Huh?  Well, down the rabbit hole I went to seek to understand this concept.

(Inspired by china/divide’s recent post with lots of eye candy, I thought I’d posts some attractive pictures evocative of the xiao zi concept.)

Where did this term come from?  Originally, Karl Marx

The term is most directly translated as “petty” (Chinese) as in “petty bourgeoisie.” (Chinese) I shared with my friends that the term Petty Bourgeoisie has specific meaning in the Marxist conception of class, which through class struggle drives the progressive (dialectic materialist) development of history.  The original “petty bourgeoisie” were the merchant, shopkeeper, small business owners.

But today’s xiaozi are not defined about how they make money, but how the spend it. The term, once used to mark those on the wrong side of the revolution, has now been co-opted by popular culture to mean something entirely different and not entirely negative.

My attempt at a definition

After consulting my friends and Twitter (thanks taweili!) Here’s my attempt at a definition:

小资 (Xiao3 Zi1) – people who enjoy fashion, brands, hobbies, and free thinking that is inspired by Western commercial and artistic culture.  Similar to “yuppies” in the sense of youthful materialism, the term also carries a overtones of the creative, free-thinking state of being “hipsters.”  However, this creativity and free-thinking is only within the bounds of what is socially acceptable within the xiaozi norm.  There are many positive attributes of Xiaozi.  To some it is a put-down.  But to others, it is a compliment.  Still others might use the term in a self-deprecating way to describe themselves.

What do you think about this definition?  Agree? or disagree?

The best source I found was on Baidu’s wikipedia product called Baike.  Their article on xiaozi here.

Quiz:  Here’s 20 questions to determine if you or your Chinese friend is Xiaozi

1. Are they jaded about Chinese national events, and resist being defined by “official” and mainstream culture?
2. Do they like to sit in cafes?  Do they like to drink coffee?
3. Do they appreciate red wine (and really appreciate it, not mix it with Coke)?
4. Do they crave outbound travel?  Do they want to visit Tibet?
5. Are they focused on self-expression through fashion?  Do they look down on people who spend money on brands without true appreciation of fashion?
6. Do they sometimes have a sense of being somehow different from the rest of society?  That they are seeking something that cannot be found?
7. Do they use their English name, even with other Chinese people?
8. Do they like to socialize with foreigners?  Do they like to date foreigners?
9. Are they picky in their love life?  Do they feel that most traditional members of the opposite sex don’t understand their love of life, and their need for creative self-definition?  Attitude of “if I’m not in love, I’d rather die”
10. Do they like foreign hobbies like Yoga? or Salza dancing?
11. Do they known multiple languages? Do they have good scores on TOEFL, GRE, and other foreign placement tests?
12. Do they like popular intellectual Western literature like Italo Calvino or Jorge Luis Borges?
13. Do they like Western popular music, electronica or jazz?
14. Do they tend to watch Western TV shows and like to complain about the low quality of Chinese media?
15. Are they Web-savvy? Do they like Western Web 2.0 sites and the more clean Western aesthetic of Web design?
16. Do they like all things Apple Computer?
17. Do they like blocked Western Websites like Twitter and Facebook?
18. Do they use Google, not Baidu?
19. Do they use MSN messenger or Skype, but not QQ?
20. Do they visit Douban, Onlylady or Rayli.com.cn?

What do you think?  Does this capture the spirit of xiaozi or am I way off base?

Other Web links:
http://www.rayli.com.cn/0005/2009-12-01/L0005007_616097.html
http://www.xz-qd.com
http://baike.baidu.com/view/452.htm

Post from: CN Reviews

Are you or your Chinese friends 小资 (xiaozi)? (quiz)

My readers here on CNReviews have probably noticed that I haven’t blogged in quite some time. One of them probably wonders what happened. The other is probably hoping I’m actually dead.

Actually, I’m still around, as most of my hard-earned enemies and trolls rue whenever I pop up making the odd comment or 20 on my favorite garden of low-hanging fruit, chinaSMACK.

Oh boy, some of you are going to chafe at that one.

Heh, good.

However, the main reason I haven’t been posting much here on CNR is because I’ve been busy organizing a crack team of royal ass-kickers excellent bloggers and developing a new China blog.

But before I introduce this new blog, I want to publicly thank Elliott and CNR for having me here.

Kai and CNR, sitting in a tree…

I’ve been contributing posts to CNR for almost exactly two years now and last April, I had taken over as the main blogger and a part-time lead editor of sorts. Elliott and I had re-envisioned CNR and then rebooted it with a new design. At the time, we were getting ~30k visits a month. Today, CNR is enjoying 50k+ visits a month, which is not bad, considering that we haven’t updated recently nor have we been updating regularly over the past few months.

Even so, we had made the mistake of positioning CNR to be too much too soon, a harsh reality that set in over the subsequent months. Elliott spawned his third child and it, along with his day job, prevented him from blogging much about China. Min, through whom I first met Elliott, had retired into becoming a full-time quant, deciding that she wasn’t too keen on English blogging. As for me, as time went on, I realized that most of my posts revolved around socio-political commentary about contentious, divisive issues involving China and the Chinese. Yet CNR was to be more than just my personal opinions and rhetoric on cross-cultural politics and perceptions. The more I posted, the more my personal interests skewed what CNR professed to offer and deliver.

We had planned to scout and recruit other writers to join our little party, and over the past year, we’ve been blessed with contributions by Baoru, mollie, the BloggerInsight team (Ying, Lucas, and Kai Lukoff), Elizabeth, Aimee Barnes, voodikon,  and finally C. Custer. Unfortunately, we never managed to develop and keep the right team of people to adequately cover the many broad fields we so over-enthusiastically committed ourselves to.

And then…?

