chinaSMACK » chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com Hot internet stories, pictures, & videos in China Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:46:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 2011 chinaSMACK Year in Review http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/announcements/2011-chinasmack-year-in-review.html http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/announcements/2011-chinasmack-year-in-review.html#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:59:10 +0000 chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com/?p=31519

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2011 chinaSMACK Year in Review.

2011 was an eventful year for chinaSMACK. We published over 450 posts over the course of the year, struggled with repeated server downtime as our traffic grew before moving to our new hosts at Voxel, and launched a new section, all of which have helped chinaSMACK grow to over 1.3 million visits and 3.2 million pageviews per month. Now that 2011 is officially over and we’ve entered the new year–a year which an unhealthy amount of Chinese netizens entertain as being our last–let’s take a look at some of the notable posts chinaSMACK published over the past year…

Taken by a netizen at the Badachu Parking Lot in Beijing.

One of the first major stories in China this year was Chinese netizens organizing themselves online and offline to photograph child beggars on the streets in an effort to identify them for parents of missing and kidnapped children so they can be rescued. While many supported the movement on the belief that many child beggars are enslaved by criminal organizations, many others also questioned its effectiveness and whether it was harassment of legitimately unfortunate families.

China's 2010 GDP figures have surpassed Japan's.

In February, Chinese netizens reacted to news of China surpassing Japan to become #2 in world GDP after the United States of America, some expressing pride, others remembering that China is still far behind Japan in standard of living.

Gan Lulu, model and actress, filmed after bathing by a mother hoping to help her find a boyfriend for Valentine's Day.

Gan Lulu

In February, a video of a mother filming her naked daughter to help her find a boyfriend went viral on the Chinese internet, introducing the daughter’s name Gan Lulu to mainstream Chinese netizens who either criticized the mother’s actions or speculated that the video was just a publicity stunt for the mother-daughter pair. That suspicion gained weight two months later in April when Gan Lulu and her mother next appeared on the “Lady Gua Gua” talk show and the mother proceeded to physically attack her daughter on camera. Since then, Gan Lulu’s internet fame has been firmly established, allowing her to command crowds simply by appearing at a minor auto show later in early December of this past year.

A house burns amongst flood waters in Sendai, Japan following an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, the largest in Japanese history.

The Japan Earthquake

On March 11th, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit eastern Japan and while historical grievances led some Chinese netizens to cheer the news, many others criticized them and offered sympathy and compassion. Watching the disaster and its aftermath unfold from afar, Chinese netizens widely admired the response and behavior of Japanese civilians, expressing a lack of confidence in the behavior of their own in the face of such a disaster.

Chinese people in Lanzhou scrambling to buy salt.

Panic Buying

The 2011 Japanese Earthquake would have ongoing effects over radiation fears from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Soon after the earthquake, a salt panic occurred in China where many Chinese consumers fearing radiation spreading from Japan rushed to supermarkets to buy iodized salt. Many Chinese netizens bemoaned their ignorance, blaming the panicked behavior on the older generation, somewhat comforted later when Korean panic buying over fears of radiation also made the news.

However, what made “panic buying” a defining phenomenon in 2011 China would be the media’s attention in the following months to reports of Shanghainese panic buying laundry detergent over fears of impending price rises and panic buying of bottled water after a Hangzhou chemical spill.

Coalition Strikes Against Libya, Chinese Netizen Reactions

When the US-led Coalition attacked Libya in March, Chinese news portals set up dedicated pages covering the news with Chinese netizens offering their opinions.

Osama Bin Laden dead, killed by United States forces in Pakistan.

Then, when the United States assassinated Al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Chinese netizen again voiced differing reactions.

Huang Yibo, Chinese Young Pioneer.

Five Stripes

In early May, a young boy named Huang Yibo became famous on the Chinese internet, partly because of his parents boasting of his childhood accomplishments, partly because of his ridiculous photos, and partly because he proudly wore a 5-stripe “Young Pioneer” badge when the highest is normally only 3-stripes.

Soon, “Five Stripe Young Pioneer” t-shirts and badges were being sold online and making appearances on celebrities on television.

A Taiwanese girl lies face down, head first down a flight of steps in Taiwan.

