It’s been three years since I’ve been back to China (see all my posts on Asia) to report on the local web scene but am now in Shanghai and have met with a handful of folks that are looking at social business within China. Don’t take this as a proper research report, but just sharing what I heard from speaking to a handful of professionals who are looking at the social web, culture, and business such as Sam Flemming, Bryce Whitwam, and hearing from Nicolas Zurstrassen of Nike present at the Social Media event where I was speaking.
Field Report: Shanghai and China’s Social Web, What I Learned: Caveat: Don’t take this as complete research, it’s just based on what I learned in a short period of time, you should connect with China experts who I listed out below.
China’s online sphere already large and growing –with increased disposable income. The largest internet population in the world, 400mm of the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens are online, nearly one third and growing also with an increase in wealth. Google’s announcement of AdMob indicated they are tracking the top visited websites across the world, and wow, has the landscape changed. See this list of the visited websites around the globe, many of them are Chinese such as Baidu (#8), Tencent QQ (#9), and Sina (#11).
Chinese internet marketing requires a specialized approach. The Chinese online community is vastly different than the West, There are different tools, websites, behaviors, and as a result different takes. I’ve outlined my findings from 3 years ago, if you want to see my previous field notes in this four part series.
Brands and consumers go to Social Networking Sites (SNS) –not create their own. In the west, it’s common for brands to have their own online community that’s branded using a community platform. Yet, from what I heard, it’s more common for brands to join customers where they are in SNS sites like QQ, in order to reach consumers. They will often have to ‘pay to play’ the SNS sites to participate. Secondly, I met with CIC, who paid me to speak at their event, they are a brand monitoring company that focuses specifically on the online discussion in mainland China for brands.
Brands are getting engaged with social marketing: At the conference, Nike presented their case study, in which they’ve reached Chinese young men who are basketball players. They created a community on QQ called “Ballers” that focuses on a lifestyle play that encourages them to connect to each other, organize, and share tips. Also present were L’Oreal, who has had recent success with the China Luxury community. Also, Ford has had early successes promoting their new car Fiesta, by deploying on QQ (SNS) and YouKu. (Like YouTube)
Facebook and Twitter are basically aren’t relevant: Both of these western owned sites are blocked by the firewall (bitly, seesmic and a few others blogs I regularly read), and I was unable to access them from my hotel. I was able to access them via my iPhone using the international data plan, and all Tweets were done by SMS. Those who really care about the social space have VPNs that can leap over the firewall.
Consumer Brand Backlashes Occur Online: Like all markets, consumers are asserting themselves using mobile and online channels. At the Social Media Conference, it was discussed a few times about the HP issues with products and how netizens use the web to share their concerns (see video). Also, a holiday called consumer day, netizens will assert their voices over brands, and get educated on how to protect themselves. Was told that blackberries are still common for the business audience as they are often supplied by the employer, so you’ll need to know your mobile consumer behaviors before building platform specific apps for China.
Recommendations For Brands Entering Social Business in China
Know the Socialgraphics of your market: Understanding the nuances of the individual market is key. In fact, with China being a behemoth of online netizens, a dedicated approach is required. Just as you know the demographics and psyhographics of your online consumers, you’ll need to know how they use the social web, and that’s called socialgraphics.
Your Facebook Strategy Need Not Apply: Don’t expect your North American strategy in social business and marketing to work in China, you need to find experts and hire experts that understand the nuances. You’ll need to know the specific internet memes here, how the discussions evolve, and how folks communicate with each other. Remember, each culture has their own social networking adoption (although Facebook continues to drive global dominance, however I don’t expect that to be the case for China) so you’ll need to rethink your strategy.
Governance and Organizational Model Key for Social Marketing Success. Take a look at your social business organizational model and really ascertain which of the five models is best for your global business, in particular, the Coordinated, Dandelion, may be most effective, and in some cases Organic.
