It’s been a somewhat slow May Break here in China, with yesterday (Monday, May 3, 2010) feeling especially slow (ah, freakin’ clouds over the city), but we thought you’d might enjoy this snip from GigaOM about those #Hashtags flying all over the place.

Here’s how your tech blogger fared…

…and he was introduced to this only in late 2008, with @christinelu preaching the #china20 hashtag to him.

Hashtags can be thought of a neat way to create a “virtual convo”, and they’re probably best seen as live “convo folders”. That’s the case with tags such as #chinict, which is all about the up-and-coming CHINICT. And yes, techblog86 will be there.

They’re also behind virtual social movements. About this time a year back, when China started blocking Twitter on the eve of… one heck of a sensitive anniversary, those who could get behind the wall started tweeting out the #fuckGFW hashtag, a hashtag that has stuck since then to show Netizenry angst and resentment against Internet censorship. Earlier this year, a massive flash mob created the #GFW hashtag, which like its obscene brother, managed to climb to No. 2 in rankings on the entire Twitterverse.

(Now that this has been reported, we’re expecting all hashes in the country to get harmonized.)

But the online PRC’s hashtag world is not all gloom and doom. In fact, Om made reference to What the Trend, a site made by Shanghai Metro expert (and pro coder) Matt Mayer. Hashtags can, accordingly, be gamed so that some random topic ends up as No. 1. But they’re also great for discovering what’s hot on Twitter as of late.