Planking Spreads to China

Photos of two girls in Taiwan planking, the silly act of lying rigidly face down in strange places, spread across mainland Chinese internet sites in mid-May. Widespread photos of mainland Chinese planking appeared by June.

Shi Yongxin, Shaolin Temple Abbot, Sina

Already long criticized by many Chinese for commercializing the Shaolin Temple, Abbot Shi Yongxin was caught visiting prostitutes in May. He claimed he was performing spiritual services. No one believes him.

Men on the 6th and 7th floors of this Changchun residential building struggle to safely rescue a bride who had just tried to commit suicide by jumping off the 7th floor.

Also in mid-May, a broken-hearted young woman in a wedding dress was seen straddling her apartment window, ready to jump. When she did, a man on the scene who was part of the group trying to convince her to come down managed to grab her just in time, saving her life, and becoming a rare example for Chinese netizens of a government official being a good “public servant”.

A farmer in Malaga, Spain shows his cucumbers.

When news of E. coli contaminated cucumbers from Germany spread across Europe at the turn of May to June, Chinese netizens laughed at how weak European immune systems are when in contrast they face food safety issues on a daily basis.

A "tranquilized" escaped "tiger" at the Chengdu Zoo in Sichuan province, China being carried away.

Photographs of an “escaped tiger” training drill at the Chengdu Zoo for staff and Forestry Police went viral in early June, amusing Chinese netizens around the country. The reason? They used two men in Tigger costumes to act as the escaped big cats in the exercise who were then surrounded, shot dead, and carried away, no doubt confusing the real tiger who was still in its cage.

Guo Meimei in tears during her interview with Lang Xianping.

Guo Meimei Red Cross Controversy

In late June, a young woman named Guo Meimei attracted the attention of Chinese netizens after using her Sina Weibo microblog to show off her wealth with photos of expensive cars and luxury handbags while claiming to be high level management of an organization associated with the Red Cross. Chinese netizens quickly questioned where her wealth actually comes from, whether it is from corruption involving money donated to the Red Cross or being the mistress of a Red Cross official.

Despite her mother and her appearing on television to respond to the controversy (part 2 & part 3), with attempted explanations and apologies, donations to the Red Cross dropped. Guo Meimei not only destroyed the Chinese public’s trust in the Red Cross foundation, the controversy surrounding her led another young wealthy woman being dubbed “Lu Meimei” for her involvement in the China-Africa Project Hope controversy.

Floating Chinese government officials "inspect" a repaired road in Huili county of Sichuan province, China.

Floating Chinese Government Officials

In late June, several obviously photoshopped photographs of Chinese government officials apparently inspecting a newly paved road in their jurisdiction circulated on the Chinese internet to much ridicule, further photoshopping, and confirming for many Chinese netizens that their government officials are inept at both their work and lying about their work.

Chinese netizens soon discovered that they weren’t alone when Filipino government officials also appeared to float.

A Chinese woman in Hangzhou, China lies on a hospital bed after catching a child who had fallen from the 10th floor of a residential apartment.

In early July, it was reported that a Hangzhou woman on the ground successfully caught a 2-year-old little girl who had fallen out of a 10th floor apartment, shattering her arm in the process but saving the toddler’s life. Jack Ma, the head of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the woman’s employer awarded her 200,000 RMB in recognition of her heroic deed.

Jiang Zeming.

Reports of former Chinese leader Jiang Zeming’s death in July turned out to be greatly exaggerated but not without first capturing the Western media and the imaginations of many Chinese netizens who widely refused to believe government denials.

Doris Phua, general manager or CEO of Da Vinci Furniture Ltd. at a press conference responding to her company's product quality and falsification scandal.

In July, Singapore-based Chinese luxury furniture retailer Da Vinci Furniture found itself mired in allegations of passing off low-quality made-in-China furniture as exorbitantly expensive Made-in-Italy furniture. The Chinese-Singaporean CEO then made things worse by breaking down hysterically at her own press conference that was organized to respond to the controversy, refusing to answer reporter questions.

The high-end retailer would later close multiple stores in China, although there were undercurrents of speculation amongst netizens that Da Vinci’s fall was partially instigated and compounded by underhanded competitors in the obscenely lucrative market to fleece rich Chinese with obscene amounts of money to spend on obscenely priced furniture.