I also was able to enjoy the city, and visit the massive 2010 Expo (bigger than the Beijing Olympics, estimated costs at over 40 billion dollars) and was amazed by the British, Dutch, and many other international pavilions. Shanghai has undergone incredible growth since I was here 10 years ago, and the growing skyline was impressive. I joined the Geeks on a Plane tour for the Shanghai events, including acceding the second tallest building in the world, the Shanghai World Financial Tower. The recently expanded subway was clean and well run, especially compared to the aging NYC subway and SF transit in my own area.
Posting will be light for the next week, (I’ll make a brief stop by Hong Kong’s Web Wednesday) I’m taking my first vacation since I started my business as a partner at the Altimeter Group, 10 months ago. See you soon.
I’m in Dallas Texas right now, perhaps the most opposite place thank Toyko where I’ve been the last week, and have been avidly sharing my observations via Twitter, the following are some of these observations, as well as a bit more context beyond 140 characters. These observations are more of a personal and cultural note, rather than my field report that focuses on the business aspect of social media in Japan.
Internet Adoption high in Japan: I met the top executive of a marketing company in Japan and he told me that 2/3 of Japan’s 120 million residents are on the web.
Yet most Japanese corporations do not invest heavily in web: This executive also told me that only half of Japan’s 4000 companies spend more than $100k on the internet at all.
Credit crunch discussed: This is a global issue, I heard it in a few meetings with clients, it’s cascaded beyond US.
Facebook’s Japanese Translation Poor: I asked my Japanese clients what they thought of Facebook’s translation, they looked away, grimaced, and gave very clear body reactions that it needs improvement. I promised to pass the word on, as I speak to Facebook on a frequent basis.
Tokyo’s adoption of Twitter highest in globe: Given the heavy mobile adoption, I’m not surprised by these stats.
New Social Media Technology: Learned about “Nico Nico Douga” from Jonathan Browne, he says its a video sharing site where the users can ‘write’ on top of others’ vids
Developer and Enterpreneurs not fully gelled: There’s a gap (cultural and language) between business entrepreneurs in web scene and the web engineers and developers, mentioned one web entrepreneur now based in Tokyo. In silicon valley, it feels like one family.
Hotel Life: My room is equipped with a plasma screen, cordless iron, toilet with a bidet, and a futon like firm mattress.
Pride in workmanship: Everyone takes pride in their work and the customers they serve. Many taxi drivers have white glove service, and I noticed idling taxi drivers polishing their vehicle while waiting for next fare. A far cry from NY cabbies. Also, they will open and close the door for you using a remote lever –so dont open or close taxi doors, it’s frowned upon.
Tipping not required yet service high: Tipping isn’t part of Asian culture, in fact, it could be seen as insulting. Despite this, service was extremely high from taxis fast food, to hotel staff. If the weather was bad, expect apologies from Japanese, a most polite and considerate culture. I question why I feel forced to tip at American restaurants for mediocre or even sub-standard service.
Pandora: It works in Japan, I’m pleasantly surprised as I thought it was North American only.
Corporate Responsibility motto a current trend: Like “Green computing” in US, many Japanese corporations are on the sustainable and giving back to the community bandwagon, in fact, this makes a ripe opportunity for social media efforts to help tell this story.
Salary Men: Are Japan’s corporate worker, in the area I stayed, there were many dressed in black or gray suits, often with a skinny tie. Work life takes priority over anything else, and long days can extend to 12 hours, then not including after work eating, drinking, and festivities. Apparently, it’s not unheard of many salarymen to stay the night in small hotels, or even utilize showers at work… I thought I worked a lot.
Fresh Sushi: I had ‘real’ sushi near the fish market. It was more like FRUIT, than fish. Firm, burst in your mouth and sweet, I don’t think it was frozen.
Vending Machines: Dispense not only drinks and smokes, but also you can pay for food before you enter noodle houses, this increase effeciency, and reduced need to fumble with money and change. Salary Men hung out near vending machines where beer was dispensed in late evening –I wanted to join them.
