A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
For our coverage of netbars today, we visit iResearch for some statistics.
Our appetizer: there are a decreasing number of netbars.
(green = 10,000s of netbars)
For our main course: the 2nd-tier cities have the most netbars.
(left = # netbars, green = first-tier city, yellow…
Continue readingSome stats, some dubious
Reporting from an up-scale netbar (520数码天地) in Chaoyang, Beijing.
Here, seats are grouped into single-computer cocoons & round-table group-play canopies on top of the usual cluster-rows. The Saturday-afternoon clientele includes expatriate youth.
Below are the top 10 shows watched, all free once you pay the hourly computer usage fee:
They are, in order:
Continue reading520 Netbar, Beijing
Reporting from Zheng Zhou (a fast-growing second-tier city and the capital of the Henan province).
The entrance of one (seemingly disguised as semi-studious?):
The inside of another, filled with the usual crop of teenagers using IM, watching soaps, playing online games, and surfing the web:
And inside the same NetBar, posters of some…
Continue readingPhoto Report of NetBars in ZhengZhou
Lhamo Tsering is a young Tibetan woman who lives in a village with her family in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Dechen. In 2003 I did anthropological research for my master’s thesis and Lhamo and her family graciously offered me to live with them. I stayed with them for seven months.
Most village houses have electricity for lighting, but…
Continue readingYoung Tibetans on the internet