Several months ago, faced with this cognitive dissonance, I began rethinking my relationship with blogging on CNR. I had always wanted to build a reasonably “successful” blog.  By “successful”, all that meant was that the blog would be notable for something. I had also always wanted to accomplish this with a team of like-minded individuals, a group of people who would push each other, challenging each other to become better, all towards the goal of developing a notable blog. Why a blog, as opposed to, say, “curing world hunger?” Because a blog fulfills my personal interest in writing commentary, reacting, responding, and influencing the world I live in and the people I share this world with, even if it’s a wee tiny bit.

How very democratic of me, right?

I decided that CNR wasn’t the right platform for me to pursue my goals, despite my immense purely heterosexual love for Elliott. Even if I redesigned and rebooted it to be focused on the socio-political commentary I wanted to spend most of my free time writing, I would always be annoyed with the domain name. While CNReviews or “China Reviews” is perfectly fine for a blog broadly covering “People, Business, and Life in China”, but it doesn’t quite convey “socio-political commentary”. Blogging under CNR is like wearing boxers that are 10 times too large.

I’m Asian, I know my genetic limitations.

As such, I sought out fellow bloggers that shared my interest in writing socio-political commentary about issues facing and involving modern China. They also had to occupy a similar position as me on the ideological spectrum. They couldn’t be unrepentant “panda huggers”, nor unrepentant “panda bashers”. If they were, we’d end up clawing at each other’s faces too much to really cooperate. A good sense of humor wouldn’t hurt either.

Fortunately, I’ve been following the English-language China blogosphere for quite some time, and have come to know and admire quite a few people. So, I set some large steel traps where I knew they’d frequent and then waited in the bushes for the tell-tale clank of triumph.

Within days, I had caught me a Custer and an Abrams. While the Abrams is a bit more mangier than the younger Custer, both are fantastic specimens of bloggers who regularly and consistently publish critical, incisive, and nuanced commentary about modern China issues. After they agreed not to run away, I let them out of the traps and attached the collars.

CNR, compared to many other well-known small English-language China blogs, is pretty successful given the amount of traffic we pull, even when we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs doing absolutely nothing. Of course, we’re no chinaSMACK or Shanghaiist, nor Danwei. Hell, we’re not even an ESWN. All blogs I — and we — admire and respect.

But 50,000+ visits a month is pretty decent for a small blog like CNR, and it suggests we’ve done something right. Therefore, giving up this built-in traffic up is hard, but it only makes sense for my captives and I to start a brand new blog, from square one, fresh, with a clean sheet.

And that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Entering the already crowded “English-language China blogosphere”, is china/divide, a daily updated group blog publishing social and political commentary on news and issues involving modern China written by Charles Custer, Stan Abrams, and your’s truly. We’re like the Three Amigos, except I’m not white bread. And, if everything goes according to plan, we won’t remain at three.

The first post is by Stan, titled “Goat Meat, Loose Women, and the Imperfect China Dialogue“, and it delivers. Of course, over the next few days, Custer and I will also rear our ugly heads, and henceforth, china/divide will be the place to read what much of what we think, and then proceed to disagree and hate us for it.

Please, do come and take a look.

As for CNR, given that I will be spending most of time and energies on china/divide, I’m formally saying “so long, and thanks for all the fish.” Ironically, and much to his consternation, just as Elliott’s starts a stint in Shanghai and may have more time to regularly blog on CNR, I’m seemingly abandoning him. I wouldn’t quite put it that way though. I can’t make any promises, but I don’t think this is the goodbye forever between CNR and myself, and I may guest post here in the future, especially if the subject-matter falls under CNR’s umbrella more than china/divide’s.

But then again, which one of you actually enjoyed my non-socio-political commentary posts anyway?

See you in the divide.

Post from: CN Reviews

Saying Goodbye to CNReviews… and Entering The Divide

Today–Sunday February 28, the 15th day of Chinese New Year–I’m going to wander out into Shanghai in search of Tang Yuan.  I’ll post some pictures of what I find here.

Update 3/1:  Here’s a picture of a place called Die Yuan (Butterfly Garden) at Nanjing West Rd near the Metro Station (Dianping reviews in Chinese).  A huge crowd was buying Tang Yuan for preparation at home:

But since I didn’t really want to bring it home to prepare it, we ate out and had a few for dessert:

Tong Yuan (which means “round dumpling in soup”) is mainly made out of a glutinous rice flour.  When you bite into it, the dumpling gives way in a soft but chewy manner.  Honestly, when I was growing up, I found it a bit of a disconcerting texture.  Tong Yuan can be filled with some kind of sweet filling.  The kind I’m most familiar with is the black sesame paste, which also looks appealing to the Western eye in my opinion.  It can also have red bean paste, chopped peanuts, and other stuff (so says Wikipedia).   Here’s some recipes I found on RasaMalaysia and KQED.

Yuan Xiao also comes from Yuan Xiao Jie (元宵节, Yuan2 Xiao1 Jie1) which means Lantern Festival.  So I guess it is Lantern Festival today.  Here are some other (much better) photos of Tong Yuan to whet your appetite.  (Note: I was able to find these on Flickr from Shanghai without launching my VPN!  Thank you, Great Firewall for allowing me to freely access Flickr!)

Tang Yuan in a bowl with clear sugary soup (from avlxyz):

Tang Yuan in black sesame soup (from qwazymonkey):

Tong Yuen in a Peanut Soup (from faykwong):

Black sesame filling inside of the Tang Yuan (from roboppy):

Tongyuan in a red bean soup (from wowyt):

Here’s Tangyuan in a white soup:

Photos courtesy of Flickr licensed under Creative Commons:  avlxyz, faykwong, qwazymonkey, roboppy, wowyt

Post from: CN Reviews

Tang Yuan (Yuanxiao) on 15th day of Chinese New Year

A picture I posted on Facebook prompted an email between me and my friend Christina.  I thought I’d share some more photos and some FAQ for foreigners thinking about taking this train.

