Chinese Internet culture II "free Internet"

It seems to be a interesting  topic to talk about China? And I think there are some misconstruction about Chinese Internet, so I want to provide some other information about Chinese online culture.

As many of you have known, there two kinds of logic in the world. One is the logic and the other is Chinese logic. There are also two different kind of Internet on earth. One is the Internet, and the other is the China-net. In my last article, I say that the Chinese government has add many restrictions on the Internet and prevent the user to get the bad news about Party. You may think the China-net is like a dead land. But, actually it is not. It is much "free". 

"Free" means you do not need to pay money to get what you want. For instance, Music is free to download or listen online in China. Video and TV series are free to watch online in China. Most of the Android games are free to download! And there is even no taxes when you shopping online. It's free! You may say it is illegal or it is against the law! But it is a kind of legal thing in China at present. Let me explain to you. Why most of the Android games are free? You know that Google has quit the market of the China. So in China your Google play is not working. However, people can not live without game and the producers of the game want to earn the money. So they earn the money by adding advertisements in their apps. 

Advertisement! It is the key word how China-net works at present. The TV producers sell the right to broadcast their TV series to the particular websites to earn money. These websites earn money from their ad. 

The main reason is that the Chinese government do not have special laws to control the actions of sharing things online, which is just the model of P2P at first. Since the power of the market, some big websites want to benefit from "sharing". So they use ad. to earn their money. However, there are still many illegal sharing online in China. Like many American movies, you can watch Pacific Rim with 1080p online and these sharers and down loaders do not pay the money. Some producers of Japanese anime is much clever in this way. They know their product can not enter the Chinese market.(Actually there are more restriction on the physical products) So they sell the the rights to broadcast to Chinese websites and block the sites. 

Thanks you, Marx. Since there is no Internet at your time, Chinese government do not how to really control it. 

Let us tell about  Chinese mainland online culture I

If you have been to China , you must find that you can not log in facebook. That is it. Congratulation, you have find the mystery of Chinese mainland Internet-----the "Great Wall" online, which leads to special Internet culture in Chinese mainland.

In the north of China, ancestor empire  built a Great Wall to present the enemies from the north. At present the Chinese government also built a Great Wall, a firewall which is the biggest digital boundary in the whole world. This Great Firewall not only prevent the value of the west, but also let Chinese  citizens not to get access to the globe free Internet. In China, there are no facebook, no twitter and no youtobe.  You may think it is boring to live in the environment without such social network access.(A:It's killing people! ) But Chinese companies is not stupid. Since there is no facebook, Chinese companies copy its mode and become their own product. You may ask why Chinese government can allow the network access rather than facebook. The reason is simple the Chinese government wants to control the information online. How can it do it? Actually, it just control the company. Now, you may understand why facebook can not enter the Chinese market since the its server is based on the US.

There is another way to control the data that is bad for the Party and Government. Indeed, Chinese can not type the word of "Chinese government" and it will become ******. ALL the political  words or dirt words will become ****. But, Chinese are not stupid, either. We use some other words which sound like what we want to say to express our feeling like. For example, people use "Grass Mud Horse" as motherfucker. Even though, we do not dear to say bad words to the government since recently there is a Chinese news that if someone say bad words of other with no reasons which becomes hot online, this person who post the blog with bad words will be in jail.

That is Chinese Internet culture, living with data controlled by government. 

     Puella Magi Madoka Magica  (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ) is a Japanese anime produced in 2010, which is one of my favorite anime.

You may ask: “what this anime is about?” Well, it is about the life of magical girls. Have no ideas about “magical girls”?  Literally, it tells stories about young girls to use magical powers (from cute animals) to save the world. If you still cannot understand, here are some examples.

Sailor Moon, known in Japan as Pretty Soldier Sailormoon, is most famous anime in Magical girls genre. The story is about a cute little animal Luna (a black cat), who appears to a young girl Usagi, bestows on her magical power to defeat evil and save the world.

Card captor Sakura, also known as Card captor, tells a story focusing on Sakura Kinomoto, an elementary school student who discovers that she possesses magical powers after accidentally freeing a set of magical cards from the book they had been sealed in for years. She is then tasked with retrieving those cards in order to avoid an unknown catastrophe from befalling the world.

