I dunno who came up with Them Retweets, but it was a cool invention. Suddenly, your tweet spread like wildfire. Get folks with a million followers to retweet you, and boom, you’ve just made it big.

Twitter’s had two things “crowd-invented”: the @s (as in @user), and the retweets. Twitter knew that it somehow couldn’t dodge the retweets, so for me, it was just a case of them embracing this — earlier or later. Then @wolfgroupasia came out with the idea to “translate retweets” using the TT @user twlexicon — something your tech blogger loves.

Here’s the thing, set out straight: beginning today, I’m retweeting nearly everything using the official Twitter retweet, except for those that need a comment inserted. Retweets make up a fair deal of what I tweet, so if you really hate them, just go to my profile page and turn ‘em off. (It’s a free planet.)

Here’s why I’ve decided to retweet the Twitter way:

1. It’s an official feature. People are using it already. Why am I missing the boat or being like one of those conservatives in the land of the Alps? (No offence to the Swiss. But in this day and age, those who move on will ultimately win.)

2. It allows you to keep track of who’s retweeting the message in an easy way.

3. More and more third party clients are doing this — as in the new Retweet feature. In TwitBird, for example, a “retweet” will only do the Twitter retweet. For the “old”, organic retweet, that’s now just a “quote”.

So here goes. Retweet away. Please get ready for your arrival.

David Feng
Beijing, June 15, 2010

“Controlling content in Sina microblogs is a problem which is a very big headache.”

There — we’ve tried our best at verbatim translation. On, of course, Chen Tong (陈彤), the head editor at Sina. It’s no surprise that, given the fact that Sina is one of the largest portals in China, that the Chinese government is keeping a good eye on this thing. (The government keeps a good eye on everything: this blog included, dare we contend.) Basically, what Chen’s remarks are telling of is the fact that — surprise — censoring tweets on Sina Microblogs is a pain in the #ExpletiveDeleted.

Oh, and by the way, you weren’t supposed to know that. This article first found its way via Jingchu Web (荆楚网) and was posted onto Sina.com.cn at 12:38 on June 13, 2010. Within the same day, it got nixed (aka “harmonized”). No probs: the Twittersphere (especially in the uncensored “outer Twittersphere”) found a cached copy (thanks @wenyunchao for the tweet).

The article goes on by saying that in the recent case involving a Japanese porn star who wanted to apologize for Japanese invasion in China during World War II, that she’s doing what men and women in s_x__l relationships want to do — for free. (The offer’s good if you’re a Chinese student in Japan.) The message got retweeted about 5,000 times — snap, just like that. (Later “research” by Sina showed that nothing of the sort actually happened. Huh?)

However, that was a lesson as to how fast stuff can spread — through microblogs. We’re looking at a potential audience in the six figures who can get the inside skinny within a matter of minutes. With the world-renowned censors of the People’s Republic never far away (anywhere), this is the kind of stuff that keeps these people up at 3:30 AM (and a bit later than that as well).

Chen was also quoted as saying that although “controlling content” (that’s Chinglish 2.0 for “censorship”) is a real headache, Sina’s able to “do this work the right way” and that it’s confident it can get this sorted. Here’s the scary bit: some of the censors at Sina have been censors for 12 full years. (Poor them. This blogger wonders if they’re married or not; poor their spouses if they are.)

(But we digress.) The censorship goes on, day and night, taking no weekends, and is without interruption. Both the censors and the editors are at work, summarizing via email every hour, and holding censorship meetings (uh, yep, this is surreal) every day. This way, editors make sure their duty at filtering out controversial content is always met.

As for those who post controversial, censor-bait content (mainly “politically reactionary” content as well as (of course) porn), it’s just a case of communicating offline with the users or taking the “please stop tweeting this kind of content” notice public. If that’s not working, the offending content is removed, and if that’s not working, the user is automatically deleted. Chen also recommends users who find “unhealthy” content to fully make use of the “Report Inappropriate Content” link on every page.

(That sure sounds Gestapo-ish. Imagine censoring your girlfriend’s tweets.)

The year 2009 was the year the innocent Chinese populace were forced into all kinds of things — the year when the average soul in a nation of 1.3 billion were coerced into doing one thing or the other that they probably wouldn’t have done if left to their own devices. The biggest news of the year: someone being forced into employment (被就业 in Chinese; in essence, being forced into a job with the paperwork done in secret, behind the backs of the victim without him or her ever knowing about this); the next biggest bit of “bad news” was the Railways Ministry, always a synonym here for poor service and bureaucratic arrogance, forcing people to high speed trains by cancelling regular service on railway lines where high speed lines already ran. (The few that were left in service — as in the regular lines — obviously weren’t enough to satisfy demand, rhetoric would have it.)

Those were cases of brutal leaders “up above”, but it seems like, with the action happening in South Africa, the average next-door (or next-bunk; read on) comrade seems to have just gone into “Force Others” mode as well. Twelve years ago, the France ‘98 theme song was a mere question — Do You Mind If I Play? Today, in China, it’s a command — as in there are now reports that university students have turned on the TV volume so much that others who prefer to sleep and not watch have no choice but to tune in to the action — like it or not. The new hot-button word: “forced into watching football” (被看球).

While not exactly the latest cutting-edge bit of Web 2.0 news here, your tech blogger just wanted to let you in on a bit of the Bei (被) or by-force world here in China — remember, the Bei biz was coined by a buzzword on the Chinese-language interwebs.

The Starbucks inside Capital Times Square is minimalist, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just inside the back entrance of the Beijing Capital Times Square is this Starbucks, which apparently manages to place itself in harmony with this huge escalator that nearly splits the thing into two.

Were it not for the fact that the back entrance (closer by a hutong instead of the massive Chang’an Avenue) were not a semi-indoors thing, you can actually come real close to nature. Its massive windows are a delight — your tech blogger actually spent close to a year working at a city museum where the amount of light in the museum offices was close to jailhouse standards. No surprise, then, that this Starbucks wins in terms of prime position and in terms of a good aura.

Sadly, this Starbucks is a mere flower vase, wifi-wise. There’s no password to get you online, but that means that others encroach on the freedom as well. Getting a VPN to work on the network is impossible (you have to help yourself to other wifi hotspots nearby — offer good only as long as it’s valid!) or you have to get yourself a China Netcom card, which can easily suck out a whole day’s work for just an hour online. (Talk about “serving the people”!) Even without resorting to reading “reactionary propaganda” in officialspeak (by using a VPN, for instance), getting online and getting some real work done is an exercise in futility.

Tested: 19:45, June 13, 2010 with a 15-inch MacBook Pro
Wifi: Free; no password needed
Signal: Good signal; poor Internet access
VPN support: Poor
Transit links: Subway Lines 1 or 4 to Xidan; exit at Line 1 exit E or Line 4 exit G closest. Line 1 riders can head straight into the Capital Times Square using an all-underground passageway; Line 4 users must first interchange to Line 1.

Starbucks Capital Times Square
Ground (1st) floor
Off Chang’an Avenue and Xuanwumen Inner Street; Xicheng, Beijing, China

The city of Tianjin, a 30-minute ride away by high speed train from the Chinese capital, is often known as a down-to-earth city where its locals discredit attempts to “look official”. Yet the Jin Wanbao (今晚报), the evening newspaper of the city, seems to take on a more officialesque tone — when it comes to things in cyberspace.

Page 5 of the June 10, 2010 edition convinces readers with a huge headline that the real-name, real-ID system for online shops, slated to be in effect as of July 1, 2010, is a “must”, despite acknowledging that the measures have created a fair bit of controversy. Three big issues were singled out: Do e-shopkeepers have to pay tax? How safer will online shopping get? And are there any “discounts” for taxes in a “new industry”?

There is an increasing number of university students who basically make a living by selling online. In cyberspace, setting up shop requires far less red tape and even less hassle when it comes to securing a storefront, explaining why e-commerce is big. Trouble is, there’s a lot of uncertainty on whether or not taxes will start kicking into effect with the new regulations. Any cent collected will mean more expenses on the side of the e-shopkeeper, making a storefront in cyberspace less attractive (even if by a cent).

Although it’s sure that cases of customers being cheated on are expected to fall with the new rules in force, there’s still another bit of uncertain head-scratching — and that’s when it comes to, once again, taxation. It’s hoped that these e-shops will get taxed less or stay untaxed altogether, given their meteoritic rise as of late, plus the fact that e-shops are still very new to China.