Nobody knew whether there should’ve been a space between “Da” and “Vinci”.

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch attacked with foam pie at London Parliament hearings.

During the July British Parliament hearings over the “News of the World” phone hacking scandal, one man in the audience attacked News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch with a foam pie, to which wife Wendi Deng immediately sprung up with a retaliatory smack. This earned her no small amount of admiration from many Chinese netizens as a woman who stands up for her husband.

Zhang Shangwu being interviewed in a motel room.

July also saw Chinese netizens taking notice of a former gymnastics champion who has been reduced to being homeless, scraping by performing on the streets, after allegedly being forced out of the sport due to injuries. Many Chinese netizens criticized a state sports apparatus that trains and discards its athletes, but as a media circus surrounded him, questions about his story appeared.

Yao Ming in Shanghai announcing his retirement from the NBA.

Meanwhile, Chinese netizens also offered their reactions to Chinese sports celebrity and former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming’s retirement from professional basketball.

2011 July 23 Wenzhou high-speed rail accident.

Wenzhou Train Accident

In late July, one of China’s high speed trains stalled on its tracks was then rear ended by another train near the city of Wenzhou. Videos of rescue efforts by local residents, surivvors, and Chinese people lining up to donate blood after the tragedy soon blanketed Chinese online video sharing websites. Immediately, questions were raised about the the government’s handling of Wenzhou train accident with suspicions that officials were trying to cover up evidence in their rush to bury train cars and incredulity over Railway Ministry spokesperson Wang Yongping’s response to reporters that he himself believed his explanations regardless of whether they did. His response became one of 2011′s most popular internet memes.

The attention of Chinese netizens were also focused on one Chinese husband’s demand for an explanation from the government over the loss of his wife in the train disaster, a police captain’s persistence that resulted in saving yet another little girl from the wreckage, and the government offering additional financial incentive for victims who quickly accept their compensation while Wang Yongping took the plane instead of the trains he represented.

A man and woman fight over a house in a new interpretation of China's Marriage Law.

In August, female Chinese netizens were up in arms when a new judicial interpretation of China’s Marriage Law was passed down that allegedly favored the man’s interests in a divorce over the wife’s interests, particularly when it came to whether or not a woman would get a share of the house that her husband or her husband’s family paid for. Many Chinese males criticized female complaints as being too materialistic and calculating.

Steve Jobs looking sick, thin, and emaciated.

Chinese netizens weighed in on Steve Jobs’ resignation in late August as images of the late Apple CEO appeared online showing him looking disturbingly frail and sick. Two months later, many of the same netizens would mourn the iconic founder’s death both online and offline at the few Apple retail stores in China.

Liu Xiang's hand is hit by Dayron Robles during the 110m hurdles event at the 2011 Daegu, Korea World Championships.

Late August saw a controversial race between China’s star hurdler Liu Xiang and Cuba’s Dayron Robles. Liu Xiang had been steadily recovering to top form ever since his high-profile withdrawal from the 2008 Olympics and Chinese netizens were pissed when it appeared that Robles intentionally pulled on Liu’s arm in the final hurdles, distracting Liu, throwing off his pace, and causing him to lose first place. Liu Xiang didn’t look very pleased either.

Nelson, a Nigerian, ordering food at a restaurant.

A photo series featuring African businessmen and entrepreneurs living in Guangzhou made the rounds in mid-September, prompting the usual internet discussion featuring not only Chinese stereotypes and discrimination against black people but also exhortations against discrimination.

A Chinese man eating dog meat.

An internet campaign by Chinese animal activists and pet lovers successfully stopped an annual “Dog Meat Festival” from taking place in Zhejiang province in late September.

In Taiwan, a wife glares at her husband at a baseball game after he dropped their daughter in a rush to catch a foul ball.

A video of a wife glaring at her husband for dropping the daughter he was holding in his arms in his excitement to catch a ball at a Taiwan baseball game reached China and earned peels of laughter from Chinese netizens just as it did everywhere else.

The body of a dead Chinese sailor recovered from the Mekong River after he was killed by Golden Triangle drug smugglers.

