The new chinaSMACK t-shirt, “Certified By Netizens”, is finally ready…and a limited edition is now available for order!

Details…

This t-shirt was designed for our one year anniversary t-shirt design contest by chinaSMACK reader Paul Guo, a native Chinese graduate art student. Here is his explanation for his design:

Most websites based on Mainland China often have the ICP registered number and red shield badge at the bottom of their page, e.g. “沪ICP备05000001号” (registered #05000001 by ICP of Shanghai) and “京ICP证080274号” (certified #080274 by ICP of Beijing). They are required to have the ICP license or they will be blocked in Mainland China.

To mock Chinese government-controlled internet and to “represent” Chinese netizens, I replaced the original red shield badge with Jiong badge, “沪ICP备/京ICP证” with “网民证”, “numbers号” with “chinaSMACK号”. So it’s something like “#chinaSMACK certified by Netizens”…

This limited edition t-shirt is black, features Paul’s design on the front and several additional tasteful details including a two small “chinaSMACK” logos, printed in white slightly below the back collar and on the right sleeve:

These t-shirts are being produced by chinaSMACK reader ML.lab and are of much higher quality compared to the previous t-shirts from American Apparel (no longer available). Each t-shirt is high quality weaved cotton (similar to piqué/piquet), folded, poly-bagged, and shipped to your door. Available sizes are S, M, L, and XL.

Order Here:

Size

S – SmallM – MediumL – LargeXL – Extra Large

How to order…

We are now accepting orders for this t-shirt via PayPal:

19.80 USD

Price includes shipping.

To order with AliPay using RMB:

Please send 135 RMB to ML.lab (mdefaveri@gmail.com) and specify your size, quantity, and shipping address. If you have questions, you may also email ML.lab.

Please note…

Please allow up to 1-2 weeks for domestic delivery within China and 2-3 weeks for international delivery after submitting your order. An online tracking number will be emailed to you once your t-shirt is shipped.

All proceeds from t-shirt sales will be used to pay for chinaSMACK’s growing monthly server bill and hiring people to figure out why we now have so many memory/CPU spikes every day. :(

Original Post: New ‘Certified By Netizens’ T-Shirt Now Available!

Original Source: chinaSMACK

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Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Hi everyone,

chinaSMACK will be temporarily offline and possibly unavailable between 10:00-13:00 14:00-17:00 this Saturday morning afternoon (2009 September 19, China Standard Time) to undergo some server tests and changes. Please avoid posting comments during this time because they could be lost. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

UPDATE: We will be running some tests and troubleshooting on 09:00-11:00 Sunday morning China Standard Time also. Comments made Saturday to Sunday may be lost so please avoid posting comments until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: We have completed some changes today. You may post comments now.

It will be a good opportunity to go visit MandMX and talk about mooncakes.

Original Post: UPDATE: Website is back online.

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

One year ago, I started chinaSMACK to learn new things and improve myself. After one year, so many things have happened and this website has become much more than my original little project. After one year, chinaSMACK…

• Has over 300 published posts;
• Has more than 16,500 comments;
• Receives over 220,000 visits per month;
• Has over 3500 daily subscribers;
• Was a victim of a DoS attack for a week;
• Has switched hosting servers 4 times;
• Is still here.

These are pretty cool accomplishments, right?

We (I and anyone who wants to be part of chinaSMACK) will continue to do our best to share the hot and popular stories, pictures, and videos from China’s internet. We will also try our best to do more and do better so chinaSMACK will remain a fun place to learn, discuss, and understand more about China and Chinese people. We are really silly and strange like everybody else!

chinaSMACK Personals

Perhaps you have noticed a new feature on chinaSMACK? If you are interested in meeting more people, boys or girls, to make friends, you can visit our new section, chinaSMACK | personals. This is a great way for you to meet people from a different country or culture. Although you can read what Chinese netizens think, feel, or say on chinaSMACK, you can talk to Chinese netizens yourself through chinaSMACK | personals!

1 Year Anniversary T-Shirt Contest Winner

Thank you for everyone who submitted a design and voted for this contest. The winning design is…

An official announcement will be made later with information on how to order an official chinaSMACK t-shirt. I must contact Peng Guo soon and find a company to discuss how we will make this t-shirt. Peng Guo will receive a free t-shirt, some chinaSMACK stickers, and I hope some other prize. Thank you, Peng Guo!

Thank you…

chinaSMACK’s growth and popularity is because of all of you. Thank you to our contributors. Thank you to our visitors, our subscribers, and our commenters (even if some of you are crazy people). Thank you to all the blogs and websites that have link to us. Thank you to Chinese netizens who always have interesting stories to share. We are happy to help everyone see another side of Chinese people and society. We hope we can all understand each other more…and not be too serious.