Photos

I arrived on a rainy evening of Tue February 9 at the Shanghai Rail Station.  The taxi deposited me underground and I walked out.  The large plaza in front of the station was mobbed with people.  There were large tents outside the station with what I thought were destination names blocking the front entrance of the station.  As I approached the front entrance, I saw makeshift barriers set up to accomodate long queues as if we were entering.

My ticket was purchased in person a week earlier by a former colleague of mine here in Shanghai.  She had to show her ID to purchase the ticket but the ticket was not bound to her name and ID number.  Entering the station, I showed then entrance guard the ticket and then I then found my way to my train, the D306 departing 9:15 pm.

I then went through something that was like an airport security line.  It seemed less stringent than Chinese domestic airport security or International security.  I don’t recall being wanded nor do I recall taking my laptop out of my backpack.

After securuty, you go up the escalators.  I kept looking for information on where my train numbered D306 was departing, and found it on numerous large signs in the terminal.

Once upstairs, I walked down the hallway looking for the right gate number.

I then located the right gate here with the train number prominently displayed.  Underneath the sign, you see some kind of turnstyle but I think these were not operational and I just showed my ticket to some bored attendant who waved me in.

Seated in the large waiting area with hundreds of people, I waited until our train was called.  A large herd of people started to move toward the designated door and I did the same.  We then walked through the door and down the stairs.  There was an escalator but it wasn’t working.

I was in Train Car 4, Berth 24.  Yes, I know, lots of unlucky numbers. I found my way to Train Car 4 and entered the car.  This is the hallway outside the sleeping compartments that hold 4 people each.

There is a sign outside the sleeping compartment.  The large number itself doesn’t correspond to anything on your ticket.  The small numbers correspond to your berth number and show you which bunk you are in (upper, lower, left or right).

There are toilets in each car.  As far as I could tell, there were both Western toilets and Chinese toilets available.  I found them to be very clean to begin with and stayed surprisingly clean throughout the trip.  In fact, I thought the lavatory was usually cleaner than the ones on the United and Air China transpacific flights I take to get to China.

Whew, a Western toilet.

There is also a common washroom area that is toward the end of the sleeping car.  There is also a hot water dispenser there for you to refill the hot water container that is provided.

Here is the compartment. I wish I could have taken more photos of  but by the time I arrived my fellow compartment-mates were already there.  I ended up sharing with a young Shanghainese family with a 3 year old girl who had the 2 lower bunks, and 1 other businessman who had the other upper bunk.

I woke up and couldn’t sleep so I took some more pictures of the train.  I attribute the lack of sleep to jetlag more than the noise of the train.  The disadvantage of taking the train vs. flying to Beijing and staying in a hotel is that if you wake up in the middle of the night, there is no Wifi!

Dining car.  Even right after I boarded the train at 9:15,  I found that the car was pretty empty.  However, I did see people bring their own ramen noodles in styrofoam cups and prepare them inside their own compartments using the provided hot water thermos.

You can also save money by not purchasing a sleeping berth and going soft sleeper.  My guess is that some of these people would have wanted a sleeper but none were available.  Others are just saving money.

Some Questions and Answers (FAQ)

Christina asked me some questions so I just add them below in case you have similar questions.

Q:  What was it like to purchase tickets? Did you go through an agent, or just buy them last minute at the train station?

Around Spring Festival, the government tries to crack down on scalpers and brokers.  They required my Shanghai staff to go to train station to buy the tickets in person, showing an ID.  The tickets do not have a name on them so she could purchase it for me and I could travel on the ticket.  It is a physical ticket with a barcode on it, NOT an e-ticket.  Things might get a bit more lax after Spring Festival.  I would definitely NOT buy it last minute at the station.

I have also run into this site China Trip Advisor:  They have some train information. I have no idea if it is accurate or how good this travel agency is.  Here’s some info I cut and pasted from the site:

Bullet Night Sleeper Train From Beijing to Shanghai (source: ChinaTripAdvisor)

Bullet Night Sleeper Train from Shanghai to Beijing (source: ChinaTripAdvisor)

I paid RMB655 for a top bunk and I think the lower bunk was more expensive but not available, at I think RMB700 or RMB720 or so.  So it looks like this agency is taking about a $28/ticket commission or so.

I took the D306 from SH to BJ and the times listed by this site is correct. As I mentioned, it is 4 to a compartment with 2 upper and 2 lower bunks.  Very new train.  Very comfortable.

Also I think the ChinaTripAdvisor site is outdated about the trains arriving at Beijing Railway Station.  The 306 I took arrived at the NEW Beijing South Railway Station.

Q:  Are you on business or traveling with kids? If with kids, is it hard to keep the compartment to yourself, or do you have random people wanting to stay in there with you? When you buy tickets, are the beds/compartments assigned to your ticket?

I was traveling on business.  I shared with a family of 3 (who shared the 2 lower bunks) and 1 businessman (who slept in the other upper bunk).  There is a sliding door that closes the compartment from the hallway, and is pretty thick and reduces the hallway noise.  Once that door is closed no one else will likely come into your compartment.  If you book 4 bunks in 1 compartment, you will have plenty of privacy for the whole family.

The tickets have an assigned car and assigned bunk number.  When you buy the ticket, you just have to buy the 4 bunks that are all in the same compartment.

Q: Do you have any advice on how to travel by overnight train? Do you rest well? No one seems to be able to tell me much about it – the travel agent we’re working with is unfamiliar, and my dad has not had many good or recent experiences with China train travel.