In mid-October, Chinese sailors were murdered in the Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle after being hijacked by drug traffickers. Chinese netizens bemoaned the uselessness of the Chinese government in protecting its own people abroad.

Highlighted, a 2-year-old little girl about to be hit and run over by a white van in the background, in Guangdong, China.

Little Yue Yue

Mid-October also saw the tragic case of a 2-year-old little girl being run over by a car in a narrow alley in Southern China. What was even more shocking was that 18 people walked by her body before someone stopped to help her. The girl, named Little Yue Yue by the media, later died of her wounds at the hospital while Chinese netizens across the nation lamented the indifference or reluctance to help of bystanders, many citing the fear that getting involved comes with great personal financial risk due to past instances where Good Samaritans were instead blamed and successfully sued for their efforts. The older woman who stopped to help Little Yue Yue was rewarded 25,000 RMB for her good deed.

While Little Yue Yue has since become the poster child for the problem of bystanders seen widely as pervasive in modern China, there are still routine examples of Chinese helping their fellow man, such as when a Wenzhou crowd lifted an SUV to free a child that had been run over underneath later in mid-December.

A group of Chinese spell out the Chinese words for "7 billion people".

This past Fall also saw the world population surpass 7 billion, and as members of the world’s most populous nation, Chinese netizen surely offered their own reactions to the milestone.

Yang Wu, a husband who hid while his wife was beaten and raped cries.

In November,  a Shenzhen man was widely shamed for cowardly hiding while his wife was beaten and raped nearby. While many Chinese netizens condemned the man’s failure to protect his wife, many also sympathized with his sense of helplessness in the face of the assailant, who had a history of harassing the couple and claimed connections with the local police.

A physical confrontation between Occupy Wall Street protesters and New York City police forces.

After nearly 2 months, when “Occupy Wall Street protesters” in America were forcibly cleared out by New York city authorities in mid-November, Chinese netizen comments ranged from contempt for the state of “human rights” in the United States and contempt for those Chinese who would have such contempt given the big picture.

An overcrowded minibus designed for 9 passengers but filled with over 60 schoolchildren collided with a large truck in Gansu, China. resulting in 21 deaths, mostly kindergarten children and two adults.

School Bus Accidents

When a small school bus in Gansu, China that was loaded with over 60 schoolchildren when it was designed only to accommodate 9 was hit by a large truck killing over 20, many netizens started comparing Chinese school buses to those of the United States, expressing outrage when another school district in Guiyang reserved its “American-style” school buses for transporting its teachers instead of its students. With the nation’s attention on this news, media reports of school bus accidents like a rollover in Jiangsu province received more and more attention.

He Xiuling, a condemned woman prisoner breaks down and cries as her execution nears.

The end of November saw a moving photo feature documenting the last 12 hours of several condemned female prisoners in China before they were to be executed for drug trafficking crimes. Chinese netizens were conflicted, caught between sympathy for these women in their last hours and their opposition against the social ills caused by drug use. Still others wondered why corrupt government officials who embezzle hundreds of millions seem to escape the punishments ordinary people cannot for arguably lesser crimes.

Beijing's Qianmen Jianlou shrouded in polluted fog.

In early December, Chinese netizens offered their reactions to what state media characterized as “dense fog” but which everyone knew as startling thick pollution that had enveloped Beijing.

Ambulances and rescue workers evacuating the wounded after an attack in Liege, Belgium.

When Liege, Belgium was hit with a shooting and grenade attack days before Christmas, Chinese netizens not only made jokes about online first person shooter video games but also indulged in some black humor that crazy people in China can rack up higher kill counts with just vegetable knives. In an expression of disdain for Chinese police, many netizens also commented admiringly on how Belgium police officers actually ran towards the danger.

Kim Jong-il waves out a car window.

Kim Jong-il’s Death

The November death of Kim Jong-il immediately stormed the Chinese internet as major Chinese news portals set up special pages and sections dedicated to reports and features about the former North Korean leader, such as photos of Kim Jong-il’s life and an assortment of North Korean propaganda posters featuring Kim Jong-il. While news portals forbade Chinese netizens to comment on their reports, many Chinese netizens took to discussing the “Supreme Leader’s” death on popular Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

China's Mengniu Dairy company website hacked by Chinese hackers following its aflatoxin scandal.

