An exploration of virtual experiences and environments in and about China.
Check out Shanshui Records website, where you can find MP3s, news about shows, photos, and buy CDs in RMB, USD, CAD and AUD. Elyse Ribbons at City Weekend calls Shanshui "the mainland’s sole refuge for geeky, mathbop electronica artists since its inception four years ago."
One more short post on Chinese beatboxing. I think this is one of the guys who drives the bbox.cn.com site, seeing as how he spits the URL at the end of this video. Reading the comments on Youtube is interesting as well–seeing how a young Korean Chinese in Changchun can actually reach people all over the world, via a webcam in what looks like their living room, with his older brother in the background trying to read and then finally smoking a cigarette.
The Shanghaiist posted on this a few months ago already, but I just came across these Chinese beatboxing videos and had to explore further.
Shanghaiist describes the clip:
So a certain Liu Feng, a multi-talented video editor from Beijing working at W+K Shanghai, traveled up to northern China over CNY to discover the secret behind a popular web video featuring a Chinese beat-boxing virtuoso.
What he found is hinted at in the trailer above. Yanji, a city of
just over 400,000 people located near the border to North Korea, is a
virtual breeding ground for fledgling Chinese beat-boxers. Taking
elements from popular Korean, Chinese and American culture, Yanji’s
b-boys and b-girls are carving out a style all their own.
Want more? Here’s an excellent selection of Chinese beatboxing videos from Vietnamese video search engine Baamboo.com, including more from the Yanji performers. And if you don’t mind navigating in Chinese, check out bbox.cn.com, a Chinese beatboxing site and the online home of the Chinese Bbox Association (is it really an official association?!). There you can find a BBS forum with posts such as "My new work," but it won’t let you download anything unless you register. Once you do, however, you can immediately access at least .wav audio files that are oddly, wonderfully intimate, such as this original piece by fannesmjj which I think should be called If Your Mother Only Knew. From (I’m guessing) some Chinese teenager, with really good English, directly to your ears:
Wikipedia nods to kouji 口技 in its definition of beatboxing. Kouji is a form of indigenous Chinese vocal percussion performing art, but is not related to the current hiphop style. It’s more like old vaudeville vocal performances that tell a story, for instance, of a car crash or a train leaving the station, as in this clip:
A search for 口技 on Google video turns up more beatboxing than traditional kouji, so at least some Chinese are linking the terms.
Even Supergirl Li Yuchun beatboxes in this clip from one of her concerts.
Finally, you must see "Beatboxing in China Tee shop," where a foreign guy beatboxes for his Chinese friends as they drink tea in Xi’an. I’ll have to try that the next time I’m invited to sing for Chinese friends.
Bo Shao, founder/CEO of EachNet, which was later sold off and incorporated into eBay has opened a new blog.
I found it interesting how much more informal, yet actually informative Bo Shao’s bio was in Chinese than in English.
I don’t know if this discrepancy is standard in Chinese versus English bio’s, but it is an example of what can be lost in translation (and, I believe, how much more story-shaped bios inform).
Name: Bo Shao. Nickname: Bigheaded genius (take in mind my friends made this up), darling (when my wife is happy), Bo Shao! (when my wife is angry).
Born in 1973 in Shanghai. 建襄 primary school. 华东师大二附 secondary school. Received numerous 1st prizes from nation-wide math competitions. In 1991 skipped a grade via the 全额奖 scholarship and enrolled in Harvard, supposedly the first student to do so after China’s Liberation. (Should be true, although there was one other student with me my year.)
Boston Consulting Group. Goldman Sachs (actually only did a stint as a summer associate). Harvard Business School (exceptional results my first year, fell drastically in my second year but I did win my wife’s affection).
1999 returned to China to found EachNet. Harvard classmate 谭海音 returned during the summer holiday to join (wouldn’t have been able to do it without her/alone). Became China’s largest e-commerce site by 2002 (not b-to-b). In a shocking 2003, was purchased by eBay at a high price (looking back, did I sell it for too little? Who knows.)
Because of family reasons (really), moved back to the States in 2003. Watching EachNet/eBay from afar. Anxious, angry, hurt, pained. Wife also pained, scolded me, "You already sold the company, haven’t you eaten/had enough?" I scratched my nose and continued to change our daughter’s diapers.
In mid-2006, founded NovaMed with Mark Lotter and 肖耿民. In late-2006, founded BabyTree with 王怀南.
Joined the US-based Matrix Partners in 2007 (high position but low profile). Part-time. Hope to find one or two business venture partners in 2007.
Then, his "standard English bio"…
Chinese portal Sina.com, which has one of the "good," officially sanctioned video clip websites, is now holding a massive video blog 播客 contest which will end on July 15th. According to the press release, actor Jacky Chan, directors Feng Xiaogang and Zhang Yuan, painter Fang Lijun, and the Asian Backstreet Boys aka the Backdorm Boys are among the judges, and of course there will be online voting. They are giving away prizes totaling more than 1 million RMB (~ US $128,000). Prizes will be given in categories of self-made 自拍, short act 短剧, remix 改编, lip-synching 翻唱, animation 动画, and spoof 恶搞; and will belong to (excuse the Chinglish here, please) either Family Life 家庭生活, Creative Remix 创意改编, Situational Short 情景短剧, Accomplished Performance 才艺表演, or Social Documentary 社会纪录.
Entries will be accepted from individuals as well as from organizations. Three top prizes will be awarded for "Best Original Video, Most Recommended Video, and Best Organization Video." CCTV will be airing some of the winners.
Enough of the details! Go see some of the submissions by scrolling to the bottom of this page (but there are no links to the Lip-synching videos, which I’m terribly interested in seeing).
The video with the most votes (over 3000), over 11,000 pageviews, and 40 comments, is an original drama titled "Memory 记忆" It’s a blockbuster in DV format at over 16 minutes, and explores nostalgia, regret, and lost love. Lots of shots of a girlfriend hitting her boyfriend playfully, ice-skating, and I won’t spoil it, but there’s a red feather that floats down from above as well. If you’re a Chinese TV drama fan, you’ll enjoy it!
Just got to know Xiao i, a funny and smart robot created by Incesoft, when I attended the weekly 5G workshop in Shanghai this weekend. 5G is considered as a multiple meeting focus on Internet, new media, and innovation in Web2.0 style. It is initiated by Donews, the popular IT community & Media platform, and the first meeting in Shanghai started in April, 2006.
Xiao i was published in 2001 and then won a Microsoft robotic contest last year.
Here are some funny conversations between me and Xiao i:
Dialogue:
Me(M): I love you
Xiao i(i): Don’t know what to say
M:I love you
i: Sorry, I am not rich $_$
M: I love you
i: What do you want to say? Don’t repeat, otherwise I won’t be able to know what you want to say
M: I love you
i: Repeating needs skills, and you can use different words to express the same meaning, isn’t it better?
Xiao i is not only good at joking but also can help you get instant ticket information. However, I tried and found it was not so useful. And people discussed at the 5G conference that maybe it would be more efficient and convenient through a telephone call. But Xiao i’s father insisted that he could get the cooperation with the professional tickets and touring companies and provide the latest ticket information to Xiao i’s users.
The homepage says, "Xiao i is everywhere!"
Could it be really everywhere? Such as being used on mobiles? I think the market is huge, since many people in the countryside would prefer using mobiles to computers. I wish I could get the humorous reactions from Xiao i when I am in a subway and waiting for ticket information. Now Xiao i’s father and his colleagues are working hard on this and hopefully we could see Xiao i on mobile as soon as possible.
Last spring we and others reported on the First Annual Cellphone Film Festival held by the Shanghai magazine Metroer. Now you can check out the latest entries at the homepage of Metroer’s Third Annual Cellflix Festival (yes, I know, what happened to the second"? perhaps we were wrong last time!). They define cellflix as short pieces of a few minutes that are either captured via cell phones or can be directly downloaded and viewed on cell phones.
There you can see short pieces like The Time of Our Singing, by btr who also made last year’s memorable Shanghai Freak. The Time of Our Singing showcases a number of different venues where Chinese people are singing, from subterranean pedestrian busker to karaoke bar. Quite nice.
Here we see a pair of middle-aged women singing revolutionary songs from their youth.
Not to be missed: "Marv’s" Back in the Saddle with group shakerees by a bunch of exercise enthusiasts on the street in China.
"Send your location in by SMS at any time to 106920052131"
Wozone 我族网 is a free online social networking service that can also be used on your cell phone. You SMS your location and it tells you who is nearby that you might want to meet. It adds location to the usual online China features: chat rooms, BBS, photos and profiles, different "tribes" 部落 that you can search among including everything from geographic region to military interests. Most popular are fashion and feelings. Of course this kind of thing depends on a critical mass–the more users, the more valuable it is to other users–and there are no numbers on the site telling us how many people are using it. The locations themselves are quite broad areas within the city, such as "the zoo," or "Sanlitun" in Beijing. Presumably users could then SMS one another with more specific information if they were interested.
Here’s a screenshot of one Beijing user who has input his location at Tiantan and Dongdan over one evening in Beijing.
As car culture grows in China, I can’t wait to see how Chinese enthusiasts customize their cars. Here’s a set of photos from Moobol/Molive (a photojournalism website) showing a DIY car interior complete with laptop and GPS.
As the caption says, "a this little QQ unexpectedly did has a completely modern remodel!" (I’m not familiar with the phrase "little/small QQ 一个小QQ but it’s cute). And: "it’s a second hand laptop with a touch screen, 1000 RMB (about US $125). You can listen to music and see your GPS location. There’s a GPS device that cost around 800 RMB (~ US $100) that allows you to know your location at any time via satellite."
The Hong Kong government proves yet again that it is decidedly backward with regards to internet governance.
Original article from ESWN:
See previously on Virtual China:
It seems like the HK government likes to single out individual internet users and arrest/fine them to make an example out of them.
Even then, to fine someone for posting a dirty hyperlink in an "adult" section?
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