Crime rate low: I noticed cops have batons, but not guns. Crime rate here is significantly lower than US. Upon closer look some had smaller guns, 22s? Much different than larger guns US cops carry.
Tokyo Travels: Went to Roppongi which has many ex-pats, as well as a somewhat nefarious hidden underground.
Mobile Medium: No SMS, yet all phones are 3G, most phones have built in digital TV tuners, so you can watch TV in crystal clear quality.
Developer Community still growing, yet not unified: Developers complexities with developing software, as they are a hardware based culture. Shibuya is the technology center –esp high tech and startups in Tokyo. Kris Tate, CTO of zooomr.com a photo sharing site notices an increase from 7-715, then later from 8pm-1am. Both are before and after work, often accessing from home computers before hitting the subways. There’s isn’t a large blogging community in Japan to help be the ‘instant niche media’ that you’d find in the US.
Above Image: Social Technographics of Japan’s Online Consumers, this data (and more) is accessible from the Groundswell Profile tool.
First of all, this isn’t formal research, it’s just a one week observation from an outsider who spoke to a variety of companies and experts at a blogger dinner. For ongoing commentary and dedicated research from a true expert, meet colleague Jonathan Browne who’s a Forrester analyst focused on Customer Experience and based in Tokyo –he has far more knowledge, experience, and research on Japan than I likely ever will.
I’m here for one week speaking to some of Japan’s top companies about my research on communities and social technologies, as well as keynoting Japan’s ZDnet conference on social technologies and speaking to press and media. I soaked in as much Japanese culture as I could, and make a lot of observations and comparisons on twitter.
[Japan is global technology leader, yet when it comes to social computing, culture is the strongest influence --not technology]
Japan’s high tech industry fuels innovation –and impacts culture
Everywhere I look I see process and technology efficiencies that improve Japan’s environment. Every minute detail has been thought out, in order to ensure the country works well together and is efficient in day to day operations. Riding a 100+ MPH bullet train to Osaka confirms that only a few countries can develop and put into action a transportation system so effective.
Yet despite the high adoption and leadership of technology (esp mobile) in Japan, some locals expressed to me that technology optimism within Japan is actually very low. Some expressed to me that individuals are less social in real life as they tend to communicate via mobile devices.
Japanese Social Technographics (see above graphic)
Yet despite the advances in technology from any country, it’s important to note the impact of culture on social media. In fact, social media marketing is more like psychology or sociology than it is about marketing –in fact, technology is just a trigger point –and not much more.
I’m told that Japan’s group think culture can cause pressure that gives individuals a desire for self-expression. These tools can enable just that, and I’ve learned that many Japanese have multiple profiles to allow them to traverse in public, with friends, or speak their mind anonymously.
Looking at the graph at the top of this post, this confirms my observations. It’s interesting to note that ‘creators’ in United States are 21% compared to 35% in Japan, also, both countries have about equal number of ‘spectators’ both more than 2/3rds. In a culture where mobile usage is extremely high, accessing the web at any time is a fingers’ reach, this may explain why the ‘spectator’ behavior is so high.
Most corporations hesitant to adopt social
I expect social media adoption to continue to increase among citizens, consumers, and the public, yet we’re still a few years off from seeing a mass movement of corporations adopt these tools, unless there are some ‘punkings’ that spur corporations out of hesitation and start to react then be proactive.
I heard case studies of companies like Nissan and Sanyo using social technologies to reach customers, but although I can’t confirm it, some blogging initiatives don’t enable comments. Even with that said, experience shows that successful social media efforts require corporations to truly be transparent resulting in the rich history of Japanese corporate culture to change.
