Random Culture

Google China Censorship

If you want to see a tangible example of Google's censorship in China, you don't need to look any further than the following example:

An image search on Google China for "tiananmen":
View Results

An image search on Google US for "tiananmen":
View Results

50 Cent: Shanghai Style

There's a rap festival happening in Shanghai this weekend. It's billed as "Music from The Streets of Shanghai." Well apparently, some music from the streets of Shanghai is pirated... Check out this audio clip of what appears to be a 50 Cent cover. Interestingly enough, there doesn't appear to be a Chinese translation for the word "Motherf*cker."

You can find more Shanghai rap downloads and lyrics here.

Link via Shanghaiist.

Engadget Chinese Beta

Weblogs, Inc. is launching their popular gadget site, Engadget, in Chinese! What's more, founder Jason Calacanis says that they'll also be opening Engadget sites for Japan and Korea. The Chinese site is not just a translation of the Engadget english site. Rather, it's unique content that still manages to give a global perspective. What's with the ads, though? They're all in English! So are the categories and other Weblogs, Inc. sites...

This definitely should be applauded... I've been raving about China for a while now, and it's good to see a company really thinking globally, as they should. So what Weblogs, Inc. properties are next for a global makeover? I'd like to see the Autoblog or Cinematical from another country...

Update: If companies don't start following the Weblogs Inc. example, users will take matters into their own hands. A post on Boing Boing today confirms this, as one of their users is translating Boing Boing posts into Chinese and posting them.

Google Allowed Into China

This is HUGE news. Google has been granted access to enter China.

Why is the HUGE? Well, simply because China is huge. It will eventually represent the largest online population of any country in the world. It's already surpassing the US in many ways... it's the world's largest beer market by volume.

But think about how much ad revenue this means for Google... HUGE.

Link via SiliconBeat.

China Afraid of the Pope?

While the media may have blown out of proportion some ideas about Chinese Internet censorship, it certainly exists in some capacity. China's biggest portals, Sina and Sohu, have censored prayers, blessings and comments about the death of Pope John Paul. According to a Sohu official that confirmed this censorship was happening, "Religious issues are special. We are afraid of problems arising."

Link via Smart Mobs.

Net Censorship in China

It's been a while since I've posted about China, but as I've stated before, it's an important country to keep your eye on as it grows, and learn about what the future has in store.

The World Changing blog points to an interesting presentation at the SXSW festival about blogs and censorship. The presentation was by Benjamen Walker, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and it addresses the misconceptions the western media has about net censorship in China... Illustrated by this NY Times article from about a week ago.

Some interesting excerpts:

Misconception 1:  We in the west assume that millions of Chinese are searching for information to aid their revolutionary struggles.

Truth:  Most Internet users in China are looking for the same thing most Western users are looking for.  Porn.

Misconception 3: There are 30,000 to 50,000 "Internet police" who do nothing but monitor people's email, web surfing, etc.

Truth: This is a number invented by officials for official propaganda missives, aimed at the national media, not Western reporters, who nonetheless take up information ministry press releases as legitimate and use them as source material.

2005 Trends: China

We've written about China more than a few times here, and can't stress how important it will be in the near future. The folks at PSFK have been blogging about their 2005 trends to watch, and we ran across a great post they have on China.

Nike: LeBron's not Cool in China

The Chicago Tribune (free registration - or Bug Me Not) is running a story that details a recent dilemma facing Nike. It seems that the "Chamber of Fear" ad featuring LeBron James facing off with an animated kung fu master and some dragons has been deemed insulting to Chinese dignity by the government. Is the Chinese government being to harsh, or did Nike fail to do the proper homework?

Link via Adpulp.

China's Mobile Adoption

I'm starting to sound like a broken record with all this talk about China, but I can't seem to avoid running into important information about it.

I ran across some really crazy numbers on Joi Ito's site. According to Joi Ito, people in China are buying 90 million new mobile phones every YEAR. There are only 80 million total phones in Japan. Another interesting fact is that Japan is about to make pre-paid phones illegal because they're used in crime, but in China, about 80% of their mobile phones are pre-paid.

Keep Your Eye on China...

By now everyone should know the importance that China, and the Asia Pacific market in general is going to play in the future of technology. They already play a significant role, but will continue to play an ever larger one. In the infancy of this site, I've already posted about China here, and here.

But this is really interesting... Check out this new blog, Silicon Beat. The guys behind the blog are Silicon Valley Venture Capital insiders that write for the San Jose Mercury News. The interesting thing is how often China comes up on the radar. There are VCs in Silicon Valley investing in Chinese companies, there are Chinese VCs in Silicon Valley learning about our innovations, and making them work in China, or making them better. Spend some time on the site, it's a great read.

One of the interesting posts is about 51Job, which is a Chinese site that's essentially the Monster.com of China.  And guess what, they're backed by a Silicon Valley VC firm...

I can see that I'll be posting even more about China than I initially thought.