Click for full-sized image with translations.
There’s more here. Via Longyin Review.
Monthly Archive for June, 2008
As someone who struggles with a nicotine habit, I have a love-hate relationship with cigarettes. But you could, and probably someone already has, write a book or two on the social role of cigarettes in post-’49 China. Cigarettes were everywhere when I first came to China in 1985, and were a powerful currency, something you could use to get things done, or to warm up a relationship with a stranger. With the global attitude toward public health and second hand smoke, this too has changed in China; to save lives, it can’t change fast enough. So start collecting your cigarette-themed stuff now, if only as a reminder, 20 years from now, of how important they once were. Cigarette-haters need read no further!
Chinese cigarette phones, such as the Cigarette King 3838, which come in Zhonghua, Mild Seven, Panda or Marlbara brands. 1.5 inch display, very realistic and supposedly hard to distinguish from a real pack.
Quite nice Chinese cigarette brand packaging can be found, and since there have been hundreds of Chinese brands, lots of it, via a Baidu search. You can’t always get to the photos since they were posted on various BBS’s over the past 5 years and URLs don’t work. But if you enjoy, please feel free to view more via the second link above.
From a recent post on Sina’s BBS, some nice examples of the Chinese cigarette posters from the 1920s and 30s, reproductions of which you can buy online or at flea markets in many global cities, or on eBay!.
From the website of the Powerhouse Museum Collection, Australia: The success of these types of advertising posters meant that local artists and designers found a lucrative outlet with the growing demand for watercolour posters. Some were employed directly by companies such as the British American Tobacco Co and China Nanyang Brother Tobacco Co, others set up their own studios. This fostered a new form of expression that is a synthesis of Western ideas and technologies, and Chinese illustration technique, in which Chinese watercolour technique was effectively employed to add emphasis and a refined elegance to posters depicting familiar Chinese scenes and settings, historical figures, gods and characters of opera and legend.
Overseas companies such as the British American Tobacco Co, were the first to introduce this type of product promotion to China, which then prompted similar tactics from local Chinese companies
This is an older post from a conversation that happened back in February. But since it’s so interesting, and I did the work of translating it, I thought I’d post it now, months later. Enjoy.
MIT professor Henry Jenkins post on China’s Digital Mavens, which was translated into Chinese and then responded to on Chinese blog OhMyMedia.
Jenkins writes: “Some have adopted judgmental perspectives on this participation gap suggesting that the Chinese take but do not give to the culture of the web.”
OhMyMedia author Maomy argues that from a Western perspective, just looking at the traffic that flows between the Chinese language world and the English language world, this view would be correct, and that on more or less every kind of media exchange, including the Internet, there is an unfavorable balance in cultural flows between China and Europe/North America. Maomy sees this not as a cultural or individual choice but rather as an effect of political and economic power.
But Maomy doesn’t see a “participation gap” when looking at things from a Chinese perspective, where Chinese language content is growing exponentially and all kinds of participatory behaviors–mix and match, fan fiction, and so on–can be seen. He notes things like fan fiction written about Super Girl and Super Boy competitions, and e’gao spoofing on Mop.com. In sum, “Chinese young people are just as excited about contributing their personal creations to the web.”
Maomy then references a blog post by Hecaitou about what Chinese netizens are up to (this is a paraphrase! Too much slang for me and too little time):
I’m so busy. I need to read the latest news on Sina, check the latest shocking bits on Sohu blogs, play QQ and get my little guy dressed, play some online games and get some cool equipment, and find a BitTorrent to download the latest movies.
It’s true, says Maomy, and these are just the kinds of piddly little things that make up the daily life of the Chinese netizen. (And of an American netizen, for that matter). Everyone should have the right to do what they want, read what they want, and spend their time how they want, no matter how boring or worthless it seems to an outsider. Maomy sees this right as a scarce commodity in China, and believes that the value of the Internet for many Chinese lies in its freedom of choice, even with the contraints and limitations that are attached to the Chinese web.
This plopped into my inbox like a piece of anonymous spam, but who could resist such a beautifully crafted piece of spam:
Title:
创业要简单！创业要面试！创业更要学习！
(Entrepreneurship made simple! Entrepreneurship needs interviews! Entrepreneurship needs to be studied!)
The website given is hosted on Baidu’s blog platform and is titled:
华人第一创业系统—-在家创业系统，让创业变得更简单！
(Chinese people’s first entrepreneurship system — be an entrepreneur at home, makes entrepreneurship simple!)
Inside the site, there are posts about classes/meetups as well as tips/stories for budding entrepreneurs. One post talks about how the creator of massively popular MMORPG 传奇 (Legend of Mir) got his start, and quotes him saying, “I then discovered my own two formulas to get rich: The first is focus, the second is rhythm.
The 6th Chinese Internet Research Conference is themed, “China and the Internet: Myths and Realities.”
It takes place on June 13-14 in Hong Kong. Topics are interesting, and registration only costs 300 HKD.
Mafia is a decently well-known game within role-playing communities. To put it succinctly (see wikipedia for a more elaborate explanation of the game), it’s a game played by a group of people in a living room, where people are secretly assigned mafia or innocent roles.
During each turn the innocents have to suss out which people are mafia and vote to kill them. At the end of each turn, the mafia gets to choose to kill another innocent. The game ends when only mafia or innocents are left alive.
Sometimes this live-action game is played on a forum, or even through IM.
And then (according to press statements), the game was brought to China by a foreign student who was in Silicon Valley.
Exhibit A: http://killer.uland.com/
The game was transferred to forums/chatrooms in China and the avatars were dolled up. They also added a new cops role (making it cops, killers and innocents).
Exhibit B: http://www.ss911.cn
These people dolled it up some more, stole some graphics from existing games and created a spiffy GUI for it. They are currently setting up the ability to buy items for your character (making them look prettier or have new special weapons).
What’s interesting to me:
- Does the game work well with just text (versus the living room in-person context)?
- Does the game become more interesting with the cops role?
- Will it evolve further?
(Also: Is it unethical for them to use pirated graphics? I don’t think so — at this beta stage, they’re clearly placeholders for what’s to come. Even if they’re not: They’re using them so badly right now, it would be silly to penalize them.)
Thanks to Gamasutra writer Frank Yu for his help: Check out his new blog — Yum Yum Games.
(Original link to Killcity/SS911 via Dennis’ Blog.)
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