The web is the new Munich beer hall
Ever since my closest contacts opened Gmail accounts, I’ve left MSN Instant Messenger to wither on the vine. Nothing against it, but with both messengers going at once and Facebook chat on the rise, I found myself mired in time-waste. This week, however, I logged in, and, as expected, every single one of my contacts had changed their avatar to “(L) China”-the patriotic, and now ubiquitous, heart preceding every name.

China Radio International reports that the campaign was launched by 5sai.com, a Shanghai-based nonprofit website established by local public welfare employees. “Their call goes like this: Please add Love China in front of your MSN name to show your patriotism of China. The love of the country holds the nation together. And MSN China has shown full understanding and support for the campaign.” MSN China stated that over two million people had changed their avatars within the first week of the campaign, and some estimates place the number at well over six million. Danwei and the Shanghaiist both reported that in addition to the “(L) China” prefixes (which displays a red heart), several users are inserting “(U)”, which shows a broken heart, before villains like CNN and Carrefour.

On China Daily’s BBS, posters upped the ante by uploading the biggest “I love China” heart to QQ, and deleting the foreign-owned MSN entirely. One proud poster summed up her patriotic achievements: “I love China inside all my heart. I also love it on my MSN, and with a heart of loving China on my QQ avatar!!!!!!!!ＩLOVE ＣＨＩＮＡ!!!!!! ＦＯＲGOOD!”

Some Chinese argue that patriotism is not always best expressed by a dozen extra exclamation points. Zhou Yang, a Chinese sportscaster working in the United States, refused to change his avatar despite pleas from his friends. “My friend back in China told me to write '(L) China’ which makes a little heart come out, and that would show I love China,” Zhou said. “I told her that showing my love for China in that way, in a forum that only my Chinese friends would see, was the dumbest thing I could think of... then five minutes later, she wrote again asking why I still hadn’t changed it.”

Sun Yi, a business school student in Beijing, said that she and her friends had a similar response: “My friends and I wrote 'I Love China’ on our avatars, and wrote on BBSs and shared articles on Xiaonei.com, but it is all pretty useless. We are Chinese. We love China, that’s obvious. But we haven't done anything. Sometimes it seems more like going along with something, than standing up for something.”

One Chinese netizen explained to Shanghaiist that she liked the movement because it maintained a positive tone. “I don't want to join the parade of anti-France, but I support China.” Still, some Chinese, like Zhou, say they will continue to be patriotic in their own way. “I understand where those people are coming from, and I changed my avatar for them for a while,” Zhou said, “but then I was watching the Phoenix Suns play, and I love them, and I was so sad when they lost, so I changed my avatar to “(L) Suns... I think China and Chinese people are so great already that we can love other things, too.”

Jonathan Haagen

BROWSER HISTORY

Proud to be an Amurrrikan
11:11 a.m. | patriotism.org
This is a website for Miami-Dade County Public School's multicultural and multilingual programs. How weird is that?

11:45 | dial-a-teacher.com
Dude, you can call a phone number and get help with your homework.

12:01 p.m. | dialastory.com
Reminds me when I was a kid and I’d call the library for a story. For real.

12:20 | chinadaily.com
Who needs dial-a-story when you have China Daily’s daily homilies on what true patriotism is?

12:45 | cartoon.chinadaily.com.cn
Hey, this is cool, cartoons about the environment. Check out those anti-pollution French fries.

1:01 | blog.163.com/songyutao_001
Hey look at those beautiful photos of nice things like cherry blossoms.

1:31 | nationalcherryblossomfestival.org
Yeah, cherry blossoms.