The D306 train I took was very new and very clean.  Some things I saw others do and other things I observed:

1. bring a small water bottle or thermos for tea.  There is potable hot water dispenser for free in each car.
2. bring ramen noodles in styrofoam cup.  People would make ramen noodles in their compartment.
3. I personally didn’t want to make noodles, so I brought 2 bottles of bottled water.  I used that to brush my teeth because the water from the sink faucets are not potable.
4. Try to travel with suitcases that are not way too big.  I have a medium size Kirkland suitcase that is too big to carry-on a plane, but was small enough to fit underneath the beds where the storage is.
5. There must be some kind of  “checked luggage” but I wasn’t clear how to do it. – What I did was wheel my bag from the waiting room at the train station to the train itself.  Often there are no elevators that are easily accessible and no down escalators (i was traveling Shanghai to Beijing, not sure about Beijing back to Shanghai as the new Beijing South Station is very modern and new).  Be prepared to carry bags down a few flights of stairs.
6. It would be nice to have my own slippers as well.

Seat61 has a really useful page on the train routes.  Be sure to check it out.

Some other information on the configuration of the Shanghai Beijing overnight train based on my trip on D306:

The D306 CRH Train has:

• Total of about 16 passenger cars
• The first car and last are non-sleeper, soft seating cars that hold about 64 people (about 12 rows, 5 across, plus another 4 or so seats)
• One car is the dining car, on our train it was Car 9
• 13 are sleeping cars
• Each sleeping car has about 10 compartments with 4 bunks each, for about 40 people per car.
• Car 10 has a lounge and only 8 compartments, or about 32 people in this car.
• Based on this estimate, there are 512 people on each D class sleeper train.

Any questions about traveling from Shanghai to Beijing by train?

Post from: CN Reviews

Shanghai to Beijing overnight D train photos and Q&A

Translation

In the film Infernal Affairs [a 2002 Hong Kong action film that was adapted into 2006's The Departed Hollywood film], there is a line: “This is the best of times, this is the worst of times”.

Whether you’re living in the best of times or the worst of times is a choice that’s entirely in your hands. We must face these bustling, flourishing, bizarre, and restless times, which are pregnant with hope, and at the same time, loss. We must remove the scales from our eyes and see clearly that we are living in times that demand giving of ourselves. For everyone who hopes to be successful, the things you can give/spend are the only wealth you [currently] have.

Most common people are running about living their lives, working and sweating to overcome obstacles, using talent and the sweat of their brow to cast their futures and achieve a great life. Life is the same the world over, the development of human societies requires paying out and reaping the benefits, and [sometimes] even sacrifice.

On the ancient topic of paying out and then reaping the benefits, no explanation is needed, when progress [i.e., paying out] is made a step at a time, gains will definitely come.

So what about sacrifice, that higher level of “paying out/giving of oneself”?

I remember reading a story in a magazine some time ago that was simple but thought-provoking. It was called “The Desert Spring”.

There was a traveller who was in the lonely process of crossing a desert. He had already drank the water he’d brought with him, and his increasing thirst had driven him to hopelessness. In his last moments of struggling for his life, he saw a great green tree in the distance, and pushed madly on towards it. There was no water at all around the tree, just dry desert sand, and scattered across it, several skeletons of men who had obviously died of thirst under the tree.

What was really strange was that there were traces of digging in the earth under the tree. Disregarding everything else, our traveler began to dig and eventually had dug out a deep pit using his bare hands. To his surprise, in it was hidden a football-sized jar, full of clear water.

He couldn’t wait to open the jar, but on the top was a slip of handwritten parchment that read, “If you pour every single drop of this water into the pit, you will receive an entire pool of spring water.”

The traveler was truly trapped. Without thinking of the trustworthiness of what was written on the paper, he thought of his surroundings. It was an ocean of dry desert; the jar could only satiate a little bit of thirst and prolong death for so long; even if he drank it all in one gulp he couldn’t count on just that to keep him alive in the desert. On the other hand, if what was written on the paper was a lie, he would certainly die [almost immediately] of dehydration.

His throat was burning and his physical strength had already left him, if he didn’t drink water very soon he would quickly die. He looked around, gazing at the skeletons around him, and then used the only strength he had left to pour the water into the pit. The water quickly sank into the dry sand and in a moment, there was no trace of it at all.

The traveler waited a little bit, extremely regretful, having personally poured the lifesaving water into the hopeless pit. He fell, powerless, by the side of the pit, when he heard the sound of flowing water. In the pit, a puddle of clear spring water had sprung up, and the traveler was saved! He packed away the water in his own containers, and filled the jar with water again, sealing it with the strip of paper and burying it in the pit. Eventually, he made it out of the desert.

This story seems incredible, but it’s actually reminding us of an iron [i.e., unchangeable] truth: at times, by “paying out” so much that it approaches sacrifice, you can create a miracle.

If you still haven’t found your desert spring, it’s because your travels haven’t yet taken you far enough, and you haven’t yet given enough of yourself.

Brief Commentary

The job market is exceedingly difficult for young Chinese college graduates these days, and success can be difficult to come by in a place where job fairs can look like this (see photo at left). Many graduates live together in cramped apartments, working jobs they once thought were well below their qualifications and pay grade. These “ant people“, as they have been called, are a significant demographic, and it’s interesting to analyze the acosta’s desert traveler story with them in mind. The message that success comes from sacrifice and faith could be dangerous for a group that’s already sacrificed much and, in some cases, had to redefine success in light of the dearth of high-end well-paying jobs. After all, for those working menial jobs and living in one-room apartments with eight former classmates, what else is there to sacrifice?

It’s hard to get a handle on exactly what acosta’s readers think of the idea. Several of the early comments have expressed their agreement, others said in various ways “easier said than done”, but many just posted “cute” animated gifs. Still, this, more than any of the dissident political stuff we like to discuss on English blogs, is the kind of discussion that’s going on in the internet in China. Here’s a small window into one of China’s most popular blogs; what do you think?

