Hi everyone,
Many of you understand that advertisements and donations help pay for the cost of maintaining chinaSMACK. All of chinaSMACK’s contributors are volunteers and I spend a lot of time translating and trying to make this website better.
Recently, James D. Nardell from the South China Morning Post contacted me to become a new advertising sponsor for chinaSMACK. Here is some information:
Who is South China Morning Post?
The South China Morning Post is Hong Kong’s premier English language newspaper. First published in 1903, the newspaper has developed an enviable reputation for authoritative, influential and independent reporting on Hong Kong, China and the rest of Asia.
Some fast facts on scmp.com [the online edition of the newspaper]:
- The South China Morning Post has more correspondents around the region than any other newspaper.
- Subscribers can pull full details on every company listed on the Hong Kong exchange, making it easy to research companies they may be interested in investing in, similar to finance.yahoo.com, but focused on Hong Kong/China.
- Subscribers can voice their opinions through the forum and debate with journalists/readers.
- Articles are regularly updated through the day.
- Mobile WAP site allows readers stay updated with what is happening in China anywhere in the world. Plus, subscribers can choose to be alerted by SMS when there are updates to their chosen topics.
- Daily podcasts feature the latest headlines, commentaries from the journalists, exclusive interviews, analysis of the news, business updates and special reports on Hong Kong city life.
- Subscribers can access over 600,000 archived articles dating back to 1993.
The South China Morning Post is currently offering chinaSMACK readers:
- A FREE 14 day trial of scmp.com [no credit card is necessary], and…
- A 4GB thumbdrive if you later decide to sign up for the scmp.com online service.
Since it is a Hong Kong newspaper, it will also probably offer:
- Better news than mainland Chinese newspapers.
You can start your 14-day Free Trial here »
With James’ and scmp.com’s help, I would also like to thank chinaSMACK readers and visitors with a…
A dark and mysterious chinaSMACK reader holding an orange...but also wearing a chinaSMACK t-shirt.
No just joking. We want to have a…
Free chinaSMACK T-Shirt Contest
We will give a free chinaSMACK T-shirt to two (2) chinaSMACK readers who answer the following questions:
- How did you discover chinaSMACK?
- Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Important:
- Your response must be in the comments of this post. You can also write your response on your own blog/website but it must appear as a trackback in the below comments.
- Your comment can be in English or Chinese. I cannot read anything else, sorry.
- Your comment or trackback must appear here after this post is published and before 23:59 on Thursday 2009 March 5 (China Time).
- Only one entry is allowed per person. Multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The two winners will be selected and announced by 14:00 on Friday 2009 March 6 (China Time) in an update of this post.
- Please include your real email address when writing your comment. It will not be visible to other people, published, or sold. I will only use it to email the winners to ask what type, size, and color of t-shirt you want and what address to ship your t-shirt to.
09/03/06 UPDATE: T-Shirt Winners
Sorry I am a little late. Thank you everyone for commenting. The winners of this contest were chosen randomly. They are NickC and Hans-von-Wurst. I have emailed both of you to ask for what type of t-shirt, color, and size you want and also your shipping address so please check your email. If you do not reply by next Wednesday, I will choose another winner. I think the t-shirt should take about 1-2 weeks for shipping.
Note: Hans-von-Wurst, I am not sure if you used your real/correct email address so please email me if it is wrong.
Thank you for your support of chinaSMACK. Jia you!
Related Posts:
- As chinaSMACK's 1-year anniversary approaches, we would like to hold a reader design contest for a new chinaSMACK t-shirt! Please submit your designs here! » 11 comments
- Announcement notice that chinaSMACK will be changing hosting service and moving this Sunday, 2009 March 8. The move should be complete by Monday, 2009 March 10. » 3 comments
- Vote for your favorite chinaSMACK t-shirt design, created and submitted by chinaSMACK readers for our 1-year anniversary design contest! Voting ends July 8th! » 24 comments
- Lawrence Sheed from Computer Solutions in Shanghai helps Fauna by giving her a free IBM Thinkpad T40 notebook computer since her old computer is almost dead. » 8 comments
- chinaSMACK redesigned and improved with new layout and features. » 40 comments
Artists & Designers, chinaSMACK Needs A New T-Shirt! 
Important Notice: chinaSMACK Is Moving This Sunday 
Vote For Your Favorite 1 Year chinaSMACK T-Shirt Designs 
Fauna Given Free IBM Thinkpad T40 Notebook Computer! 
Happy Niu Year! New Clothes For chinaSMACK 
I found ChinaSmack through my friend Ryan who posted a link to it on his blog. I’ve kept reading the site cause I find it extremely enjoyable and funny. As well it covers stuff that other sites on the internet aren’t covering and it helps me to learn a lot of new things about China everyday that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise even after five years in China.
