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Notorious 2.0
Posted Dec 24th 2007 5:06p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Just like on some virtual playground, bullies emerge from the murk of online communities.

Readers of this column know that I am unabashedly excited about social media. Far from destroying the very fabric of human interaction as many Luddites feared, Web 2.0 did for socializing what photography did for ... Read more »

Your Inner Elitist
Posted Dec 20th 2007 11:53a.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Want to network with Tiger Woods, Quentin Tarantino and Paris Hilton? Get invited to ASmallWorld.

The first time someone told me about the social networking site, ASmallWorld, I thought “what an incredible douche.” The friend in question takes pride in being a socialite, the type who would go to the ... Read more »

In Da Ghetto
Posted Nov 30th 2007 2:16p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Bloggers lament the end of utopia as Facebook prepares its Chinese language entry into the marketplace of Babel.

One story caught the attention of the ever-vigilant and has been creating a stir throughout the blogosphere. Last month, an “industry insider” was cited as saying that Facebook would launch a Chinese ... Read more »

What (Chinese) Women Want
Posted Nov 15th 2007 2:23p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

The tables turn as Chinese women take to the Net outing the boorish behavior of expat men.

There are certain observations which are profound no matter how many times they have been made before. Back home, there are the ubiquitous queries about why women go to the bathroom in groups ... Read more »

  • jhaagen Thanks Prince Juju, I was not aware that anyone read my articles except when using the bathroom. one love, jonny
  • vatvyf What Expat Guys Want--A Certified “Skanky Ho” Test In response I thought I'd compile an easy to read list for all of you skanky ho’s out there. Oh ...
  • vatvyf This whole argument is so frikkin' lame! Guys are always losers, assholes, wankers, jerks in the eyes of women. If we annoy you so much why not just buy a ...
  • princejuju A very interesting article. As an expat in Shanghai, I must say that the article really caught my eye, and the attention of all who was in the area as ...
Cyberpath to the Torch
Posted Nov 7th 2007 12:47p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Laowai of every stripe take to the ‘Net drumming up support to become one of only eight foreign Olympic torchbearers in China.

It’s been a sluggish couple of weeks on the Chinese Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I love absolutely everything about the CPC National Congress, but why do our Internet connections have to slow to a soul-crushing crawl? Thankfully these sad days without Youtube catharsis and high-speed social networking ... Read more »

Where the Pipes Lead
Posted Oct 23rd 2007 3:13p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

China’s blogging heavyweights talk firewalls, strategic marketing and “Checkpoint China” at the Under the Digital Influence conference

It’s been over a year since crotchety Alaska Senator, Ted Stevens, famously explained that the Internet was not a truck, but rather a series of tubes. Few others have defined the Internet so eloquently, but last month several of China’s own leading Internet heads met in Beijing last ... Read more »

Everything Gone Wiki
Posted Oct 11th 2007 1:10p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Putting the power of information back in your hands and why that means the end of publishing as we know it

The past week I have been locked away in Beijing’s Random House offices putting the finishing touches on the heartbreaking work of staggering genius known as the Fodor’s Beijing Olympics Guidebook. Rich and fulfilling as that process has been, it led me to ponder whether traditional city guides ... Read more »

Rocking China's Web
Posted Aug 13th 2007 3:21p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Chinese music finally strikes the blogosphere in the Latin alphabet.

Back when I was a fresh-off-the-boat expat still ogling Beijing's smoggy skyline, I mistakenly assumed my newfound Chinese friends would be ignorant of the pretentious, indie-label heroes populating my MP3 player.

Arrogant Expat Hipster (me): “I listen to some Chinese music like Hopscotch or Cui Jian, but I mainly ... Read more »

Beijing Blogging Olympics
Posted Jul 31st 2007 1:13p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Will blogs rule the 2008 Beijing Olympics with benevolence or with an iron fist and hidden agendas?

Please excuse the use of the strike-through gag, but there is a strong argument that the drama and humanity of the looming Beijing Olympic Games will spread by the airwaves, print and maybe, just maybe, from Olympian bloggers as well.

The potential of blogging did scare some Olympic bodies in ... Read more »

The Vengeful Lawyer
Posted Jul 16th 2007 4:23p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

As the variety and quality of blogs grow in the China blogoshpere, a new genre begs the question: Are law blogs the new black?

Hunched over a keyboard, the writer diligently transcribes their day of wonder. The colors, struggles, noise and underhand dealings. Everything was not as it should be. How could a place like this function? Everything was foreign to this foreigner.