[While consumer adoption of the social and mobile web is high, corporations will be slow to adopt until they experience brand damage and true loss of control]
Corporate and social pressures increase perceived risk of social adoption
I spoke with bloggers, corporations and colleagues and confirmed that Japan’s top down management approach make it difficult for a Groundswell to be accepted within corporations. Furthermore, senior leadership may be removed from being adopters of these new technology –furthering the understanding gap. Although all brands are fearful of failure and risk, within Japanese corporations this resonates even louder. The ‘fail quickly and iterate’ mentality of silicon valley isn’t a virtue shared within Japan’s long time pillars of business.
At my keynote at Tokyo’s Zdnet event, I presented my findings from my recent research report on the “Best and Worst of Social Network Marketing” I could visible see the attendees get uncomfortable as I outlined the many companies who had ‘failed’ my test. Despite the unpleasant feeling, it was important that the attendees see who did it wrong –then right, so their chances of success increase.
Expect to see corporate internal adoption before external
Perhaps the first place to look for corporate adoption isn’t within the marketing and PR departments, but within the internal enterprise. I met with a few companies who expressed that internal usage of communities and social networks are already underway. Given the strength of the Japanese culture that can act collectively (although may be more top down than bottom up) the opportunity for group think collaboration may be high.
[Across the globe, power shifts to the participants of the social web. To reduce risk and become more connected with customers, Japanese corporations should prepare to engage with social technologies. Given this untapped approach, savvy brands who yield the traditional command and control approach can seize an opportunity before their competitors]
I have so much to share about my trip to Japan and meeting with dozens of people from Japan’s top companies, and over 20 bloggers and social media experts at last night’s blogger dinner.
Perhaps the best way to share is to keep it short, here are my most recent tweets:
One AM Tokyo
City Never Dark, Soft Glow
Sleepless City We Are
We Often Forget
Social Web About Culture,
Not Technology
Most Brands Do Not Join
Yet Japan Use Social Web
Fish Where The Fish Are
Above photo: I had a great time discussing the impact of social media on culture and business in Japan with Tokyo’s top bloggers. Image taken by Andrew Shuttleworth –used with permission
The following portion is updated the day after the blogger dinner.
Last night’s blogger dinner with Tokyo’s finest was interesting, aside from meeting the movers and shakers in this space, discussed the social web and it’s impact on culture, we had a fun time enjoying food and drinks.
I encouraged the attendees not to socialize but to also think about how social technologies impact culture, business, and Japan, we had some very interesting discussions, and the viewpoints from many of the ex-pats were often similar to the Japanese. I met some of the social media evangelists at large Japanese companies, as well as entrepreneurs, professional bloggers, and local VCs.
As I tried to circulate to many of the different tables, I started to hear patterns in the discussions. I asked folks to think about the adoption of these tools (this graph aboves shows a high degree of consumption by ‘spectators’) yet I quickly learned that many corporations are not participating with these tools, there’s just a handful of companies using these tools in public (Nissan, Sanyo, and several are conducting buzz marketing efforts). I’m still formulating my thoughts on why this is the case and what can be done –but I want to loop back with Jonathan Browne, Forrester’s expert on Japanese Customer Experience to bounce of him as a sounding board –more to come on this topic soon.
Original post below.
I’m excited to meet Tokyo’s top bloggers at a community blogger dinner, I’m cruising through many of the attendees blogs before the event, sadly, about half of them I’m unable to read –gotta learn Japanese. Here’s the lineup for tonight, quite a few ex-pats.
I’ll add my notes and pictures to this post later.
See you tonight!
While we’re all connected by bits and bytes, there’s nothing like meeting people in real life, I’ve met bloggers all over the world, you can see the archives, I’ll be adding to this over the years, it’s a great journey.
The following pics were taken by Midori Allen of Forrester and used with permission
My colleague Johnathan Browne has posted on his blog (and in Japanese) that we’re organizing a blogger dinner in Tokyo when I came out in a few weeks, if you’re in the area, please spread the word. I’ll be in Tokyo speaking at some events (including Zdnet) and advising clients, and getting some time to spend in this amazing city.