Post from: CN Reviews

Acosta: The Desert Spring

The following is a translation of this blog post by Hong Huang. Hong Huang (sometimes spelled Hung Huang) is a magazine publisher and an extremely popular blogger on the Chinese internet. For more on her, readers can check out this post on Danwei.

Translation: China’s Soft Power Army

Zhang Ziyi on the January cover of iLook

In 2006, Professor Zhang Yiwu wrote in his article “How to Sell Chinese Culture” in New Weekly, “One Yao Ming, one Zhang Ziyi are more effective than ten thousand Confuciuses. “Jewel in the Palace” [a popular Korean drama] is a good example of Korea getting both high culture and low culture [into other countries].”

“Only if we emphasize Zhang Ziyi the way we emphasize Confucius does Chinese culture have a future.”

These sentences were quickly twisted by media-watchers into “Peking University Professor Says Confucius isn’t as Good as Zhang Ziyi” and “One Zhang Ziyi is Better Than 100 Confuciuses,” etc., then it was published on the internet, and poor Professor Zhang took quite a lashing online. It was so bad that even in this issue of our iLook Reader magazine, which is on soft power, Professor Zhang is still having to explain himself.

When I went online to look up information about the incident, I found a statistic saying that 99% of netizens were opposed to the statement  ”One Zhang Ziyi is Better Than 100 Confuciuses.” In that case, it seems I really am one of the poor, deserving-of-abuse 1%.

First of all, as far as China is concerned, I think soft power and hard power are equally important. Secondly, we currently have hard power, but our soft power is very weak. In terms of manufacturing, we are a giant exporter, but in terms of culture, we are importers; we import 15 times more culture than we export. Third, we often talk about the great achievement of thousands-of-years-old Chinese culture, as if China today had no culture to speak of.

Put it this way, let’s look at the great “soft power armies” of other countries: France’s definitely wear Dior army uniforms, carry Louis Vuitton satchels, the army marches out with glittering Cartier emblems, and when they fire over a volley of red wine, China’s fashion industry definitely lines the streets to welcome them, as though they were looking upon excellent fashions. The most unwelcoming thing they might do is strip them and send the French home naked!

And if it’s America? There would be a column of Mickey Mouses, a column of Donald Ducks, and a column of Tom and Jerrys. There would be Transformers, Superman, Batman, and Spiderman; Chinese children under 16 would happily think it was a promotional activity for a toy store.

And then there’s the Chinese soft power army; if we go with what netizens want, then it’s a 2000-year-old rotten old man? If Confucius hadn’t once denounced the daughters of peasants, most Chinese wouldn’t know what “the Master” was talking about even if he spoke all day.

Soft power can’t open a bunch of schools, or bring thousand-year-old etiquette back to life, and speaking official jargon that no one can understand isn’t soft power, either.

Soft power should be an army of Zhang Ziyis, who wouldn’t exclaim upon seeing that! No matter who we attacked, no one would resist. Right? So don’t look down on those who are alive, or those who are smaller or prettier than you. Soft power is something that, when you see it once, you want to hand over your guns, can Confucius do that? Explain all you want, but you can’t explain [how that would work].

This month’s January 2010 issue of iLook has special meaning, as it will be published in Taiwan as well as on the Mainland. We are happy to announce that ours is the first copyrighted Mainland periodical to be published in Taiwan. The magazine [called Metro City in Taiwan, apparently] will hit newsstands in Taiwan on January 20th.

This counts as our contribution to China’s soft power, it’s also why we were absolutely sure we wanted Zhang Ziyi to be on the cover on both sides of the Strait. If it was Confucius instead, [prospects for the magazine] would have been hopeless, right?

Post from: CN Reviews

Hong Huang: Zhang Ziyi and “China’s Soft Power Army”

Kudos to Kai Pan for all the work he did in laying out his argument. The winner, however, is Chinayouren.

Bastard! *shakes fist*

Richard also summarizes:

“Freedom of choice” sounds wonderful. It sounds a little less wonderful when it’s “freedom of manipulated choice.”

…except the thrust of my argument is that “no choice and no freedom” sounds a whole lot less wonderful than “freedom of manipulated choice”.

Fortunately, Richard also left a comment going into detail with his disagreement, which I’ll quote below and respond to. Before doing so, I do want to state very plainly that I’ve been a fan of The Peking Duck for a long time. I usually agree with Richard’s point of view and I generally respect him, even if we have and have had some very strong disagreements (mostly over rhetoric).

Here we go with Richard’s comment:

I have to disagree. First, since the results are manipulated and the deck well stacked, it won’t leave such a terrible void in most Chinese people’s lives.

Agree it won’t leave such a “terrible void” in “most” Chinese lives, just the market share of Chinese internet users Google commanded, which I personally feel is a significant amount of people. I’m worried for those people and any Chinese netizen that could’ve been a future Google convert. Unfortunately, I really don’t think many people are thinking much about them or what they want.

The market will fill that void soon enough if it’s so gaping.

I agree the market will fill it if it’s so gaping. Yet given how “well stacked” the deck is, I personally feel Google is better equipped and positioned to deliver more to the Chinese internet user even in such a hostile, unfair, stacked-deck environment. It’s not that I don’t expect someone to fill the void, it’s that I have more confidence in Google doing it better and thus offering significantly more value to the Chinese netizen.

Second, if google does indeed end up leaving China (a big if) it will do far more than merely cause Westerners some brief self-satisfaction. It will create a serious dilemma for other companies doing business with China and will force the world to rethink what it means to cooperate with China.

I agree that Google leaving China will do more than just give some Westerners some brief self-satisfaction. I just don’t think it’ll result in as much dilemma and rethinking Richard thinks it will. Foreign companies have been working in and with China long before Google agreed to self-censorship. I respectfully think Richard is overestimating the relevance of Google’s departure to the vast majority of industries and businesses. I’m not saying it won’t cause ripple effects. It will. I just don’t think it’s going to be as revolutionary in the business world as Richard (and many other journalists, commentators, and pundits) think it will be.