Thank you,

Fauna & chinaSMACK

See chinaSMACK’s Traffic Statistics »

Original Post: 1 Year Anniversary: Thank You!

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Below are 9 t-shirt designs submitted by chinaSMACK readers from around the world for our 1-year anniversary t-shirt design contest! Thank you, everyone, for your support and creativity! Now, it is time for chinaSMACK visitors to vote on their favorite designs, which we hope to make into our new chinaSMACK t-shirt (and replace our original t-shirt). First, please go ahead and review each design. You may click on the images to view larger versions of the designs.

3. chinaSLAP

Designer: Derek Smith

Design Details: Just felt it went well with the website name. Works well on these colors the best, I think, and looks fine with either the read or white background behind the hand.

Designer Bio: Twenty-three year old American working as an English teacher in Shanghai

Please answer the following question if you are interested in purchasing a chinaSMACK t-shirt. This information will help us determine if there is enough interest to make a t-shirt and find a suitable t-shirt maker for our budget. Please select the prices you are willing to pay.

Thank you for your votes and help!

Voting will close on 2009 July 8, Wednesday 23:59.

The winning design will be announced 2009 July 9, Thursday.

Everyone is encouraged to offer their feedback about the designs in the comments below. Share with everyone what you like and why!

Original Post: Vote For Your Favorite 1 Year chinaSMACK T-Shirt Designs

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for attending this event. I hope everyone enjoyed the movie and their good seats. Thank you to Kai and Elaine for helping (go visit their websites!).

Hi everyone，

Here is the information for the chinaSMACK, CNReviews, & Shanghaiist Transformers 2 Shanghai Movie Night!

090623 FINAL UPDATE:

All of our tickets have been sold.

Due to demand, we have already purchased several sets of tickets multiple times. In fact, in our last set, there are a few seats that are separate from the seats from our first few sets. When I check with the cinema today, almost all of the seats have been sold already. The only remaining seats are on the right or left side of a few rows or the entire front row (There are 10 rows and maybe average 20-24 seats per row).

Everyone who has already paid and received a confirmation email from me are guaranteed seats. Please come to the Infiniti McDonald’s tomorrow as early as 6:00pm to select your seats. “First come first serve.” We will go to the cinema around 6:40pm. After everyone has got their popcorn and coke, we will enter the cinema together. Most of us will be sitting together in the center seats of the middle-back rows.

If you have not reserve and paid for tickets, you may come tomorrow to purchase tickets if there are any remaining. I can help you get our group price but the remaining seats are not ideal seat locations (side, front). Sorry, I cannot change this. This is a high demand movie and already many people purchase most of the seats. You may also come to see if anyone who has purchased a ticket suddenly cannot come. Then you can take their ticket. Of course, this is not guaranteed so it is your choice.

Thank you everyone for your interest. I am sorry at this time that I cannot help everyone who still want tickets and want to join us. Next time, please reserve and pay sooner! :)

Encore Movie Night

Because some people are still asking about tickets, I can try to organize a “encore” Transformers 2 movie night but I must check with the cinema tomorrow to see what day/time is available for a group event like this one. If you miss this movie night and are truly interested in attending another movie night for Transformers 2, please leave a comment and how many tickets you will want. Also tell me if you prefer weekday evening, weekend day, or weekend evening. Of course, weekend is more difficult because there are usually many people. I will try to find a show for Thursday, Friday evening or this weekend but I am pretty sure they are all sold out or only have bad seats. Then I will see if there are good seats for a time during next week weekday evenings. If you are interested, please leave a comment and answer the above information. Thank you.

UPDATE: Sorry, I wrote July instead of June earlier. Sorry for the confusion. The movie date is 24 June!

090618 @ 15:25 UPDATE: Over half the tickets are reserved. If all tickets are reserved, I will ask if we can get more. Thank you for your interest. This will be a fun movie!

090620 UPDATE: Because there are many people who want to reserve with cash but are only available on weekend, the special 65 RMB price tickets will still be available until the end of weekend instead of today. The people who volunteer to collect cash for this event have agreed to help during the weekend. Please contact me to make arrangements ASAP if you are certain you will attend the event. Thank you.

090622 UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who has reserved and paid for their tickets. Someone will be available at Jin An Temple in front of 久光 today from 5:30-6:00pm for some people who have arranged to pay cash today. Kai from CNReviews and Elaine from Shanghaiist will both be at the movie night. Kai will be available for you to punch him and Elaine will be available to give you her autograph. Just joking, please be good people.