While food safety issues are commonly reported and commonly discussed on the Chinese internet throughout the year every year, one of the larger incidents of the year involved major Chinese dairy company Mengniu Dairy finding dangerous levels of carcinogenic aflatoxin in its milk. The company, whose reputation was also tarnished by but ultimately survived the 2008 melamine milk scandal, found its website momentarily hacked as 2011 wound down with a note calling the company the “nation’s shame”. Chinese netizens following the news echoed frustrated disgust with Chinese companies who seem to export their best and highest quality products while feeding their own domestic customers shoddy or unsafe leftovers.

From all of us here at chinaSMACK, happy new year!

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support into 2012! We’ve got some new developments in store for you all, and if you haven’t yet, be sure to take a moment to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!

 ]]> http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/announcements/2011-chinasmack-year-in-review.html/feed 16 Not Receiving Comment Verification Emails? http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/not-receiving-comment-verification-emails.html http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/not-receiving-comment-verification-emails.html#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:16:13 +0000 chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com/?p=30162

]]> Dear visitors, if you have recently made a comment with a valid email address but have not received a comment verification email with a link for you to verify and publish your comment, we apologize for the inconvenience. Due to high volumes of traffic and commenting recently (mostly associated with our recent report about the 2-year-old little girl who was run over and ignored by 18 bystanders), we have exceeded the maximum number of automated emails our mail server is able to send. We believe this quota is reset every 24 hours.

Please note that if you did not already receive an automated verification email soon after commenting, you will unfortunately not be receiving an automated email for that comment. You may, however, contact us directly with the name and email address you used when posting your original comment and we will manually approve it, allowing it to be published.

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

 ]]> http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/not-receiving-comment-verification-emails.html/feed 0 Attention: Overseas Chinese Person! We Want You! http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/attention-overseas-chinese-person-we-want-you.html http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/attention-overseas-chinese-person-we-want-you.html#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:36:29 +0000 chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com/?p=27268

]]> Jiong

chinaSMACK would like to feature a series of posts about the self-identity, experiences, and perspectives of overseas Chinese written by overseas Chinese individuals. We are looking for submissions from foreign-born ethnic Chinese, Chinese immigrants, Chinese temporarily studying/working abroad, or those who are of mixed-blood and are part-Chinese. Share with us who you are and how being an overseas Chinese person has affected you, if at all, with how you see yourself or how you see things compared to others.

The best submissions will be published and featured on chinaSMACK in the upcoming months under your name. As a bonus, we will also send you a free chinaSMACK T-shirt and some chinaSMACK stickers (while supplies last).

Submission Criteria

  1. Your full name, mailing address, contact number, and email address. This information will be required for shipping if your submission is selected.
  2. A clear photograph of yourself (minimum 600×400 pixels large): Your photograph will be published along with your submission if selected.
  3. Your submission must be written in English, original, and between 500 to 2000 words.
  4. Multiple submissions by the same individual are allowed, but each submission should be different in content. Feel free to write about whatever you want as long as it relates to your overseas Chinese identity.
  5. Submissions must be received along with the above by midnight 2011 July 8 China Standard Time to be eligible for a free chinaSMACK t-shirt. Please specify what size t-shirt you would like. Submissions received after 2011 July 8 will still be eligible to be published on chinaSMACK but will not be eligible for a free chinaSMACK t-shirt.

Please send your submissions to submissions[at]chinasmack.com. If your submission is selected upon review, one of our editors will notify you by email.

Please share this announcement to help us collect a wide variety of experiences, perspectives, and even opinions from a wide variety of overseas Chinese people. We believe it will be interesting to see how overseas Chinese are different from the Chinese who have not lived overseas in other countries. Thank you for your help!

 ]]> http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/attention-overseas-chinese-person-we-want-you.html/feed 0 Hiring: Comments Section Referee http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/hiring-comments-section-referee.html http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/hiring-comments-section-referee.html#comments Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:34:02 +0000 chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com/?p=25705

]]> Jiong

chinaSMACK is one of the most popular blogs about China that is in the English language. We are often a source of news for many famous news publications around the world and many people from many different countries read our posts every day. We try to translate and report what we feel is being talked about by many Chinese netizens and through this way show a side of modern Chinese society and Chinese internet culture. We try to focus on social topics because Chinese are people too, and people are very colorful. Colorful people do colorful things that will result in colorful reactions. We translate some of these reactions from Chinese netizens and we have a comment section to allow non-Chinese netizens to share their reactions.