Forrester Blogger’s Dinner in Tokyo
Date & Time : Wednesday, October 22nd, 19:00-21:00
Location: FUJIMAMAS
6-3-2 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03.5485.2283
Cost: 4,000JPY for Asian Tapas dishes and nomihodai.
The tag blog posts, images, and tweets for the event will be #ForrTokyo
If you are interested in attending, please contact Ritsuko Tague at rtague@forrester.com / 03.5532.7684 with your name, company’s name, email address and your blog’s URL by October 3rd.
This slideshow (photo credits here), I found embedded on Sean Percival’s site really shows how China is giving it their all to impress the world. Despite the many criticisms, they’re putting their best foot forward. I was in Beijing a few years ago, and they were starting construction, had banners up, and were very anxious and excited to host the world.
Today is 8/8/8 a good luck date in Chinese culture, a good kick off for the olympics (the ceremony started at 8:08pm), many casinos are marketing like crazy, and thousands of Chinese are off getting married today (over 16,000 in fact). I’m off to Monterey right now, some friends (non-Chinese) are also getting married. Best wishes global family.
BTW, upon closer inspection, docstock appears similar to slideshare, but it’s not limited to just presos.
(Left photo: Paul Denlinger, Elliott Ng visit me at Forrester, Foster City, CA. If you’re interested in China and the internet, subscribe to their blogs)
Jeremiah: This is the second post from Paul Denlinger (read the first here), who’s living in China, an internet expert and reporting back to us. He provides us the perspective that few can and I’m happy to have his input. Coincidentally, Paul cam by my office with Ellliot Ng last Friday, they’re working on some exciting stuff, and I hope to be part of it later this year. Without further ado, Paul shares some key insights that relate to China’s culture and impact on communications.
China: After the Earthquake, Before The Olympics
For many social media analysts, it’s all too easy to think that social media is all new technologies for the Internet which make it possible for people to meet and share real-world experiences. In China though, it’s not so simple because it’s not just the technology which is new and changing, the whole society is changing, and changing very rapidly.
For many observers, and particularly the mainstream western media, there has been a near-obsession with China’s politics, and when it comes to the Internet, the issue of censorship and the GFW, or Great Firewall of China. For most Chinese, as independent issues, these are much less important than the underlying social trends which have become much more important, and much more apparent. Aside from the much greater prosperity of China over the past thirty years, there is a single greater trend, and that is toward greater openness which has been achieved through cheap and easy communications. This greater openness has not been achieved solely with the Internet, but more importantly, through cheap mobile communications offered through China’s mobile network.
Immediately after the Sichuan earthquake of May 12, most Chinese attempted to reach their loved ones in the quake-affected areas through the mobile network. In today’s China, the mobile phone network is the default method of communications, with the Internet as the second most common method of communications. These networks are changing quickly and melding, with a good deal of the change being driven by strong demand for the iPhone, even though Apple does not yet have a carrier agreement in the country. For many increasingly prosperous Chinese, the iPhone is their preferred mobile device for communications. Less than one year ago, the iPhone came as a status symbol; now it is preferred because it is user-friendly. Ten months ago, anyone with an iPhone would have turned heads. Now, it doesn’t even deserve a comment.
Aside from the tragic damage and loss of life, the May 12 Sichuan earthquake started a cascade of events which brought some social changes to the surface. For the first time, the Chinese government mourned at the loss of life of ordinary Chinese, and at the one week anniversary, even Internet users stopped their Google search queries out of respect for the dead. More than US$3 billion was estimated to have been sent to the homeless and injured in Sichuan through various organizations.
But nothing is simple in China. Many questioned whether the many charity organizations could be trusted with their donations, and some went so far as to buy goods, clothing and medicine, then took them to Sichuan to distribute them to the needy themselves. Other strangers organized themselves on the Internet, forming their own rescue missions to Sichuan.