The typical China expat blogger has stereotypically been a young, explorative ... Read more »

The Best China Blogs
Posted Jul 5th 2007 4:01p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Our man scourers the blogosphere to find and rate the dominating blog competitions, looking for China's best blogs.

Everyone loves a competition. Bloggers

included. But when the topic turns to

who has the best blog in China, the

question must be asked: Do we have a

competition that cuts the mustard?

The global blogosphere is awash with blog

competitions. Some are dodgy exercises in selfpromotion

while others

are ... Read more »

Blogging for Charity
Posted Jun 19th 2007 12:34p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

China Dream Blog is ushering in a new era of fund raising, helping the underprivileged and getting bloggers out of their homes.

B loggers, in general, could be described as narcissistic self-promoters. Given that I could be accused of resembling that statement, I would also like to point out that there are some others in the China blogosphere who have been using their profiles to aim high in the name of altruism ... Read more »

Take a Bite Out of China
Posted Jun 5th 2007 1:41p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

Food is a great way to bridge cultural gaps, and in China there are numerous blogs doing just that. Here are the best.

To say that food is an integral part of culture in China is a massive understatement. When I first arrived here, I joked that half the arguments I witnessed on Shanghai's streets were about food. I later learned that this isn't far from the truth. When it comes ... Read more »

Living Like A Local
Posted May 21st 2007 5:34p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

Can a waiguoren truly live like a local in China? One blogger thinks that he can get close.

There are a lot of sites out in the Chinese blogosphere that try and bridge the gulf between cultures. Probably the most obvious include language and cultural blogs like Sinosplice and ChinesePod.com. Sites like these are great resources for China newbies trying to graduate from the training wheels of ... Read more »

V. Tech Blog Debate
Posted May 9th 2007 3:24p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

China's bloggers get busy while Chinese media stays mum.

The Virginia Tech shootings in the United States caused waves in the blogosphere of the Chinese diaspora, particularly when one of the first reports on the massacre alleged that the perpetrator of 32 murders was a Chinese national studying in the U.S. on a student visa. Right away, the ... Read more »

This Expat Is Unplugged
Posted Apr 16th 2007 3:45p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

As Beijing gears up for the Midi Festival, our blog master checks out the live music scene online and in Shanghai.

A whole CW dedicated to music?! Suddenly the whole blogging for “Tha' Man” experience came into perspective. My fear is one brought on by perhaps the most significant change in my life since landing in China: a complete disconnect for my passion of chords, beats, loops and kicks. Somehow my ... Read more »

The Healing Process
Posted Apr 3rd 2007 2:11p.m. by Tim Beckenham (The Blogger)

Western bloggers find solace for their scary Chinese hospital encounters in the form of Sinocidal, a new rant group blog.

A common experience that has shaped many expats view of life in China is the inevitable occasion when you are forced to go to the hospital or clinic for some ailment. For many foreigners in China it can be a hit or miss affair, but definitely one that produces some ... Read more »

  • timbeckenham Poison on the menu in Harbin Hospital Story Link via Shanghaiist (the writer looks familiar...) The latest incident caused 203 illnesses and one death at Harbin's Heilongjiang Provincial Hospital ...
  • got_rice Chinese Hospitals The first Chinese hospital I ever went to had a rat running around the bathroom, a (I believe) poisonous millipede climbing my room walls and IV's hanging ...
Laowai Ladies in Beijing & Shanghai Who Wish They Could Have Sex with Cute Dumb Chinese Girls
Posted Mar 20th 2007 12:09p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

What's in a name? Apparently everything in the blogoshpere. That and more is what it takes to get on China Blog List's Top 10.

It's about time we took a look at Chinabloglist.com. Kudos to those that set it up. It's a helpful and fun catalogue of over 500 English language blogs regarding China. And where better to start than the CBL Top 10. We wanted to see who is at ... Read more »

  • liminalspace There are even more of us who wish we could have sex with cute smart chinese girls...but at this point...we laowai ladies of the lesbian fold would be ...
  • liminalspace "Laowai Ladies in Beijing & Shanghai who Wish they Could have Sex with Cute Dumb Chinese Girls" Now what I would like is for someone to actually WRITE the above blog ...
  • meg Ha, my coworkers told me that Violet Eclipse would have done better on the CBL if I didn't have such a cool-when-I-was-16 name. But the creative name thing did ...
  • collin Good point It's frustrating that the language barrier often prevents Westerners from interacting easily with most Chinese. Your wish is City Weekend's command. We'll speak with CW ...
  • jessy1533 Flipside of the coin With only something like 200,000 expats to the 20 million Chinese in Shanghai (depends by whose count, but let’s keep this one for argument ...
Do Expat Men Suck?
Posted Mar 6th 2007 1:52p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

A new blog called China Dirt lets expat women dish the dirt on the abundance of un-dateable expat men in China.

