Black market pornography is big

November 22, 2011 by Jason Li

From Danwei’s A brief history of Chinese porn:

Despite the worlds most sophisticated monitoring and filtering software arrayed against them, tech savvy Chinese jump the Great Firewall with ease. For those less computer literate, pirated porn DVDs and VCDs are easy to buy if rarely on display. Porn is big business on the black market. In one 2008 bust…

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Group buying explanation + advertisement in one 30-second clip

November 17, 2011 by Jason Li

No explanation needed. Witty. Succinct. (Kind of cheesy.)

See their group buying deals here.

There are three “Oprahs” in China

November 10, 2011 by Jason Li

From TED’s speaker bios:

Yang Lan is often called “the Oprah of China.” The chair of a multiplatform business empire, Yang is pioneering more-open means of communication in the communist nation.

Yang Lan’s rise to stardom in China has drawn comparisons to Oprah Winfrey’s success in the US. It’s easy…

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Housekeeping update

November 7, 2011 by Jason Li

Just wanted to update everyone on our latest round of upgrades.

First, a warm welcome to ethnographer & sociologist Tricia Wang for joining our team here. As you may have noticed below, she’s already started on her first post. You can read more about her on her website or her work over on Bytes of China.…

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Angry Birds the next big cartoon character in China?

October 31, 2011 by Jason Li

In my recent trips to China, I’ve spotted various instances of Angry Birds merch and kids from all over playing the game on their PCs. According to their CEO, they’ve been downloaded (through official channels) 50 million times in China already. It seems that the phenomenon has not gone unnoticed at the head office. From TNW…

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Government edifice design in China

October 26, 2011 by Jason Li

LEAP has a great article by artist Bai Xiaoci (who is responsible for the photos above) on the architecture of government edifices in China. An excerpt:

As material manifestations of Chinese political principles, China’s city- and county-level government buildings have also developed their own architectural aesthetics. State-owned…

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The death of citizen journalism in China?

October 17, 2011 by Jason Li

Roland Soong from ESWN sums up a trend that I’ve also observed over the past few years:

Over the past few months, I have been seen so many major breaking stories turn out to be rumor-fueled. The small number of stories that I have written about were largely about rumors. So I have two reactions on this debate.

My first…

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Guan Gong Fights the Aliens!

October 7, 2011 by Jason Li

In case you missed it, Robin Peckham has a great piece over on World Wide Pop regarding the historic Guan Gong Fights the Aliens (1976) film. A Taiwanese production filmed in Hong Kong during the 1970s, the movie is part Japanese Godzilla film and part cheesy Chinese myth.

Incidentally, I also ran into the film at…

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Starting Up in Shenzhen

Highlights from the cutting edge of Chinese consumer electronics

October 2, 2011 by Jason Li

My picks from the Segbuy (赛格网), an online electronics marketplace with zero shipping fees and a seven-day buy-back guarantee. The online “trading platform” is run by the same company who own one of the famously large electronics malls in Shenzhen (the SEG Building 赛格广场).

Click on the images to go to the product page with more information.

At…

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Launching high end men’s wear in HK and Singapore

September 26, 2011 by Jason Li

The Financial Times has a fun little round up of emerging high end men’s wear companies in Hong Kong and Singapore. Rather than summarizing the article (which mainly states that these firms are meeting a growing demand and trying to put their respective cities on the map), I’ve rounded up a representative sample of images from each company below.

Enjoy!…

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八八吧 · 88 Bar

Author: Jason Li