If you did not reserve or you lost your reservation because you have not paid, I have good news for you. I think I can still get more tickets and add you to our group. I can talk to the manager and ask for a small discount still but I think of course the price will be still be a little higher but that is not my control. This is the best I can do. You must still reserve with the form below and you must arrive at the Infiniti Plaza McDonald’s between 5:30-6:00pm on Wednesday if you receive a email from me. The cinema will still try to sell their own tickets for the remaining seats for that show, so I must ask them to save some extra for us. Please do not reserve unless you are certain you will come. If you do not reserve and you come to the cinema on Wednesday, I can try to get you a cheaper ticket but that is the most difficult bargaining time. Please understand that but I hope you will still come and join everyone. It will be fun!

Movie Date & Time:

24 June 2009, Wednesday @ 19:00 (7:00pm)

Cinema Location:

Broadband International Complex
6/F, Shanghai Times Square, 99 Huaihai Zhong Lu
near Pu’an Lu, Metro Line 1 Huangpi Nan Lu Station
淮海中路99号大上海时代广场6楼
近普安路, 地铁1号线黄陂南路站

Sorry, this is not IMAX. I asked Peace Cinemas at People’s Square (they have one IMAX screen) but they would not do group or special price until 2 weeks after the movie. Another IMAX cinema near Fudan is not in central location and will not have the movie until 26 June. I hope this is okay.

Ticket Cost:

Normal ticket price is 80-100 RMB. If you reserve your ticket(s) here, it will be 65 RMB including free small popcorn and drink (bottle water, Coke, etc.).

If you reserve your ticket after this time, the price will be higher: 80 RMB (still include free small popcorn and drink). However, this will depend if there are any more tickets available. I will have to check with the cinemas.

Reservation Method:

There is only a limited number of discount tickets. Many shows are already sold out. To reserve your tickets:

1. Complete the form below.
2. Select reservation method: PayPal or Cash.
3. Submit form. If you wish to reserve more tickets, please make another reservation.
4. Pay with PayPal or Cash ASAP before 22 June 2009, Monday.
5. Receive confirmation email.
6. Watch Transformers 2 with everyone!

Reservation Form:

If you selected to reserve with PayPal, you can immediately use the PayPal button here:

If you selected to reserve with Cash, please wait for an email with further instructions on when and where you can meet someone to collect your cash.

Once your money has been received, you will receive a confirmation email from me. Keep this email.

Movie Day

Please arrive at the movie cinemas early. You can select your seat(s) and pick up your ticket(s) at the McDonald’s across the street from Times Square in the Infinity mall beginning from 18:00-18:40 (6:00-6:40pm). Someone will wait outside the movie cinema from 18:45-19:00 (6:45-7:00pm) for late people. Please do not be late.

We will all sit together and I will try to get the good middle seats for us.

Questions/Comments

If you have any questions, you can ask in the comments below. If you are want to make sure I know that you have reserved (and have received your reservation), you can also leave a message in the comments.

Original Post: Shanghai Movie Night: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Hi everyone,

Are you in Shanghai? Would you like to join together and watch Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen? The movie will be released in China on 24 June, Wednesday. I think it will be a very exciting movie!

If you are interested, please leave a comment and vote for which days you are able to go below ASAP. You can choose more than one day. I will try to arrange with the cinemas something special but there will probably only be a limited number of seats. I will have more information later.

Also, if people are interested, I can try to arrange something after the movie also. Please let me know if your comment.

Transformer 2 Preview Videos:

Original Post: Watch Transformers 2 In Shanghai With chinaSMACK!

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Hi chinaSMACK artists and designers,

chinaSMACK will become 1-year-old one month from today on July 9, 2009. I hope to make many new announcements during this time. However, one way I want to celebrate this anniversary will be organizing a fun chinaSMACK reader design contest.

I think there are many talented and artistic people who visit and read chinaSMACK, so I am asking you to show us your creativity and imagination by creating a new design that can be used for a new chinaSMACK t-shirt. If there is enough interest, maybe we can also use the design for other things too.

However, we must see the design first!

Submitting Your Design

The design must be original and it must include the “chinaSMACK” name.

It should be very cool, so everyone will want one.

Please submit your design through the entry form below. All designs must be received by 2009 July 2, Thursday 23:59.

Please also use the form to describe your design, and explain any limitations or recommendations for how your design should be used. For example, please tell us if your design can be on different colors or just some colors. Please also tell us about yourself. This information may be used during the voting period so people can better understand your design and ideas. You may submit more than one design.