Even if I am slammed with work and having the shittiest day ever I know I can turn to ChinaSmack for a good laugh.
J.
How did you discover chinaSMACK?
China blog list by John Pasden (CBL)
Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Funny stories and interesting insight into Chinese net culture via the translated comments
A friend of mine linked to a chinasmack story on his facebook account. After one visit I was hooked. I use an online blog reader to give me the latest updates, and I check back a couple times each day just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I live in Henan province and I try to keep up on all the mainland Chinese news, but my Chinese isn’t very good, so I rely on English sources. I really appreciate that chinasmack provides me with “fringe” news that doesn’t make it into the mainstream press. Without chinasmack I wouldn’t have access to this stuff any other way. Thanks!
A friend of mine turned me on to Chinasmack, and I’ve been reading it ever since. I lived in China for 3 years, but came back Stateside a year and a half ago. It’s nice to keep up on the crazy things happening in China, without having to go onto all of the BBSes and read it myself. Keep it up!
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
I first discovered chinaSMACK during the Kappa girl scandal. My cousins in SH were all talking about it and I felt left out. So I googled and went through forum after forum trying to find more info and I ended up here.
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
After finding what I need, I began reading rest of chinaSMACK. I still visit the site because I really like all the different posts and the fact that the site is in English. I left China when I was 10 so my reading ability is not very strong especially when it comes to chinese net slang. So the fact this site translate news + blog post + glossary really helps me keep in touch with what is happening on the ground levels in china and give me much to talk to my cousins back in China.
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
I found chinaSMACK’s link in a WSJ article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/07/28/best-of-the-china-blogs-july-28/
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Even I’m a native Chinese and lived in China for more than 20 years, chinaSMACK reveals parts of China that I don’t know since China is so diverse and changing very rapidly.
A day without reading chinaSMACK makes me a native laowai.
(Is this sentence good enough to guarantee that Fauna will award me the Teeeshirt? :P )
Looking for information on China. I keep reading it because I confirms my oppinion that all people are alike. Hopes, dreams, sins, desires, dreads, we’re human. (Maybe not politions.) I see the same things in America, and several countries that I’ve visited. If we could let the people meet each other, I think there would be more tolerence.
Q)
How did you discover chinaSMACK?
A)
Believe it or not, I was actually referred here by a professor in Hong Kong.
Q)
Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
A)
Mainly in the hope that one day – after reading every RSS feed – I would win a t-shirt, but also because I think that it’s the best gateway to the Chinese blogosphere. Far beyond the BBC or CNN, ChinaSmack brings a whole world of Chinese news and opinion to an English-speaking audience. For those of us Chinese speakers, it’s also a great way to sift through a lot of the online fora.
Take care and keep up the good work!
DWR
I am a sinologist and found chinaSMACK while writing my BA thesis, which happened to have something to do with the on- and offline public spheres in China and popular culture in general. I always enjoyed the site since I first found it in a blogroll of some China-related blog. The reason I am still a subscriber is that chinaSMACK delivers some really unique content on topics not covered anywhere else on the English-speaking interwebs. I find it very entertaining.
Thanks for this great project!
1.) How did you discover chinaSMACK?
Through the official channel at Youtube. I can’t remember though which video it was I was watching before coming hither after inspecting the profile page.
2.) Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Well, to be honest, I don’t know for sure… Maybe it’s the disaffection/displeasure over my own culture which gravitates me to distant cultures/regions. Or maybe I just want to stay informed on the next world power (;D). But as well it may have been the memories of those noisy fellow Chinese students which I met central France where I went to improve my French skills which made me (unconsciously) interested in China.
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
If I’m not mistaken, I was researching on the meaning of “very yellow, very violent”. As well, I believe I was linked here concerning the violence occuring amongst Guangdong teens.
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
For one, I myself am an (overseas) Chinese, yet I know very little of the happenings of my homeland. I find that this site is very useful in that regard, as it is in English (my Chinese is less than proficient).
Also, the fact that a lot of posts have translated netizen comments or are BBS threads imply to me a much more “candid” view, rather than just news from a single source.
I heard about ChinaSmack from the Danwei website. I’m really glad that they recommended it!
I continue to read ChinaSmack because it’s the best source for really understanding present day China. As someone who is not fluent in reading Hanzi, I really have no way to discover some of the wonderful topics you present. I now feel closer to the Chinese people. Thank you for providing this service!
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
如果我没记错的话，我是从这个博客看到你们的链接的。http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/
2.Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
第一次访问chinaSMACK的时候我就订阅了。偶尔从google reader看到我感兴趣的内容就会来网站看看，留个言什么的。因为我不经常去天涯新浪等论坛所以也不知道什么新闻被网友关注，更不知道什么新闻被外国网友关注，你们的博客对我来说是个不错的选择，可以让我不费什么时间就能知道最近的草根新闻。
第一次来chinaSMACK我就被你们翻译的the list of common Chinese-language internet terms给吸引了。
希望chinaSMACK能给读者奉上更加精彩的内容！Jia you!
