The Wild East: New Links and YouTube Ethnography

Hey folks, as part of what I will cautiously refer to as the "revitalization" of this blog, I have added a couple of new links to the sidebar.

The first is a website that has garnered a lot of attention in the last few weeks from the China-watching blogosphere, by which I mean Danwei.org and Time's China Blog. ChinaSMACK tackles an interesting Chinese niche to which no other blog (at least as far as I know) has really invested more than a cursory effort in revealing to the non-native world of China and those interested in its modern moment. The site describes its focus as "Hot internet stories, pictures, & videos in China. What’s popular, scandalous, or shocking that have the Chinese talking," posting the latest viral sensations of the Chinese internet and (perhaps best of all) translations Chinese netizens' responses in online forums. Reading about both these stories and internet users' responses (I believe China is now home to the world's most internet users, but am too lazy to cite a source on that one), one hopefully will find some cultural insight. I'm personally fascinated by the internet slang found in netizens' posts and the various detours of language to express a meaning or word that might be too sensitive or vulgar for the tastes of the PRC's internet sleuths. An example I came across just now: calling someone a "hard disc person," a "hard disc" meaning "Western digital" (a company name), giving the letters WD, standing for "wai di" (外地) person...or outsider. Wow. We can thank ChinaSMACK for providing a great glossary of these sorts of terms along with all the "colorful metaphors" one needs for proper appreciation of the Chinese language.

The other link takes you to the YouTube home of Chris3443, whose videos have been featured from time to time on Danwei and even praised (I guess?) on Sexy Beijing's YouTube video shout-out. Chris' delightful home-videos feature Chinese renditions of national anthems, lip-synching of Chinese rock, original music stylings, political question and answer sessions with his Chinese girlfriend, and generally fun montages of life in a "second/third-tier" city of north-central China, watched by both foreigners and Chinese. On the YouTube page you can find a playlist of videos Chris thinks you should watch first. Look for transcriptions and translations up in the video's description area (click "more").

Furthering the theme of YouTube "ethnography" is a Sexy Beijing, now two-months old, which I just recently discovered. In Sexy Beijing YouTube Takeover our favorite, sexy Beijing laowai heroine lists out their favorite China-related YouTube videos according to category: