Allgemein

Cyber Youth

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

Through some winded path of reference I found a recent study comparing the online behaviour of Chinese and American youth. Henry Jenkins gives a useful summary of some its findings:

  • Almost five times as many Chinese as American respondents said they have a parallel life online (61 percent vs. 13 percent).
  • More than twice as many Chinese respondents agreed that “I have experimented with how I present myself online” (69 percent vs. 28 percent of Americans).
  • More than half the Chinese sample (51 percent) said they have adopted a completely different persona in some of their online interactions, compared with only 17 percent of Americans.
  • Fewer than a third of Americans (30 percent) said the Internet helps their social life, but more than three-quarters of Chinese respondents (77 percent) agreed that “The Internet helps me make friends.”
  • Chinese respondents were also more likely than Americans to say they have expressed personal opinions or written about themselves online (72 percent vs. 56 percent). And they have expressed themselves more strongly online than they generally do in person (52 percent vs. 43 percent of Americans).

Compare further with this highly interesting and helpful CC-licensed 100-page summary of a $3,000 report on Tencent’s QQ, one of the staggering success stories in Chinese Internet business. (Page 23 is an echo of this line of thought.)

(Via ChinaVortex, among others)

Trouvailles

Appeal of the Good Guys

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

It seems that American government, after its recent period of unmitigated villainy, is given some chance for rehabilitation. Read this thoughtful and moving article by Anthony Barnett. The founder of openDemocracy overcomes his habitual European skepticism against charisma politics and finally gets to emphatically endorse Barack Obama.

Another example of surprising partisanship is Andrew Sullivan’s support for Larry Lessig’s possible run for a seat in the House of Representatives. Oh, the powers of integration!

Allgemein

Under the Golden Shield

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

As was to be expected, James Fallows’ article on China’s Internet control system, “The Connection Has Been Reset”, is an excellent one, well-informed and balanced.

Funny enough, when I followed Fallows’ recommendation yesterday and downloaded the software for a “virtual private network” (VPN), I experienced exactly one of the measures described in his article. Sitting in a café, I was able to read the homepage of the VPN company, but when I wanted to order the product, the connection was blocked for some minutes.

But after a while, I was allowed to complete my purchase, and now I am able to access the blocked sites whenever I want (Wikipedia and the Blogspot blogs having been especially annoying blind spots on my Beijing Internet map). It’s like the watchdogs just wanted to tell me: “Don’t you think we don’t know what you’re up to – but look, we are a friendly bunch of people!”

Update Feb 28, 2008: There is an additional interview with James Fallows online at the Atlantic’s website: Penetrating the Great Firewall. 

Senses

38.2 Degrees Celsius

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

Lying down with an acute bronchitis in China sure has its entertaining aspects. One of them is the medicine they will sell you in the big, ubiquitous pharmacies. (Remember, the wealthy protagonist of the great erotic Ming novel Jin Ping Mei, Xi Men Qing, also is a pharmacist, with appropriate access to all the necessary aphrodisiacs.)

Chinese medicine has all those qualities you might have read about in 19th century literature: it is bitter, it looks scary, and it makes you feel utterly re-assured that your whole body is beneficiently poisoned by some highly efficient agents. Just then I had to take in a cough syrup that tastes like dissolved ammonium chloride licorice (those vicious little candies we Germans call “Salmis”). But the really challenging part was some powder to be emulgated in hot water, producing a dubious greyish-brownish mud you are supposed to swallow. It might be some plant root, but could also be grated crocodile teeth as far as I can tell.

These people really have raised the art of placebo to considerable height. (But I’m still happy that I’ve brought some Codeine and Aspirin along.)

Online Publishing

The Future of Media: 10 Observations and 10+ Theses

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

My colleague and friend Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti has recently assembled a score of observations and theses that beautifully summarize current developments in the media and give an outlook of things to come. I proudly present an english version, for further discussion. The wording of the 10 observations and 11 theses is Christiane’s, the summary prose is mine.

Continue reading →

Senses

Vinegar

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

Someone wakes you up in the middle of the night with the story of a desastrous evening. You eat some cashew nuts when suddenly something pinches your  gum. Turns out to be the fragment of a broken sewing needle. The room is stacked with clothes waiting to be ironed and books waiting to be read. Your thoughts circle around a thing unsolved, not solving it. You resist the temptation to let a glass of whisky guide you back into sleep, go to the kitchen, take a spoonful of spicy, peppered vinegar instead. It sharpens your mind for a moment of clarity and wild joy. Then, mercifully, tiredness sets in and sleep welcomes you again.

Reports from Daily Clutter

Summary of a Day

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

Worked at home, at a moderate pace (14 sent emails and a couple of phone calls make it an average day), listening to the trancy Necks (thanks, Daniele). The summer term has to be prepared, and it comes with a broad range of topics: Two term projects, the usual introductions to project and content management, a course on economic journalism, another on journalistic investigation. I’m a little daunted by the sheer volume of knowledge to be processed and transmitted.

At the same time, I have to prepare for my research term, which I’ll spend in China, starting from late July. Got a nice response today from someone who’s going to help me find some necessary funding.

Watched Kekexili, which is rough, bleak and powerful. Tried to draw a bull and a bear with only one line each. Failed.

Asia/Pointers

Ba Ba Ba

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

It was during the Live Aid Festival in 1985 that David Bowie introduced the keyboard player of his hurriedly assembled band as “the very brilliant Thomas Dolby”. Dolby at that time had just had one of the early eighties’ smash hits with his suitingly titled extravaganza Hyperactive (I love that girl!).

May I now humbly point you to the very brilliant Thomas Hart, who’s just warming up as FT Germany’s pre-olympic star blogger. Hart who used to work as resident brain-in-the-vat in one of Bertelsmann Foundation’s think tanks is now serving as EU’s telecom regulation ambassador in Beijing, a job that brings him in close and loving contact with several hygienically challenged hutong cookshops. (There is still no EU food regulation embassy in China.) He will observe the hype around the sacred date of 08-08-08 (start of THE GAMES) from this very perspective. May the germs not prohibit the flow of his words!

Reports from Daily Clutter

Days of the Clown

Posted on by Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

So, children hate clowns? Not only children, I reckon. Remember that scene in Tootsie, when an angry Dustin Hoffman knocks over the unsuspecting pantomime in Central Park, makes him fall from the rails? Oh, what a moment of bliss! Cast them all for Jackass, these pretentious whitefaces! But then, there are some wonderful clowns of literature, like the heroes of Robert Walser or Samuel Beckett. So let’s better be fair and balanced.