Chinese cyberspace seems to be less and less of the uncensored wilderness that the Interwebs started out with. Still, if you think of the Web as being a digital extension to your real lives, that’s when the linkage with your real ID might start making sense…

Are You The One? That’s the name of a TV dating show (非诚勿扰 in Chinese) which has exploded in popularity on Chinese TV. Lest you think this is totally offline, the rhetoric and the controversy surrounding this show have gone online and have earnt it the attention of the censors based at the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). It’s early to say that this sounds a death knell for that show itself, but with the show taking on an übercapitalist stance (girls going: “only my boyfriend can hold my hand; for everyone else, it’s CNY 200,000 every time you touch it), the censors are honing in this show and other TV dating shows like vultures zeroing in on their prey.

Worse, a fair number of these people on the dating shows are in the so-called 90s generation (90 后), a generation that many people prefer not to associate themselves with. Whereas the market economy “stunned” those a decade ahead (those born in the 1980s; the 80s generation or 80 后), making them the rather “lost” generation, the generation a decade later has grown up to be not only Web-centric, but downright arrogant, vain, selfish to the extent that they believe that feeding off their parents for as long as possible is considered “an honor” and “the norm”.

But to fully “tick these shows off”, so to speak, would also not be a good idea — at least it wouldn’t give folks an objective view of Chinese society (especially with the youths) this day and age. The show features one bachelor in front of 24 girls, who decide whether or not she wants to go out with him by pressing a switch; lights change from neon blue to pink if a girl disapproves of the bachelor, to the tune of one of the weirdest sound effects ever. These votes of confidence (or no confidence, rather) showcase a China where “things” matter more to singles than “pure love”. Girls exclaiming that they would rather cry in a boy’s BMW than be taken on a bike ride reveal the unfettered arrogance of the Chinese youth today.

These shows can, indeed, be censored — for promoting materialism in a nominally communist society (ideologically) or for showing the “bad / money first” side of Chinese society (in reality). But what can’t be censored is the problems that these stories (chock-full of arrogant language, more often than not) speak of — in the real world in China this day and age. At least, there’s one silver lining to all this: uncensored in those shows are the increasing presence of materialism and consumerism in today’s China.

Who doesn’t want an extra day or two off? Sometimes, the Chinese play around with the holidays like an inexperienced driver on a manual transmission car. Sold that you can shift into higher gear all the time, the newbie yanks a 5-speed stick (in top gear) down — and engages reverse gear instead.

That’s precisely what we’ve done with our May 1 break. Bearing the hallmarks of a nominal Communist state, we’ve had May 1 off since PRC time immortal. When the higher authorities remixed the holidays so that we would get a seven-day “golden week”, May 1 was seen on the same rank of importance as the PRC’s own birthday, thereby begetting each one a full seven-day break. That was well until 2008, when the holidays were remixed; since then, May 1 is a three-day only break.

Now, the Beijing Evening News is reporting efforts to get it back again have been met with opposition from Tsinghua University professor Cai Jiming (蔡继明), who’s against the move. This immediately ignited not only fierce opposition from the Cai Jiming “talk bar” on Baidu (China’s largest home-made search engine), but mixed with the naysayers were those hurling outright abuse at Cai. Unsurprisingly, Cai’s angered by this and has threatened to sue Baidu for charges up to CNY 2.1 million.

If Tian’anmen stood as a symbol for more “freedom and democracy” in China, well, the stark naked fact is — China’s nowhere ready for that. Tolerance of dissent and multiple points of views, long a staple of established democracies and pluralistic societies, is noticeably absent in China. The simple case here that a movement to keep May Day as-is (as a three-day break instead of a “new lease on life” as a week off) has ignited this much controversy shows just how far China is from that verboten F-word: true freedom of speech. And while swearing is omnipresent on the Interwebs, escalating debates to these extremes show that the Chinese, while longing for more freedoms, are unlikely to value them (or, at that, more likely to abuse them) — in essence, giving rise to today’s sorry situation of unadulterated Internet censorship.