Richard also says Google leaving China is “a big if”. I actually suspect likewise, but right now we still have Google saying it is going to uncensor Google.cn, possibly to probably playing a game of chicken with the Chinese government censors, seeing who will flinch first. If and when Google uncensors Google.cn, I’m curious as to what people, especially Richard, think will happen next. Will it get blocked but Google.com won’t? Or will it get blocked and then so will Google.com? We’re all making educated and reasoned predictions here, but I’m trying to figure out what will happen in the context of how it hurts the Chinese internet users.

I’m not saying that these are necessarily good things, but they would almost certainly happen. It would create all sorts of issues among China’s educated classes, whose support China counts on.

I agree that Google’s departure will create issues among China’s educated classes. Unfortunately, I think they can be mollified so long as the most practical tools Google offers, that may be so integrated into their professional lives so much that it would be a monumentally painful loss if they could not longer access and use them, remains accessible. And this wouldn’t be web search. This would be Google Apps like GMail, Google Docs, etc.

There would have to be considerable loss of face for China as well, though it’s hard to say how much they care about that.

I agree that there will be a considerable loss of face for China. But is that what we’re after? To embarrass China? To make it lose face? Without a question, I believe China has done many–too many–shameful and embarrassing things. It deserves what it gets. But this isn’t China forcing Google to leave. It’s Google forcing China to force it to leave by reneging on an agreement. The only argument against that is to say China is now breaking its part of the agreement and making it so uncomfortable for Google that Google has to leave, which I can accept if Google tells us just what it is. Until then, it’s more like a girlfriend threatening to leave until she gets something her boyfriend isn’t willing to give but she previously was fine with. Again, she’s free to change her mind, but what about their pooch (the Chinese internet users)? What happens to the dog?

So while it would be a shame for the Chinese who use google to be deprived of a choice, no matter how manipulated and bastardized it may be, the greater effect would be on China’s reputation both among its own citizens and among the global community China has been eagerly courting. It would be a painful step backwards. Compared to this full-frontal assault on China’s reputation, the “self-satisfaction” that may be felt by some Westerners can only be described as trivial.

I’m not comfortable with the attitude of using this as a “full-frontal assault” on China’s reputation. I think there’s a huge amount of “self-satisfaction” underpinning even the desire to do so. It’s retribution for all perceived slights, disagreements, and frustrations. I understand the inevitability, even necessity, of geo-political hardball, but cheering this on over how much face China is going to lose and how much trouble it will cause the Chinese government amongst not just the international community but also its own people is a little disturbing. This is the attitude that fuels China’s argument that foreigners are trying to destabilize it, trying to keep it down.

That might be playing into China’s hand.

Post from: CN Reviews

Google Leaving China Will Not Be A Revolution, Televised Or Not

The most amusing thing in the Google crisis is all the commentators crying about the loss of Google.cn and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese.

No.

Wrong.

At least for this English-language China blogger.

I don’t believe that a censored Google.cn is far better than no Google.cn, much less cry about it.

I believe that Google in China is better than no Google in China. I cry about the loss of Google in China and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese. It isn’t about the loss of Google.cn itself. There are several reasons, which I’ll get to in a second.

Evil is Search Engine Manipulation with Google’s name on it

But first, Uln’s argument is that the loss of Google.cn is a good thing for Chinese users because Google.cn engages in search engine manipulation (SEM). In other words, while the “engine” underneath Google.cn is the same as Google.com, the results shown are different, manipulated under agreement with the Chinese government censors to hide results the Chinese government finds objectionable and doesn’t want its populace to see. An internet user in China using Google.com would be able to see all the results but might get blocked when he or she tries to click on a result that leads to a blocked website. The user would be reminded of the government’s censorship. However, an internet user in China using Google.cn would see only manipulated results, effectively hiding both the information and the censorship. That Google.cn explicitly notifies users when results are manipulated is dismissed by Uln as being largely inconsequential because users begin to ignore it or it is often placed below the list of results.

These are all valid criticisms of Google.cn and, by extension, Google itself. Uln argues that this compromises the integrity of the Google brand name and value proposition (do no evil, we provide information, etc.) thereby betraying the trust of its Chinese users who see the Google name slapped on Google.cn as meaning something about the information Google.cn will provide. Uln writes:

When you type a “sensitive” term and G.cn removes all the results except the People’s Daily and Xinhua, Google’s responsibility is double: not only it supports those often objectible views on the first page, but it also implicitly states that it is the ONLY opinion existing in the World.

And the worse is, the Chinese who believed that would be right to do so, because Google’s well known principles clearly specify their commitment to give all the information available  in a democratic way.

G.cn is a shame for Google and it is probably the single most evil page on the Chinese internet (because it manipulates just like Baidu, but lends the brand name of Google to the manipulation).

But is a loss of Google.cn a good thing?

No.

Google.cn is Choice

Google.cn represents choice. It gives Chinese internet users another option for searching the web other than Baidu. Yes, there is Yahoo and there is Bing but neither of them are remotely as big as Google.cn, even if Google.cn is second place to Baidu. It gives Chinese internet users access to Google’s internet indexing and search methodology and algorithms. Even as Google.cn suffers the same manipulation of potentially displayed search results as Baidu, it provides different ordering and ranking of displayed search results.

This different ordering and ranking is precisely one of the main reasons why Google beat Yahoo and other search engines (MSN Search, Ask.com, etc.) elsewhere in the world. Google’s search engine returned better sorted and more relevant search results to users. Why continue finding your answers in the 3rd or 5th Yahoo search result when Google gave it to you in its first result? People started using Google because it delivered what they were looking for more efficiently.

That’s what a good search engine is about, providing the best search results for any given user inputted query, and Google is a good search engine.