Now, let us come back to Madoka Magica.  It is about Madoka Kaname, an eighth grader who lived a peaceful life until she met a transfer student named Homura and saved a cute animal called QB.                                                      (QB→ →

So, in this vein you may think Madoka Magica is about a cute animal QB who appears to Maduka and gives her magical powers to fight the evil witches and saved the world.   Well, it is true, but it shows more than this.

It asks the some questions that others won’t mention. Like: Where does the QB come from?  What is its purpose?  Why it appears to Maduka? Where do the evil witches come from? Why do they become evil? What drives the young girls to make contracts to QB  to get the magical powers? And what is it that the girls have to give up to get the magical powers since nothing is ever free?

Everyone and everything serves a purpose and has a reason to be there. If you look carefully, you can find a lot of foreshadowing in the episodes. Each episode adds to arching storyline. The anime also makes people think about the problems in reality, like: the conflict of the ideal and the reality, the definition of justice, and etc.  

In all, it is definitely not for children, it is mature and worth thinking about it. Even though, it is not a happy ending in the end and most main characters do not achieve their aspersion, it is still an ending with “hope” which gives me great satisfaction. 

introduction of myself

The purpose of this article is to briefly introduce myself as an international student from China.  I am going to tell you about my background, character, and my goals.

Nanjing is my hometown, a large city located in the eastern part of China. Like Blacksburg, Nanjing is a beautiful place surrounding by green mountains and Qinghai River. People can go boating in spring, go climbing in summer, enjoy the lantern show in mid-autumn, and enjoy the fragrance of wintersweet in Chinese New Year with relatives and friends.  For this reason, I really look forward to living in the city with natural scenery, which, I think, is one of the reason that I chose to study in VT with bio-major.I have many hobbies: reading, Ping-Pong, chess, etc. My favorite one is Ping-Pong and I will never miss the chance to play it. (PS: I am also a big fan of Japanese anime, so do not feel weird if you find lots of Japanese anime comments in my blog. )Moreover, throughout this sport, I met some new foreign friends who also love table tennis in VT. Generally speaking, I am a little bit introverted. I may prefer reading alone to playing intense sports like basketball. However, I am open, modest, and honest person. It is easy for me to accept different opinions from others.

I think the main reason that I become an international student at VT is the effect from the people around me. My mother used to live in the countryside at her childhood. She often told me the experience when she became a college student in the metropolis. It was the first time for an 18-year-old girl to see the “outside world”.  Everything seemed new, magical, and wonderful in her discussion. My mother always told me that unless people stand on a higher step, they will never find more beautiful view of the world. She always encourage me to try new things, go to different place and learn from real life. Teachers from my high school were giving my motion to study aboard. My history teacher often satirized the teaching system in Chinese education; my geography teacher usually told us the interesting experience as an exchange scholar. Through the subtle influence of the teacher, and I even aspire to study abroad. I study here for another reason: an American friend, who has been one of the hokies for a long time and spent 4 years college life here, recommended to me. He gave praise to VT, his university. He said this university brought him many good memories. I was impressed by his words. In addition, I want to have precious memories in this university. I have great interest in nature, which made me chose biology as my major. (Actually, I already find some difficulty in studying bio lecture, tough words, and lab reports(QAQ). Because of this, you may find some complaint about these. Please do not mind it. )

In all, I really love this school and I hope I can graduate on time. Now, here I am. A biology freshman student who came all the way crosses half of the earth in VT campus.  I hope after four years of studying, I can use what I learn to contribute to the world. ( I have no ideas if it is too "large", since I have not decided my jobs after graduation.But I am willing to help others for free. [A: why you say "jobs"? I: well, maybe I will change my job often. who knows?])

Next week, maybe I will talk about the difference between American and Chinese or a comment of movie for Puella Magi Madoka Magica.  By the way, I find a interesting thing: when I typed the Magical Girl Madoka in Chinese in Google translation, it's immediately giving me the real English name of it rather than just translating it word by word. How smart the Google is!