ijoi’s Chinese name is 视觉我享, which roughly translates to “I Enjoy Sight.” ijoi is a web platform to promote design(ers) from and in China. They showcase work, conduct interviews and have plans to roll out podcasts (video & audio).
For example, here’s an excerpt from the video interview (subtitled in both Chinese and French) that was done with Weestar 魏星宇:
Translation: In fact, I’ve really liked drawing ever since I was a child.
ijoi was started by Gabriel Jorby, who we profiled here.
It’s a pretty impressive effort so far, and reads like a good and glossy design magazine: Visit ijoi now.
Qifang and PPDai are both online peer-to-peer lending systems, where you can donate small amounts to people who are often poorer and from rural areas (it is a form of microfinancing).
But where PPDai focuses on the fast and high returns, Qifang takes it a step further:
Translation of left side:
An open style scholarship platform: Need help? Want to help?
Get in now > Safe, Simple, Free.
By focusing on loans for people who can’t afford education, they’re appealing to a belief in the power education, which may just have enough altruistic sway to sidestep people’s distrust of others, and is certainly a much better story than empowering petty village commerce that does who-knows-what.
Think of donating to education as the China equivalent of people in the US donating to small entrepreneurs in the developing world (e.g. Kiva: Loans that change lives).
And as proof of their social mission, the right block on the screenshot above says:
Post-disaster reconstruction communication platform: Enter now.
Aricsqueen. He’s from America, but living in China. He video blogs a “Shanghai Diary.” His mission is to give an alternative and honest view on China. The news and views typically take a critical position on China; stories include how an American got jailed in China for, a watchdog piece on pre-Olympic changes, and a preview of five Chinese rock bands.
The citizen journalist format is interesting , but in this case, sometimes the white American dude point of view has its limits.
I’m late to the show, and Aric’s currently on a break from Shanghai/China.
“With music by Damon Albarn, and imagery by Jamie Hewlett — the duo that brought us the Gorillaz — I am loving BBC Sport’s marketing campaign for the Chinese Olympics.”
Two calls to sign this petition have been floating around my inbox recently:
Being from Hong Kong, I quickly submitted my name to support this cause. Thoughts stirred in my head: What was the UN doing? Is this a signal for Taiwan? Does this mean Hong Kong will switch to simplified Chinese soon?
Upon further research however, it seems have all been a hoax based upon a chain of sloppy journalism. According to Xiao Zhao who took the time to investigate the matter:
…the rumor was obviously started with a false message from a professor in China, named Chan, Zhang Tai who casually said UN will stop use Traditional Chinese in 2008 to a reporter with a Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, Oriental Daily in March 2006. The reporter didn’t confirm with UN and just went ahead reporting what professor Chan said. Later on, UN had to announce that there is not abolishment of traditional Chinese in 2008 and UN has never used Traditional Chinese since 1971.
We reported over a year ago on the release of the first mini-PC based on a China-developed processor. But according to Fool’s Mountain, it seems like that it either didn’t really ship or perhaps it didn’t register on his radar. So, there is a supposed new release that is the “second” first-ever commercial product based on an indigenous Chinese processor (the Loongson).
Over the past decade, researchers and engineers at the China Academy of Science has been given a budget in the tens-hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a commercially viable processor design, using only Chinese intellectual property. And although there have been numerous press releases about various technical feats, the simple fact of the matter was, you couldn’t actually find a commercial PC based on the Loongson.
Combine with this the fact that a different processor project (汉芯, Hanxin) was found to have been a complete fake (the researcher actually purchased a Freescale DSP and ground off the markings on the packaging)… all in all, it’s been a difficult process.
This new mini-computer only apparently shipped 500 units, which raises doubts about its legitimacy.
For tech specs see here — in short, it’s a slow and lightweight mini-PC. But hey, it’s only $262USD.
People used to greet with “Did you have the dinner?”, now they say “Did you feel it(the shaking) last night?” instead.
People used to care where their friends live, now they care on which floor do their friends live.