Expat women in China are having a hard time trying to find decent bachelors. In order to relieve their emotional burden, these women are filtering their rage into the blogosphere's newest trend: rant blogs. This modern day cyber therapy features women who rant about the sexpats they meet in ... Read more »

  • nifty funnily enough. if western women don't want to date Chinese men, they should actually be working with them, since their incentives, while different, are aligned.
  • leeraconteur Interesting that what US expat women do when confronted with competition and men who won't date them, is that they often complain, belittle, shame and manipulate even more. Perhaps ...
  • jeeunit @fatcow blame on both men and women but definitely have a sympathy for those women who need money to survive (fuwuyuans working in massage parlors. don't you know how ...
  • fatcow @jeeunit Please understand that I am not condoning the behaviour you mentioned only saying that it is a two way street. For every fat expat looking to get/pay for ...
  • leeraconteur [HTML_REMOVED] In the rest of the world, US men are highly prized as mates, dates, boyfriends and husbands. This is widely known. What is also widely known is how terrible ...
It's No Bullying Matter
Posted Feb 12th 2007 3:52p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

The pressure of the approaching Chinese holiday may be getting to some of China's once-cool bloggers.

Is it me, or do the days leading up to the Spring Festival seem like a particularly stressful time of year? One could get that impression from reading group blog Bullog.cn these last couple of weeks.

Run for the most part by just one man—Luo Yonghao, once a ... Read more »

Hillary in 2008
Posted Jan 29th 2007 3:52p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

China’s bloggers sound off on the 2008 U.S. presidential race and why they would vote for Hillary Clinton.

Could you ever have imagined Jiang Zemin getting frisky with a Youth League assistant? Or Hu Jintao choking on a dumpling? Not in a million years, right? Maybe that explains the lack of interest in politics in China; politicians appear so perfect to the point of being boring. And maybe ... Read more »

What's Needed to Grow
Posted Jan 15th 2007 2:31p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Time’s person of the year set tens of thousands of discussion threads blooming all across the Sinosphere.

Last column I touted diversity as the next big thing, then Time magazine chose "you," or actually anyone with a blog, as their 2006 person of the year and blew that out of the water. Sounds good, though, and about time, considering Chinese bloggers have been doing 2.0 since ... Read more »

Down with Western Holidays
Posted Dec 30th 2006 4:27p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Ten PhD students put out a joint letter calling for their Chinese brethren to wake up and stop smelling the eggnog.

How was your Christmas in China? Did you exchange gifts? Drink eggnog? Celebrate with friends and family? And did you hear about the 10 PhD students from several of China's top universities who late last month put out a joint letter calling for all Chinese to wake up from ... Read more »

Sexual Revolution
Posted Dec 19th 2006 12:37p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

China’s female sex bloggers get fired up as they lead their fellow women into uncharted waters

Long before London's blogging call girl Belle de Jour got a book deal, Mu Zimei, a young journalist in Guangzhou, slept her way to the top of the city's cultural scene and blogged about it every bed of the way, shocking the nation and making headlines worldwide.

Yes ... Read more »

  • johnk Caramel Before you start throwing around a word like plagiarism, Ms. Carmel, you should at least know how to use it responsibly. It's quite a serious charge. Please make ...
  • collin Giving credit Has Mu Zi Mei crossed that invisible line of fame for the average westerner in China? How well does the average expat know of her life and work ...
  • peanut Li, Zhang and cowlog.cn While I agree that Mu Zimei is not new news, I don't think she is the point of this post. Dr. Li Yinhe, Zhang ...
  • puffy Insightful Comments Mack07/Ilan Carmen- You on your rag? Where did all this rage cum from? These hot gurlz having the sex and then writing about it is news 2 ...
  • mack07 No News, No Article! Where is this article taking us, Mr. Kennedy, and what is the point you're trying to make? Where is exactly this "revolution", you're talking ...
The Blogger: Our Two Cents
Posted Dec 15th 2006 3:32p.m. by City Weekend (The Blogger)

Two City Weekend editors sound off on their favorite China blogs

Collin Crowell's pick##

Shanghaiist

For me, blogging is 80 percent writing and 20 percent the subject. Good bloggers, like any writer, can take a non-starter subject like a commute home and turn it into a what's-it-all-about-Alfie analysis of life. Like when I came across this blog posting by ... Read more »

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