Early on you did a great post about Anhui punks which got me hooked. Basically checked in every day after that.
By far the best English language site for underground, feizhuliu and street level Chinese culture. Always picking up unique, interesting and insightful stuff often missed or glossed over by the rest. I particularly remember the Harbin boys death by the cops and the Cantonese girl bashing.
Keep up the good work.
Well I’ll be damned, I already have a t-shirt…
…but it’s a size too big, so…
1. I think it was the Kaiping teen beating video. I recall people talking about it and naturally, I sought out more information about it. It’s funny. At that time, chinaSMACK only had a few posts and hadn’t fully incorporated translating Chinese netizen comments.
2. Besides simply enjoying the subject matter here, the other main reason I subscribe/visit is because I’m curious to see how this website grows. As my friend Elliott once said, chinaSMACK has been one of the more successful English China blogs to spring up lately and I watch a lot of blogs/websites about China, not only to stay connected with what’s going on in China but also out of professional interest. As I’ve said before, the subject-matter is a good niche that I think was underserved by a lot of the other English China blogs and one of the differentiating factors has been the translated comments with minimal commentary. chinaSMACK has definitely made an important social aspect of China a bit more accessible to English readers and its interesting to see other English blogs adding more and more translations.
A: I think it must have been from my Danwei feed, so long ago I can’t remember.
B: I get your e-mails all the time, and have never failed to enjoy your postings. I learned my Chinese over 35 years ago, and am pretty much wenmang these days. Have long been a student of Chinese society and the constant changes it is going through. chinaSMACK keeps me up to date on attitudes and ideas and is always a great read. Thanks so much for the great work you do on this Fauna…. a real treasure.
How did I find this website? It’s called China Smack
That’s a great question but let me think back…
Was it my friend John or my best friend Jack?
Or was it that doctor in Shanghai, WHAT A QUACK!
Perhaps that bike repair guy, he was such a HACK!
I can’t remember. This belongs in a FAQ!
It might have been the WSJ blog or a Tibetan YAK!
This website sure is good, the writer has a knack.
The stories are from China, bus drivers under attack
Some stories are funny, and some are just plain whack.
Makes me want to come to China but first I have to pack.
Will I return to this website will I ever come back?
Of course I will, I’ll come to get a good CHINA SMACK!
I am a student of Chinese Studies, currently in the West but back to Hong Kong to work after graduation.
I remember coming across a suggestion in a Chinese language interest blog (I forget which, maybe Sinosplice) to try reading forum comments and Chinese language twitters as a way of practising Chinese. I thought this was a great idea and gave it a go. After a while I decided I would like to try and find some pre-translated versions so I could check I was getting some of the colloquialisms correct. In the resulting google search I found ChinaSMACK.
I was pretty much hooked right away. It is such a quick and easy way to understand what is going on the Chinese internet. Sure I can go and read it myself but it takes me a lot of time. I can now get the benefit of reading the forums in a fraction of the time and I’m always able to keep up with the latest movements. I love the expression on my Chinese friends’ faces when they ask me questions about some random recent event that has not been reported in the Western press and I can recite the ChinaSMACK article to them ^__^
加油ChinaSMACK :)
How did you discover chinaSMACK?
Random internet search for some Asian scandal that wasn’t the Edison Chen one.
Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Lo, behold, I found more than I asked for. Lots of nice goodies. I plan to moved to China for a bit so it’s nice to be update on the more interesting bits.
Not o mention I want to see if my pic’ll actually be posted. Btw, that pic up there is me if you don’t know/realize it by now. ^^
I want more CS shirts…!!! That stupid redbubble site keeps emailing me…
How did you discover chinaSMACK?
In local new papers I found article about human flesh search. I googled over net for it when I found danwei.org and danwei article linked chinaSMACK. Soon, I become regular visitor.
Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Helps me to stay in touch with China. When I was in Beijing, I was in some kind of ghetto. My friends were mostly foreigners, I visited places with foreigners, even food I ate was foreign (domestic for me). Thanks to chinaSmack, I know more about China and Chinese people)
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
Through Roland Song’s EastSouthWestNorth
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm
2.Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
Because you guys and girls keep improving the alternative attitude of ChinaSMACK. It is like “B movies of hollywood world” or “Mozilla in the web explorer world” or “non-Windows in the OS world”. This altitude contributes to further appreciation of chinese culture among non-chinese.
Oh, there is something else I have to ask you:
a hong kong friend told me that your fav “囧” character was originated from a hong kong tv actress Myolie Wu. One netizer connected that actress’ over-reacting face in tv drama “太極” to the character “囧”， and the rock rolled further…
Have you come to such story?