People now always check carefully on the walls with a magnifier after every aftershock to make sure their house is safe.
People now start to regard 2-floor as a very high place (to live)
People now dislike those who always shake their legs.
People now cannot bear with those who set their cell phones to vibration mode.
People now are easy to get scared when their legs start to shake (even just ordinary shaking)
People now feel very bad when the building is shaking. But after it stops shaking, people still worry about whether there would be another one. (No matter whether it is shaking, people are nervous)
People served by CMCC swear to stop using CMCC while people served by China Unicom swear to stop using China Unicom. (CMCC and China Unicom are the only two mobile service provider in China, the mobile communication was not working for a very long time after the major quake in May 12)
People now start to calculate how long will it take to run to the ground (from their rooms) as soon as they have nothing to do.
People now start to carry a bag with the their most valuable belongings all the time.
People now start to suspect themselves, and always ask each other, “Was there any shaking just now?”
People now always try to stare at the glass of water every 5 minutes (to check whether there’s a shock).
People now are very interested in Geography knowledge.
People now are very interested in life instinct
People now hesitates about whether to put off there shoes every time before they go to bed.
People now are always in front of a TV or a PC Screen, watching the news though most of the news has already been broadcast weeks before.
The Olympic torch protests have caused quite a stir online and offline, and that on the whole, I’ve found a lack of balanced viewpoints or real voices from real people. So here is my attempt to mitigate that:
“I would like to tell those friends who are sending SMS to call for the boycott of Carrefour that I happened to go into that supermarket yesterday and everything that I bought was made in China. This supermarket provides employment to several hundred Chinese employees. Behind the tens of thousands of products on the shelves, there has to be several million Chinese workers. If this boycott should work, China will be the first to experience the chaos!”
…he told the reporter that blind boycott of foreign countries will only harm China. This is the era of globalization, so why can’t we accept that point?
1) Most people, Chinese, American, French, whatever.. the ordinary ones, are not interested in political details. They just want to lead a normal and happy life. So it’s really a bad idea to say that “all the French people are evil” etc.
2) Due to some complicated reasons, we’ve met kinds of trouble. The Attacks to the Olympic Torch Relay in Paris really disobeyed the common goal of the majority. It’s not a good idea to mix sports and politics. If you are not a politician then you need to figure out enough truth before attacking the others or spamming everywhere on Internet. I have to admit that there are some Chinese people doing so in this post from my personal blog. I really feel sorry to see that all.
3) To boycott the western media / western companies is NOT a shortcut(in Chinese) for the Chinese people to be richer, NOR a shortcut for the China being stronger. As I will say later, to make our motherland be stronger and our people more richer, we’ve got a lot of things to do.
Headline image from 玩聚 on ju690 (with my translation in white):
The story goes that an officer within Chong Qing city administration (城管) looked up 城管 (city administration)”on Baidu Baike (= Baidu’s Wikipedia competitor) and found the following:
“City administration… A mafia (黑社會) that bullies storekeepers unable to pay their rent or economically challenged groups with problems with their licenses… Adjectives: Cruel, bloody, frightening… Verbs: Beat, smash, rob…”
This entry obviously distressed the poor officer, who himself was part of the city administration. It only hurt him more that Baidu Baike is supposedly written with the consensus of the greater netizen population.
What he may or may not know, however, is that he’s a victim of the greater egao (恶搞: spoofing/pranking) movement that is making its rounds on the Chinese internet.
Yet why did they egao city administration in particular? 王清 suggests on his blog that it’s a manifestation of the tension created by past incidents involving the city administration and small merchants. 王清 even goes as far as to say that it’s a call for reform and regulation on the role of city administration across the country.
And what happened to the entry in the end? Since the entry was first egao-ed on April 3, Baidu Baike has fixed it and erased the evidence of the egao edits (see deleted entries in their revision history)… but not before screenshots were captured for a Netease article.
Original story, sources and excerpts translated from 玩聚 on ju690.
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