By popular demand, we continue our translation of this post by Zhao Weilu. Click here for Part 1. In the post, Zhao Weilu is listing thing Chinese internet “patriots” often do that he finds both widespread and annoying. Translation Part 2 Talking about “the motherland/mother says…” Talking about “Five thousand years of civilization…” Saying...
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A lot of people talk a big game on the internet, and Chinese people are no exception. When it comes to the topic of patriotism, especially, the gloves of rhetoric often come off and discussions can quickly descend into a cacophony of name-calling and fallacious assertions. Zhao Weilu, apparently, has had about enough, and...
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There’s been quite a bit of news and discussion of late as the government continues to tighten the screws of the internet (a good overview is Rebecca MacKinnon’s newest post). The blocking of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites has given way to wider blocks on a variety of portals, including bittorrent sites...
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The following is a translation of this post from Chang Ping’s blog. Translation A few days ago I received an invitation from the US Embassy saying that an advance briefing for would be held simultaneously via video in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, mainly discussing Sino-US relations and President Obama’s visit to China. Because I...
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If this article is to be believed, “are you a Party member?” is in danger of becoming the latest internet meme. Our loose, partial translation is below. Translation On November 6th, Xinhua reported: is the common-sounding phrases “are you a Party member?” becoming the next popular internet phrase? The past two days, the phrase...
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Rumor has it this site has recently been unblocked! All glory to the hypnotoad! Still, many other sites have been less lucky. Facebook, Twitter, and other “web 2.0″ sites remain hidden behind the Great Firewall. Recently, some Chinese intellectuals published a “Declaration of Internet Human Rights”. As usual, CDT beat us to the story,...
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This story has been a bit buried by other things, but it bears mentioning even amidst the sterling satire of The Onion: there are now 338,000,000 Chinese internet users. To start with, let’s get a handle on just how large a number that is. If every single person in the United States used the...
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The following is a guest post written and translated by K. Drinhausen. The first few months of this year of “online politics” saw a tech-savvy Wen Jiabao chatting with the online community and a series of praise for netizens and their ability to uncover corruption as well as deficits in the legal system and...
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In recent days, it seems like any discussion of China and the internet centers around censorship and the possible destabilizing influence presented by the free information exchange afforded by the web. Of course, the internet is used for other things too, but those just lead to more censorship, which leads back to the aforementioned...
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As you can read in today’s New York Times, fascination with a “mythical” creature is the latest internet meme to go mainstream in China. That creature? The Grass Mud Horse. Ostensibly, the Grass Mud Horse is an alpaca-like creature that lives in the Ma Le Desert and fights River Crabs. In actuality, though, the...
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