From the government’s perspective, this massive outpouring of support was a double-edged sword. The unprecedented financial goods and support for the victims were good, but when the parents of dead children chose to ask why their childrens’ schools collapsed while government buildings were relatively unaffected, it chose to interpret this as a threat to the government’s authority and in some cases, tried to shut down discussion. The trouble with modern technology though, is that sometimes it is nearly impossible to shut down discussion, even though government entities control different chokepoints of communications. This put the Chinese government on the defensive, organizing online groups to support the government positions.
This became apparent in late June with an incident in Wengan in Guizhou province, where a young teenager died under mysterious circumstances, and in the ensuing chaos, a police station was burned down. While news of this incident was initially suppressed in China, videos quickly made their way to Youtube where they were viewed by those outside China, who then spread the news back to their friends and family in the country. In response, the Chinese government in Beijing swiftly fired the government officials in charge.
The trend toward more openness, transparency and accountability are not just demanded of the government. More and more people are demanding the same from businesses, and if they don’t get it, they complain quite openly about business practices they don’t agree with.
Today, China is standing at a crossroads. While the Chinese have enjoyed an unprecedented growth in wealth and basic human rights, including the basic right to homes and food, they want and expect more. In many respects, the buildings, roads and infrastructure created over the past ten years are newer and more modern than the US’s very dated and poorly maintained infrastructure. China’s rulers are slowly coming to the realization that building the infrastructure hardware is the easy part; the real challenge lies in building the human software and practices which come with managing a first-world country.
The Chinese government is slowly coming to the realization that as the Chinese people become more prosperous, they are demanding more of their government, including transparency and accountability, and if they don’t get it, some of them are prepared to take action. The society is becoming more noisy, and more democratic, and the Internet and mobile communications have played an enabling role for the people.
Jeremiah: Paul Denlinger of Beijing is an internet expert on China, and I’ve offered him the opportunity to help share from an insiders perspective. Keeping in the theme of internet strategy and how the web impacts business, (and in this case the world) Paul, a resident of China, shares his perspective.
Although a long post, please show him the same respect that you do for me.
Chinese Internet Becomes Platform for Earthquake Grief
The Sichuan earthquake of May 12, which first registered as 7.8 on the Richter scale, has now been revised upwards to 8.0. As of Thursday May 22 in Beijing, the number of fatalities has so far reached more than 52,000, missing are 30,000, while injured are 400,000 and the number of homeless has reached 5 million. The final death toll is projected to be around 72,000. The Chinese government has appealed to foreign governments for aid and assistance, and Russia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have all sent teams to aid in the search for survivors in the rubble, and for body recovery. With the huge number of refugees, there is also a severe shortage of tents to house them, and many foreign governments including the US, UK, Russia, Germany and Italy have all sent cargo aircraft to Chengdu, the nearest major city, to drop off needed supplies.
The Chinese government reacted swiftly to the tragedy, with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao flying to Sichuan the afternoon of the earthquake. He won wide praise for his swift action, and was photographed and taped talking and holding newly-orphaned children, telling them that the government would care for them, and would be committed to helping them rebuild their lives. He was photographed weeping when the bodies of two young children were removed from the rubble of their collapsed school. After several days of non-stop work directing rescue teams, making sure that they got all the help they needed, the exhausted Wen returned to Beijing, and was replaced by Chinese president Hu Jintao, who in one of the more memorable scenes, was seen holding an 8-year old boy, and telling his family that the government was committed to helping them rebuild, and to finding the bodies of their loved ones.
Military rescue teams from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were dispatched from all of China’s 31 provinces to aid in the rescue effort. The first two days after the earthquake there was heavy rain in the area, and in a few instances, paratroopers were dropped into stranded villages to help the local inhabitants. In one instance a dangerous night drop was made into an isolated village, and the mission was so high-risk that the 15 men were required to write their wills before departure. There continue to be mudslides in the area, and the government says that so far more than 200 volunteers have been killed in mudslides, trying to get supplies to the villagers.