This was one of the first Starbucks your blogger noticed outside central Beijing. Shunyi is Shunyi — you know, that bit with the big airport in the Jing — until you realize that it’s also home to loads of expats as well. (By the way, the airport is supposed to belong to Chaoyang District. Strictly speaking. Trust us…)

Shunyi is a funny mix of three different parts: the airport (which, again, is — strictly speaking — supposed to belong to Chaoyang); old Shunyi; and new Shunyi, as in, the Shunyi New City. Oh and we — once again — forgot the fourth bit, right next to China National Highways 101 and 111, and within striking distance of the airport.

Expats live in this bit of Shunyi which is close to Beijing Airport. Incredibly enough, they’re spared of the aural cacophony of the planes taking off or landing, despite being just miles from PEK. In this part of town, there’s a huge bit of Shunyi known as Pinnacle Plaza, which is basically full of fast food joints — Subway, Domino’s Pizza — and a Starbucks. (If you’re more for Costa Coffee, try Euro Plaza, basically a stone’s throw from Pinnacle Plaza.)

The Starbucks in this bit of town is a bit on the huge side. It’s often full of people during the day time, but come into the place around evening time on a Monday evening and it’s incredibly devoid of people. Along with the offer from the baristas to convert your “for here” tea to a “to-go” tea (for free, did we hear?) comes the pleasure of uninterrupted wifi access.

Right around the corner, of course, is the Subway joint. It’s a mix of the arrangement seen only at SOGO Xuanwumen: a sandwich joint right next to Starbucks. Zero commute. If you’re coming back from the countryside and want the wifi without the jams that make up central Beijing, Pinnacle Plaza has a Starbucks that might be worth checking out.

Wifi: Free; password needed, given upon purchase
Signal: Good
VPN support: Good
Transit links: None yet, although Pinnacle Plaza is expected to be a 15-20 minute walk from the China International Exhibition Center station on Line 15

Starbucks Pinnacle Plaza (星巴克 - 荣祥广场, 顺义)
Shunyi, Beijing, China

That new iPhone 4 is not coming into the Middle Kingdom cheap.

Some tweeps stayed up last night — late, that is — to see Steve Jobs reveal the iPhone 4. At just 93 millimeters in thickness, this thing sure is thin. State-side, the new iPhone 4’s yours on June 24, 2010 with pre-reservations starting on June 15, 2010 already.

Apple also noted that iPads were selling like hot cakes, despite them not being available in China. That’s an iPad every three second — gone. In terms of how expensive the new iPhone would be, we’re looking, at least at the start, at tenfold prices. Instead of CNY 700 (that’s about USD 99 here), we’re looking at prices up to CNY 8,000. And of course, they’re supposed to be “pirated goods”. You pay for being first here — and apparently, that’s a bit of e-capitalist China for you…

…which you can easily do on a month’s pay if you’re in the handwriting software business: the Beijing Evening News revealed that those in the handwriting software biz earn on average CNY 7,000 - 8,000 a month. Not bad, eh?

Okkie, so what’s all the censorship about?

The Chinese State Council Information Office today released the China Internet White Paper which focused more on the fact that the over 200 million blogs in China post over 3 million new entries every single day rather than on the dark side of the Web some of us know off by heart — the Great Firewall. In news summaries from especially the Beijing Evening News, not a word was mentioned about censorship. Instead, the White Paper mentioned that Chinese citizens have the constitutional freedom of speech, a freedom that, if you’re aware of the acute limits in the political sphere, is clipped with amazing speed and frequency.

Having, so to speak in Chinese Netspeak, “done a bit of propaganda for the Western reactionaries” (who apparently care more about foursquare going down than anything else as of late), here are some stats to follow…

• Over 80% of sites offer some form of interaction (a BBS, or something, to start things off with).

• There are over a million forums and 220 million blogs hostead in China.
• Over 66% of Netizens in China post or comment. (What’s this thing about the “silent majority”, then?)
• Over 50% of “big firms” do e-commerce (the figure’s 30% for SMEs).
• Over 100 million buy things through the Web.
• CNY 3.6 trillion — that’s the sum of all e-commerce done through the Chinese interwebs.
• In 2008, the Chinese Internet industry had a value of CNY 650 billion.
• That sum alone is 10% of worldwide figures or 1/60th that of Chinese GDP.

As usual, given from where those figures “came from”, take them with a healthy grain of salt.