People from different backgrounds often have different reactions, views, and opinions. Many times, people who disagree strongly with each other will argue very intensely and this will affect other readers, commenters, and the entire community. We have had a comment policy for a long time although we admit that we have not done a very good job moderating comments that violate our policy. Because of this, we have received many complaints from readers, visitors, fans, and loyal supporters complaining about certain people arguing too much or “trolling” in our comments sections. Therefore, we are now looking to hire three Comments Section Referees to help us improve this situation.

Role:

  1. Mediate arguments: Follow debates and arguments between individual commenters in the comments section and provide correct guidance to the participants. Promote intelligent discussion by highlighting good points and criticizing bad points. Debates should be like organized fights. There are rules and unacceptable conduct, and you are the referee. When an argument is no longer making progress, end the argument by declaring the winner and the loser.
  2. Moderate comments: Monitor comments to determine if they are in violation of our comment policy. If in violation, determine the appropriate action to take. Give warnings to first-time offenders. Repeat offenders should have their comments moderated or be banned from commenting in the future to avoid unrest in the chinaSMACK community. Serious violations should have the commenter’s information forwarded to their internet provider, employer, and/or the relevant authorities.

Qualifications:

  1. Moderation experience: It is strongly preferred that you have had experience moderating discussion forums, social networks, or high-traffic blogs with an active commenting community. You should have experience dealing with the illogical, unreasonable, or individuals with ulterior motives.
  2. Intelligent and objective: In order to successfully mediate arguments, you must be able to identify valid and invalid points in arguments to help you fairly determine who is successfully criticizing or defending their argument so that you can declare the correct winners and punish the appropriate losers.
  3. Excellent communication skills: You must be fluent in English and be able to communicate effectively with commenters without spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. You should know when to explain your decisions, ignore complaints, or moderate trouble-makers who think they have certain rights.

Terms of Employment:

  1. This is a work from home position so you must have a computer and internet access. At least one person is required to be on-duty at all times. Each shift is 8 hours.
  2. This is an hourly position. You will be paid a base hourly wage plus 0.5 RMB per correctly moderated comment and a flat bonus for every successfully mediated argument.
  3. To avoid conflict of interest, you will no longer be allowed to participate in the comments section as a private individual, and may only use an official user account.

If you are interested in this position, please contact us immediately. Tell us more about yourself, why you believe you are a good candidate for this position, and any experience you have. Please include a list of 10 comments in the past month that you feel should be moderated. Also include 3 arguments in the past month between commenters and explain to us who you would declare as winners and losers.

 ]]> http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/hiring-comments-section-referee.html/feed 7 Hiring: Part-Time/Freelance System Administrator http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/hiring-part-timefreelance-system-administrator.html http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/announcements/hiring-part-timefreelance-system-administrator.html#comments Sat, 19 Mar 2011 09:37:11 +0000 chinaSMACK http://www.chinasmack.com/?p=25456

]]> Since 2008, chinaSMACK has evolved from one person’s personal project into one of the most popular blogs about modern Chinese internet culture and trends. Today, chinaSMACK is a small group of mostly volunteers managing a website that averages 1 million visits, 2.8 million pageviews per month, and continues to grow. This growth places continuously increasing demands upon our technical resources. We’re now looking for a Part-Time/Freelance System Administrator or two to join our team to meet these demands.

Role:

  1. Troubleshoot website downtime & accessibility issues: Your primary and immediate role is to investigate and fix problems such as persistent downtime or intermittent inaccessibility when they appear. Typically, if you don’t notice that our website is down before our editor does and we can’t resolve it ourselves, you’ll receive an email or a call asking for your assistance. In general, we expect you to acknowledge and respond to these requests within 24-hours and ideally as soon as absolutely possible. The more responsive you are and quicker you can resolve these sort of problems, the more we’ll love you. Love comes with benefits.
  2. Scaling our high-traffic website for future growth: Your secondary and more long-term role is to familiarize yourself with our setup, analyze our existing needs, and anticipate the future to propose how we can improve things through optimization or additional technical resources. You’ll then be relied upon to execute such proposals as they relate to your capabilities.