The earthquake struck in a mountainous region of Sichuan, at the foothill of the mountains which run to the west and become the Tibetan plateau. A mix of Han Chinese and ethnic Tibetans live in the area, mostly in small villages surrounded by mountains. The main earthquake struck at 2:28PM, and an estimated 7,000 school classrooms collapsed. Schools were particularly hard-hit since many of the primary school students were taking their afternoon naps, or had just started their afternoon classes. There are many stories of children escaping from their classrooms to their sports field, only to be buried alive when the mountain surrounding the school collapsed on them. For many of their families, their bodies will never be recovered. In other instances, parents rushed to their children’s schools to dig out their children, only to find them dead. In some of the more horrifying stories, the quake was so severe that mountains which were separated by valleys with villages in-between moved together, completely obliterating the villages and their inhabitants.
In most of these village households, three generations of families live together, including grandparents, children and grandchildren, as is the usual Chinese custom. In many of the households, the parents of the children are migrant workers in Shanghai, Beijing and the more prosperous cities of China’s east coast. Upon hearing of the tragedy, and being unable to connect with their families on their mobile phones, they took trains back to Sichuan to search for their families. Many returned only to find that their whole household had been wiped out, or to find that their only child had already been buried in a mass grave. In some cases, there was a single survivor, with no surviving relatives. Most of these people were severely injured, and on learning that their families had been wiped out, said that they too wanted to die.
But then something curious started to happen, something which hadn’t happened before in Chinese society. Strangers started going to hospitals in Chongqing and Chengdu, and started caring for people whom they were not related to, effectively adopting them. All during last week, the news started to spread, not only of the need to send supplies, but also to care for the survivors. Stories of this kind spread quickly though China’s officially-controlled newspapers and television, and spread even more quickly on the Internet, especially Chinese BBSes such as Tianya, which are the most popular community tool for unofficial news. Other popular outlets for information are Twitter and a Chinese version of Twitter, Fanfou. The most popular IM client in China is QQ, which has more than 500 million registered users.
The news spread very quickly about the scale of the disaster, and strangers started organizing themselves online to take supplies to the disaster area. Google China and Baidu, China’s leading search engine, soon created specialized searches for relatives. Then on the weekend of May 17 and 18, some Chinese started designing online memorial sites where visitors could sign a book and give a white flower in mourning for the earthquake victims. These sites were designed and set up by volunteers without any payment from the government or corporations. As of May 22, one site had more than 262,000 unique visitors.
Late on the evening of May 18 Beijing time, the Chinese government announced that there would be three official days of mourning, from May 19-21, and recommending that game and entertainment sites shut down during the mourning period. Robert Scoble interpreted this event out of context and turned a human tragedy into a political event, narrowly framing it in terms of politics and human rights, and suggested that this meant that the Chinese government was enforcing a government crackdown during the mourning period, as could be evidenced from his comments, and those of his followers, on his Friendfeed account.
In fact, the Chinese government’s Central Publicity Department, which is in charge of content on the officially controlled media, was playing a catchup game with China’s Internet population, which is now the largest in the world, as well as the general population of China. As people learned more about the scope of the tragedy, they wanted to do more, and even more, the government sensed that they needed a public outlet to channel their grievance. The problem was that, in China’s long history, there never has been a defined way to remember and mourn ordinary citizens who have been killed in an enormous natural disaster. For this reason, the government prescribed that all cars and citizens would stop where they were on May 19 at 2:28PM, exactly one week to the day from the time of the earthquake, and while air raid alarms sounded, they would stand still for three minutes. They did this on Monday, as can be seen in this Youtube video and this interesting account of the event. Many websites have voluntarily changed their colors to black and white during the mourning period, while some have added the Chinese character for "mourning" to their websites, and many Chinese have chosen to wear black and white during the mourning period. All of this has been done without government orders of any kind; it has all been organized on the Internet through BBSes and people who voluntarily spread the message. Many other sites have set up donation badges to facilitate online donations to help organizations, and there have been blood drives as well. There have also been a few sites, including Google and Baidu, which have created people search sites, so that relatives can look for their loved ones. Most newspapers and magazines, all of which are controlled by the government, have moved to publishing in black and white only.