Yes, having incomplete search results due to government-mandated self-censorship is bad, but Chinese users are not searching for potentially censored or blocked material all day long on Google.cn. They, you know, use it to do other fairly mundane things that don’t get the Chinese government censors’ panties in a twist. They look up news on celebrities, research product information, find the latest scores to last night’s NBA game, etc. etc. etc. Google.cn provides a valuable service to its users in China because it still helps them find the information they are looking for using qualitatively different and valuable methodology and algorithms than Baidu.

Google.cn gives Chinese internet users a choice.

Choice is freedom.

Losing Google.cn is a loss of choice.

Less choice is less freedom.

Therefore, loss of Google.cn is arguably a negative consequence for the freedom of the Chinese. It may even be something worth crying about.

The reason why “a censored google.cn is better than no google.cn” is exactly this. Google.cn still provides different results of value in the vast majority of Chinese web searches. This was very much part of the whole utilitarian argument that Google gave for agreeing to market and censor Google.cn in the first place. Even with the same scrubbed search results as Baidu, Google still has some competitive advantage worth offering to Chinese netizens through Google.cn.

No, the competitive advantage isn't only Chinese-specific Google logos.

Without Google.cn, its users will switch to Google.com, which is better anyway

Uln argues that…

Google.com is a Search Engine that is:

1- Exactly as good quality as Google.cn (identical index)
2- Without the manipulation of Google.cn
3- AND much less censored than Google.cn

…which is definitely true.

So, like Uln, some people may be asking why Chinese users use the self-censored Google.cn instead of the freely accessible Google.com? Uln answers:

And the only reason why Chinese don’t use it is that Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, and they just don’t care enough.

No, it isn’t because Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, it is because Google.cn is more Chinese to them.

I don’t think there’s enough emphasis given to display language being a major reason why people prefer Google.cn over Google.com. The vast majority of Chinese internet users instantly feel intimidated and overwhelmed by any website that is not written in Chinese. This is a big reason why Chinese people say “Google.cn is for the Chinese”. We can’t underestimate the importance of first impressions.

“But you can change the interface language of Google.com to Simplified Chinese…”

Never underestimate the importance of first impressions.

Hell, people even cite “google” being hard to spell for Chinese people as being a reason why Google is behind Baidu. Ever wonder why Google owns g.cn?

I feel there’s a tenuous compromise between the CCP censors and Google right now that allows Google.com to remain freely accessible despite it not providing the same manipulated search results as Google.cn. This is as long as the majority of Chinese internet users willingly head for Google.cn, as long as they see Google.cn as being tailored specifically for them, the Chinese. It’s like the GFW still allowing proxies to work so long as it achieves its mission with blocking the vast majority. The CCP information control scheme is not about preventing everyone from knowing certain things, it’s about preventing too many people from knowing certain things.

If Google.cn is no more and this leads former Google.cn users to simply migrate to Baidu, then maybe — just maybe — Google.com will remain freely accessible in China. However, if it results in too many former Google.cn users subsequently adopting and using Google.com, the CCP will indeed worry.

So a question then is how much will Google push the envelope with an unblocked Google.com. After all, Google will still have a business necessity and plan for capturing Chinese internet users, right? Even if Google does nothing to appeal to mainland Chinese users, leaving it the way it is, it could still get blocked if too many mainland users flock to it. If Google, however, intentionally seeks to make Google.com user-friendly enough to bring in substantial Chinese people to search and get its non-manipulated results, then it will be seen as a threat to the Chinese government’s efforts to control information and thus it will definitely face the possibility of being blocked outright.

And when that happens, Uln’s conclusion here…

Most probably the disappearance of G.cn will push the present G.cn users to switch to G.com, and the outcome will be increased freedom in the Chinese internet.

…will definitely look short-sighted and naive.

His argument isn’t hard to understand, though. Uln argues that this forced migration from a shut-down Google.cn to Google.com is a good thing because Google.com at least offers non-manipulated search results. Even if the Chinese users still can’t click through to the blocked websites due to the GFW, at least they can see and read the search result excerpts and, more importantly, know that such information exists out there. They would at least be aware of the existence of those dissenters and dissenting opinions that the Chinese government ideally doesn’t even want them to be aware of. That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

Yeah, that’s good. It’s better than nothing.

Yeah, except until the Chinese government realizes that, blocks Google.com, and it indeed becomes nothing.

Nothing for the Chinese internet user. No Google.cn, no Google.com, no Google search methodology and algorithms. Only Baidu.

No choice.

No freedom.

Of course, Uln acknowledges such near the end of his post:

On the other hand, some commenters are already saying that I am too optimistic, and that the CCP will quickly come to the same conclusion I have come and block Google.com.

Without Google.com, the Chinese will learn of the Great Firewall and how to get around it, which is better anyway

But Uln continues:

The good news is that EVEN if they do block Google.com, the situation will still be better than today. The Chinese Google users will start to miss the G, and they will start to use web proxies to access Google.com, expanding their use and making the Chinese net population more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it.

I’m not so sold on that situation still being better than the situation today. It is extremely optimistic, almost unreasonably so, to think a blocking of Google.com will by itself, or through the former Google users, make the general Chinese internet populace more conscious of the GFW and of the tools that could be used to cross it. Remember, most of the Chinese internet doesn’t use Google. It wouldn’t be a loss for most Chinese netizens because it wouldn’t directly affect their internet lives. If they aren’t inconvenienced in a practical manner, how can we expect a meaningful expansion of GFW-consciousness or use of GFW-circumventing tools?

Are we really hoping former Google.cn and then Google.com Chinese users are going to be freedom fighters? That they’ll become internet freedom and anti-censorship activists, handing out information on proxies and VPNs to the masses, enlightening them all?