Thanks for the t-shirt (as if I already won).
s h a w
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
There was a link, eons ago on EastSouthWestNorth I think. It’s been on my favourites since.
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
It’s the most wonderfully genuine source of information I have about chinese pop culture; what’s hot and what’s not. I remember dating a girl in Guangzhou and having her tell me something… I knew already! It was on ChinaSmack. The name’s a bit “edgy” but I love the logo.
in fact, I would buy that T-shirt at a reasonable price.
I first came to this blog following links from Sinosplice (which I think I originally found researching teaching English in China) and was immediately a fan.
I keep reading because this blog gives me insight into the “real” China that I wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise without going there. Since my Chinese isn’t very good yet, I find the translations an invaluable tool to understanding Chinese culture, and the sources of the articles/comments will hopefully further open doors for me when I can read Chinese well.
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
I discovered chinaSMACK while browsing Google for different websites to assist me with learning Putonghua!
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
I find the glossary to be extremely amusing and the stories also inform me on what is going on in China…This is quite useful since I will be traveling to Beijing this summer :D
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK ?
C:
procrastination + google = chinaSMACK !
I was looking up fei zhu liu to check on something and OHOHO, there it was : first page, second link !.
2. Why do you still visit chinaSMACK ?
Two words : the stories.
… and the glossary.
The stories on this blog just make me more aware of my culture as well as informing me on the crazy things that happen that no one hears about on TV. It’s like a habit for me to check it everyday for an update. C:
1. How did you discover chinaSMACK?
Usual random surfing.
2. Why do you still visit china SMACK?
Amusing stories.
I was referred to chinaSMACK by my friend Ray. The page he linked me to was the glossary page, haha. There were lots of funny phrases and words on there. From there I read lots of other interesting articles and learned a few things. I continue to return to chinaSMACK for a few reasons. Obviously there are good stories, videos, and pictures available. Since I am not fluent in mandarin and my reading ability is so-so (I speak 潮州话）, it is hard for me to read Chinese news from Chinese websites like sina. However, I have slowly been improving reading and speaking, so this is a great opportunity to read through the articles and comments and pickup a phrase here and there. Hopefully someday I will be fluent and literate in Chinese. Lastly, I am trying to keep connected to the Chinese community in anyway. I went to China over this past summer for the first time to study abroad in Beijing and Shanghai and I loved it. Any exposure to Chinese culture and news is highly valued! Thanks to chinaSMACK’s authors and community!
One day I caught an employee looking at strange pictures on ‘MOP’. That employee defended himself by telling me how funny the content was. What he showed me was about Chinese “farmers” building their own aircraft and filming their flight and posting it on a Chinese YouTube equivalent website… How bizarre! After the incident, that employee started e-mailing me links to various stories that he found were amusing. I live and work in China but I never heard of such strange stories and I found them quite interesting. Wanting to know more I did some research on Google to find more information about these stories in foreign media, and came across chinaSMACK.
I visit chinaSMACK for my daily fix of China’s inside stories and perspectives !
Was introduced to chinaSMACK by my friend Nick. I’m not sure where he found it, but I’m glad he showed me this site.
I continue to read chinaSMACK because it shows off the many sides of Chinese people, from silly things to extremely sad ones. Since I can’t read chinese characters this site helps give me insight to whats going on in China.
I discovered ChinaSMACK pretty much at random: clicked on a link, clicked on a link, clicked on a link, clicked on ChinaSMACK, and immediately spent a couple of hours perusing the entire archive. I keep coming back here because I often look at Chinese articles online or in print and wish that I could read them. Visiting ChinaSMACK.com is the closest I’ll ever come to having a pair of magic translation goggles.
How did you discover chinaSMACK?
-don’t really remember exactly from where, but randomly stumbled onto the glossary/slang page from some other site, while i was searching for a job/teaching position in China.
Why do you still visit chinaSMACK?
-i find the articles interesting…to know bout news and stories of China that’s not much heard about. and the glossary of slang is interesting itself.
1. I found ChinaSMACK when some China-related blogs such as Danwei.org linked to entries at ChinaSMACK.
2. I continue to read ChinaSMACK for a few reasons. First, it lets me keep up with an important part of Chinese popular culture (imagine my Chinese friends’ surprise when I used the phrase “很黄，很暴力”). Second, I like to read different perspectives on China-related news. Third, I enjoy reading about the weird and funny things that attract the attention of Chinese netizens.
How I found this site?
No idea… it’s the internet, man. How the ***k do you expect me to remember how the ***k I got any a web-site??? HAHA!
Why you visit?
No idea… well… I do have an idea. I come here because of ……………. FAUNA!!!
Normally I do not participate in this sort of retarded let’s tell the world about our special feelings…but I will make this exception for FAUNA AND CHINA SMACK!