#foursquare Day Beijing Featured In National News Mag

Will we soon see #foursquare harmonized? Travel sites have a much better track record with the Net Nanny… that is, unless you get un-harmonious with them. (How — that we don’t know.)

Anyway, #foursquare Day Beijing made it big. One of the nation’s most libre papers, the Southern Metropolitan Weekly (《南都周刊》), did its bit in letting the world — at least the Chinese-language world — know all about foursquare Day. In addition to letting your blogger claim a full page of the paper’s territory, the paper, more importantly, gave more airtime to @frankyu, mayor of the Sanlitun Apple Store, as well as other folks, including Joel Danielson of Illuminant.

(Yep — the paper also revealed that @frankyu is mayor because he checks in every single day. In fact, Frank just checked in about an hour before this post was pushed out. Ah, Frank, why don’t you just write the Great Leader Steve Jobs and — own the Store for good?)

The paper also interviewed the folks behind Fubar, where the party moved after 50+ folks checked in at the city’s Mac temple. Fubar gets its biz done through word of mouth, and — true to the #foursquare spirit — offers the mayor (currently no-one but @BeijingBoyce) happy hour prices all day.

PS: The paper got David Feng’s nationality wrong — he’s a Swiss, not a Singaporean. Beijing’s Subway Goddess, @sioksiok, by the way, is Singaporean…

PS 2: The guy you see with an index finger sticking out is pointing at the swarm by the Apple Store. We should have pointed that out earlier…

(Thank you @chinewinelover for the OK to use the pic.)

於 4 月 16 日舉行的 foursquare Day 線下聚會引起了媒體的關注，其中一個做大篇幅報導的就是《南都週刊》，並採訪了本博客博主、舉辦場所之「foursquare Mayor」及其它 foursquare 人物。

The Grass Mud Horse, Revisited

It’s no longer early 2009, when the Grass Mud Horse, or the Caonima (in essence Chinese for “f##k your mother”), was so popular that the censors stepped in and harmonized or blocked YouTube. Still, despite official disapproval, the much-adored Grass Mud Horse lives on — and CNN has it all on tape.

While on a late night Googlefest, your blogger found just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the Caonima Cult. Full diaries have been written about the alpaca-turned-grass-mud-horse. There’s Grass Mud Horse art on the Uncyclopedia. And there’s the kid’s song about the cult alpaca, in case you missed it.

From what we’ve seen, there are even alpacas at zoos in Beijing and everywhere else — yes, in China.

It’s no surprise: the Grass Mud Horse remains loved by everyone, boys and girls.

But the Grass Mud Horse is becoming of age — as in it’s becoming an old joke. There’s now the Yax Lizard, a derivative of Chinese communist propaganda from Xinjiang — Yaxshi — used to praise the party. This has, unsurprisingly, drawn much controversy.

中國線上神獸「草泥馬」只需要谷歌一下就能發現好多相關資料，如《草泥馬之歌》、圍觀草泥馬 (羊駝) 記錄等，而中國不少動物園依然都養著「草泥馬」/ 羊駝。國外亦對草泥馬做了大片報導。

Chinese Netspeak as a Second Language: NC

Ever seen NC on its own on a Chinese post? That’s short for naocan (脑残), or braindead.

You get to hear this the most often when it comes to discussing interchange stations that require a Long March to change from one line to the other (sorry): We have some seriously NC designers… (设计通道的那帮人 NC 了吧!)

It may not, by the way, stand for niucha (牛叉), which is short-ese for niubi (牛逼), as in really, really cool.