For web searches, Baidu is the easy alternative. The one stickiness point will be Google productivity tools like Google Apps and, most notably, GMail. It will probably be easier to use a proxy or VPN than to accept losing one’s e-mail account, and this is definitely more so for companies and organizations. Yes, we’ll get a lot of these people but they’re likely and already plenty aware of the GFW, of proxies and VPNs. The real coup is not in these people expanding their use of proxies and VPNs or hoping they’ll help the general Chinese net population become “more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it”, it is in them being inconvenienced so much that they demand the government unblock Google.com.

Yet, even then, it may only go as far as so they can use their productivity tools, not necessarily Google’s web search.

So where’s the “increased freedom in the Chinese internet” in that?

How is that situation really better than now?

Because a few more people will learn about the GFW and fewer still will bother to find out how to use proxies and VPNs? All this at the expense of broader daily practical choice and productivity for all the existing Chinese Google users and future would-be Google converts?

Some people surely see this trade-off as being worth-it, as being acceptable, as being desirable.

Me? I’m not so sure.

Why Google.cn is Evil and should leave China

That’s the title of Uln’s post.

It’s also a straw man.

This was never about whether or not Google.cn would or should leave China. It was about whether or not Google would or should leave China. I hope everyone caught onto the difference from the beginning. Everything is hinging on whether or not Google.cn is what allows Google, and also Google.com, to remain in China. We cannot approach answering this question without considering Google being blocked from China entirely if it doesn’t play ball with the Chinese government on Google.cn. If Google refuses to play ball on Google.cn, by uncensoring it or just shutting it down, we have to consider what may happen to Google.com. We should even expect the worst. In fact, that’s what we do best when it comes to Chinese government censorship, right? Why are we even entertaining that Google.com will remain unscathed and freely accessible in mainland China at all?

I’m not going to say there are only two possibilities. Life can surprise us at times. But requiring Google to censor its Google.cn search results was always, at heart, about the Chinese government’s insecurities with letting its citizens know too much information it fears will bring chaos to their order. It was not about dicking with Google just because it could. How reasonable is it to even suggest that access to an unrestricted Google.com can persist in mainland China, behind the Great Firewall, without a restricted Google.cn running cover?

Uln declares:

In fact, I maintain that Google.cn is the most evil product to ever have existed in the Chinese internet, and the World will be a better place without it.

No, I strongly disagree. I think it offered Chinese internet users valuable choice in most practical matters. Yes, I wish it could do so without manipulated search results but life is not black and white and sometimes we have to make the best of what we can control. You have to be in a game to win it.

No, I don’t think “the World” will be a better place without Google.cn. I think certain people in “the World” will rejoice for about a week and then continue on living their merry lives, using Google as they always have, and not really care one way or another that nearly 400 million internet users in China no longer have a user-friendly version of Google at their disposal. So no, “the World” will not be a better place, just temporarily more smug.

China, on the other hand, will definitely be a worse place without it and Chinese internet users will definitely be worse off for it.

Recommended Reading:

• “Google China cyber espionage saga” from ZDNet’s Zero Day (h/t ESWN)

Post from: CN Reviews

Google In China Is Better Than No Google In China

Set from Flickr user Junyu Wang (王俊煜):

Flowers on the sign:

Candlelight vigil:

Photographers and people gathering around:

Google headquarters at night:

Aeriel view from the building earlier in the day:

From Twitter user bonnae come some photos (source on img.ly):

Some more photos at Tinypic user foku:

Post from: CN Reviews

Google China photos: because I’m without words

The Chinese government seeks a harmonious society. But it’s Facebook’s social games that are cooperative, while China’s closer resemble the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Of China’s top 10 social games, 9 feature competitive actions that hurt other players (see graphic); the one exception is Renren Restaurant, an exact copy of Playfish’s Restaurant City on Facebook. Of Facebook’s top 10 games, only 1 features competitive actions. Chinese players cherish intense competition.

The post has more details on the game actions, which include enslaving and humiliating friends, bombs in the hospital, and looting at the farm.

Mischief Accomplished: worms added to friend's farm

Why all the Schadenfreude, Stealing, and Status?

Three speculations as to why Chinese games are more competitive.

1) Chinese Education System

Are Chinese children hard-wired for competition at a young age? Do Chinese become accustomed, even fond, of the tools required to succeed in a hyper-competitive education system? Are social games a lifelong detox from the gaokao?

2) Culture

Though ambiguous and slippery, culture is often cited as a source of societal differences (and even geopolitics, in Samuel Huntington’s Clash of the Civilizations) But real-life crime rates, including theft, are not notably higher appear in China (though harsher punishments and lackadaisical reporting muddle the issue). So why should they be in social games? Luxury goods, booming in China, help make the case that status is especially important in Chinese culture.

Nasty actions in the Wonder Hospital game

3) Specific to Social Games

Perhaps Chinese are more apt to add “friends” on social networks, even if there’s no close personal relationship. That could lead to fewer reservations about stealing from your “friends.” China’s prolific online friendships are evidenced by the finding that Chinese have more online than offline friends. Or perhaps Chinese netizens simply have a better sense of humor than Westerners when it comes to the value of virtual goods.

The new China Social Games Blog

China Social Games is a blog dedicated to tracking the hottest games, networks, and trends. Though already wildly popular in China (and on Facebook), social gaming is still in its infancy. Games are just starting to become truly social, so the China market is evolving, innovative, and yes, extremely competitive. China Social Games offer up-to-the-minute coverage as the market grows, consolidates, and Western players enter.

Our latest guest posts:

• TechCrunch: China To Police Social Games
• VentureBeat: China’s growing addiction: online farming games
• VentureBeat: The year it exploded: 10 hottest Chinese social games of 2009

China Social Games is brought to you by the BloggerInsight team, regular contributors to CNReviews. Follow @CNsocialgames on Twitter.

Post from: CN Reviews

Social Games: Are Chinese More Competitive Than Westerners?