Voting For Your Favorite Design

All eligible designs received will be displayed publicly on 2009 July 3, Friday.

chinaSMACK visitors and readers will be encouraged to view and comment on each design. I think this can be very fun and interesting if a lot of people submit designs (so please submit designs!). Everyone will also receive instructions on how they can vote for their favorite designs. These votes will help determine which design is selected.

The deadline to vote for designs will be 2009 July 8, Wednesday 23:59.

Designers and artists, you can share your design earlier in the comments here if you want. This way you can maybe receive more comments, feedback, and attention to your design. I encourage everyone to discuss ideas and suggestions here.

Winning Design

The winning design will be announced on 2009 July 9, Thursday.

The winning designer will receive a free t-shirt and, if there is enough interest, I can maybe provide bigger prize. You can suggest reasonable prizes in the below comments for fun and I will consider them.

After the new design is selected, the original chinaSMACK t-shirt will no longer be sold. Thank you to the original buyers for your early support. I hope one day your t-shirt will become a rare collector item!

Attention: T-Shirt Makers

If you can make t-shirts or can recommend a good t-shirt making company, please contact me. I would like for this new chinaSMACK t-shirt to be much cheaper than the original t-shirt from RedBubble and American Apparel (but of course also reasonable quality!).

Design Submission Form

Thank you for supporting chinaSMACK!

090703 UPDATE: See and vote for your favorite designs here!

Original Post: Artists & Designers, chinaSMACK Needs A New T-Shirt!

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Sam Gaskin interviewed me for his cover story, “Blogging, A Dead Horse? How Our Favorite Bloggers Do Much More Than the Name Implies”, in the June 2009 issue of Talk Magazine.

This is a comment by Roland Soong (from EastSouthWestNorth) in the article:

Translation sites are excellent resources, but differ from the traditional conception of blogs by lacking a personal tone. Soong sees this as an advantage. “The main content is uneditorialised translations. The point is to show how the Chinese people are reacting to certain issues or events. As such you don’t need to know my personal opinion because that will just confuse things.” Of course, there is some subjectivity inherent in the choice of articles. Soong says “The materials translated [on ESWN] are usually chosen because 1) they are ‘hot’, or 2) they are interesting (in my opinion).”

You can read the entire article in the magazine, on the Talk Magazine website (image), or by clicking the the two images below. Thank you, Sam Gaskin, for interviewing me and mentioning chinaSMACK.

Original Post: chinaSMACK & Fauna In Talk Magazine Cover Story

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

A few weeks ago, I told everyone that my old computer is dying and I ask for recommendations on a new computer to buy. Many great chinaSMACK readers provided me with a lot of good suggestions and advice.

One reader, Lawrence, email me and told me that he wants to give me a IBM Thinkpad T40 notebook computer. This is very unexpected and I did not want to accept this for free because I prefer to earn everything I have. I offer to pay him a reasonable price but he insist on giving it to me completely free so after some email and with a friend’s help, I receive this new laptop this weekend. I am using it right now.

Although this computer is older than my old one, it is very much faster. The only small difference is that the screen on this computer can only be 1024×768 and that is smaller than I am accustom to but it is no big deal. It has a little light on the top of the screen, and maybe it is silly but I think it is really cool because it useful when I use the computer in the dark.

I am very thankful for everyone’s help. Thank you, Lawrence, for being so generous and providing me with a free notebook computer. This is more than I expect and it will help me save a lot of money.

Although it is only a small thing, I have add an advertisement to Lawrence’s company website on the sidebar of chinaSMACK. It is not much but I hope that if anyone needs computer or internet help or service, you will think of calling Lawrence at computersolutions.cn to see if he can help you.

Original Post: Fauna Given Free IBM Thinkpad T40 Notebook Computer!

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!

Hi everyone,

chinaSMACK now has over 210,000 visits each month and has grown so much that we were required to move to a new private server this last weekend. There were some small problems but they should be okay now after some help from some great chinaSMACK commenters and friends.

Please let me know if the website is faster now or if there are any other problems. Sometimes it is difficult for me to check because I am in China and it can be different from other place in the world. I hope that this move will make chinaSMACK more reliable and easier to read.

Thank you for your support of chinaSMACK.

Original Post: chinaSMACK Moved To Private Server

Original Source: chinaSMACK

China Internet Tip: Are you blocked behind the Great-Firewall in China? Cannot reach Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? Try using Freedur VPN.

Limited Edition "Certified By Netizens" Official chinaSMACK T-Shirts Now Available!
Help support chinaSMACK by sporting the new official chinaSMACK t-shirt designed, chosen, and produced by chinaSMACK readers!