising and media-watching blog Danwei for the last several years. Check out his latest contribution to virtual China — "Danwei TV." They’ve got two brilliant clips, one on the big buildings going up in Beijing in preparation for the 2008 Olympics; and one that introduces the print media on sale at the familiar kiosks that dot China’s cities. Short, good-enough production quality, great editing, and best of all, smart and well informed.

Beijing’s Changing Skyline: Big Buildings for 2008
Newspaper Kiosks

(via The Shanghaiist)