While younger Chinese have turned to the Internet, older Chinese have devoured huge amounts of TV programming and newspapers, all of which are state-owned and are now fully devoted to reporting the aftermath of the disaster. Unlike in the past, all of this reporting about the disaster is what the audience demands from the bottom up, not what the government wants to give to the people in a top-down fashion. In order to show the people that the government is on top of things and doing its job, state-owned news agencies have been working round the clock to provide news about the situation in Sichuan. When not reporting about rescues, stories detailing the amount of goods and supplies being sent to Sichuan from the various cities and provinces of China form a solid wall of disaster reporting. In keeping with the Chinese affinity for numerical data, precise numbers of boxes sent, trucks dispatched, tons of supplies sent, trains sent, etc. are all reported in these stories. In contrast with the past, Chinese government officials have promised a higher degree of transparency and accountability to the people. Many Chinese have also started openly asking questions on the Internet and on television and radio, including why so many schools collapsed, and if dams in the region may have caused soil erosion.
Whether it is television, print or the Internet, there are endless stories of people living just because they ran a different direction from the rest of their family, or because someone left home on a shopping errand, only to find their home flattened and all their family killed by falling debris. Ever since the end of WWII, China and Japan have had a rocky relationship, but the dispatch of Japanese rescuers to aid the rescue process, has won significant praise and goodwill from Chinese netizens.
Maybe most interesting has been a publicly-driven drive for corporate donations of money and supplies to the earthquake victims. Sina, one of China’s three leading portals, has set up a corporate donation page which lists amounts Chinese corporations have given (minimum amount for listing: 10 million yuan or US$1.4 million). As of the afternoon of May 21 Beijing time, total corporate donations listed on the page had come to 5.58 billion yuan or US$797 million. On the Chinese Internet, netizens have been especially loud in driving corporations to donate more, and in some cases, have publicly attacked corporations for being too cheap in their donation amounts. In most cases, the criticized companies have quickly upped their donation amounts in reaction. Corporations have also looked sideways to see how much their market competitors have donated, and have matched or trumped their donations, sometimes setting off donation bid wars to win praise from the public and favorable PR.
For the past ten days, Chinese have spent most of their time glued to their TV sets or on the Internet, collecting every scrap of information about this huge human tragedy. The outpouring of emotion has been enormous. As the mourning period draws to a close, the next phase will begin, that of reconstruction. Without a doubt, the Chinese Internet will continue to play a major role.
Paul Denlinger is an Internet consultant based in Beijing who publishes his own blog at the China Vortex.
Last week, I tried to inspire you to donate to the China crises by showing you beautiful pictures. This time, I’m going to take a little bit more of a realistic approach. Numbers are often hard to fathom, so images (in context to our lives) can really help to illustrate a point.
If the US had as many homeless as the China Quake, the following high tech cities would have no where to live:
San Jose, Calif. Population: 912,332
San Francisco, Calif. Population: 739,426
Dallas, Tex. Population: 1,213,825
Austin, Tex. Population: 690,252
Boston, Mass. Population: 559,034
Denver, Colo. Population: 557,917
Total: aprox 4,670,000, with a leftover to fill many small cities in America. (such as Oakland, Miami, Tulsa, Honolulu, all in the 300k range)
Shocking? I could have used images of death, despair and crying parents. Sometimes, I think that’s less effective, especially if the culture is foreign, so I decided to use something most readers have in common –home town images.