Qualifications:

  1. Trustworthy: In addition to basic professional ethics, please understand that you will be working with Chinese nationals living in China who face certain risks for their involvement in chinaSMACK. While we generally avoid the politically sensitive to focus on social matters, we can never predict what may happen. You absolutely must be sensitive to and respectful of this, and exercise appropriate discretion.
  2. Excellent communication skills: You must be able to communicate effectively with members of our team who are not as knowledgeable about technical matter as you are but will be affected by what you do. Our team is diverse, with diverse language and technical competency. You’ll need to understand how to communicate with our hosting provider, our designer/developer, and our editor. Each of them have different competencies and familiarity with English technical vocabulary. You’ll need patience, and a knack for communicating the right information in the right way to each of these parties. You should be an all-around friendly and pleasant person to work with.
  3. Expertise with WordPress on nginx: Our website is simple, a WordPress installation on a VPS. Having it run smoothly and reliably with our traffic is more complicated. Our editor and designer/developer can handle most things within WordPress but we need you to help us manage and troubleshoot everything that supports WordPress.  Mainly, this means our nginx web server, MySQL, and all the other software or components to make it do everything we need it to do. We don’t need you to design WordPress themes or plugins, we need you to know how WordPress best works on nginx.
  4. Experience scaling high-traffic websites: There are a lot of experienced system administrators but not a lot experienced with scaling high traffic websites, so we ideally want someone who has first-hand experience with scaling issues. You should not only know how to work with nginx, MySQL, PHP, and specifically WordPress, you should also have experience optimizing how they all work together so everything runs smoothly on the least amount of technical resources necessary. In addition to optimization, you should also know how to prepare our setup to handle not only long-term growth in traffic but also short-term traffic spikes.
  5. Available for part-time/freelance work: If you have the above qualifications, we’d like to maintain a long-term working relationship with you as we would prefer someone who is already familiar with our situation, setup, and their own past actions. It’s better than always finding someone new who needs to get up to speed. However, we’re not yet at the size where we need a full-time dedicated System Administrator. There just isn’t that much work and we couldn’t afford you either. Maybe in the future, but not yet now. For your primary role, we need someone who can quickly respond to downtime or urgent server problems and get things fixed. We understand that if you have a normal day-job, you may only be able to do work for us in your free time. We do expect you to be generally available on a daily basis. For your secondary role, we need someone who can package work proposals that tell us what work you’d like to do and what it means for us.

Terms of Employment:

  1. You can be an individual or a team of professionals/firm. It doesn’t matter, as long as you qualify.
  2. Unless you want to volunteer your time and services because you want to support us in some way, we’re open to a variety of ways to compensate you for your work. For example, we can compensate you according to a fixed hourly rate, different fees per specific task, a fixed monthly retainer, or maybe free advertising for you or your company? It is hard for us to anticipate when you will be needed and how much work needs to be done when you are. Sometimes downtime issues or system administration tasks are simple and require just minutes, whereas other times they may be more complicated and take hours to investigate, diagnose, and resolve. If you’re to make large-scale optimizations or overhauls, those are more like ad hoc projects. Sometimes one month could be full of recurring problems. Other times, an entire month can go by without a single issue. Tell us what would be the fairest compensation arrangement for you to work with us.
  3. Since this is part-time/freelance work, we understand that you may have other commitments, including sleep, especially if you are an individual. Of course, we do hope that your situation is flexible and thus allows you to be responsive to our needs when we need them but we do understand that you may be in a different time zone and will not always be immediately available. That’s fine, members of our group hail from time zones all around the world. It would be best however if you are someone who regularly checks their email and is available for phone calls (though we won’t call you in the middle of the night, unless you allow us to).

If this sounds like you, please contact us immediately. Tell us as much about yourself and why you’d like to work with us. Don’t forget to tell us how you would like to be compensated for your work as well. If we need your CV and it isn’t already available online somewhere, we will email you back and ask you for it.

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