Ich Bin Ein Beijinger

Virtual Humping

Had lunch with a friend just now, one of the Seven Sages of the Chinese Internet World, very tapped into what's happening in the scene. He'd just seen my post on the Chinese Second Life, HiPiHi, and mentioned--so did Fanfan--another similar game, though more Chinese historical costume-drama themed, that's been running for a while called Wanmei Shijie (完美世界). One of Fanfan's friends is thoroughly addicted.

While I held that HiPiHi (and/or the clones-of-clones that are bound to come tumbling after) will probably fare well in China, my friend wondered how it's going to work without the two great pillars of Second Life: Sex and gambling. I guess I've been out of touch, but evidently that's what it's all about. Shouldn't surprise me. I guess China's virtual worlds will be properly Bowdlerized.

It's testimony to the excellence of the fare at the little newly-opened Mexican restaruant at Wanda Guoji that I was able to eat even after my friend whipped out his SmartPhone and proudly showed me a clip of his avatar in flagrante delicto with someone else's. Nicely appointed room, I thought. "That's me on top," he said. And the woman? "His name is probably Frank, and he probably lives in Iowa." He went on the explain that you attach your member, select a position from a menu, and can control the rate of humping. Do you ever, you  know, actually bring things to a climax? I asked, though less euphemistically. "That's the great thing," he said. "You can go for hours!"

Gee, sounds like tremendous fun. Who needs Kundilini Yoga?

Second Life cloned for China

It was inevitable: A Chinese company has launched is closed-beta testing a version of Second Life--and probably not the last we'll see. Called HiPiHi, it seems to have hit the Web late last year: Chinese blog posts that I failed to notice talked about it in some depth as early as December 6. No affiliation with Linden Labs, which created/operates Second Life, that I could see.

There's some biographical info on the founder/CEO Xu Hui here.

Are we going to see a mad rush by advertisers to get into HiPiHi? Is Xinhua going to set up a news bureau? Will HMB, or whatever the currency is called, impact the value of the RMB?

My gut tells me that done right, this could be quite substantial in China, and might have more legs than its U.S. counterpart. For one thing, MMORPG culture is pretty deeply embedded among Chinese netizens, and many players are very used to "repatriating" currency earned in the in-game economy to real life. HiPiHi seems to have made dumbed-down object creation tools available while keeping more advanced options available to the more proficient--don't quote me on that, I've not really played around with it yet.

There's a definite feminine sensibility to the pitch video, which you can download (.wmv) here: a female narrator and avatar, emphasis on the outfits, the landscaping, the houses. Going after women is probably the right move: there are plenty of online gamers in China, but few of the hack-and-slash MMORPGs really work for women.

I'm curious to see whether they'll add distinctly Chinese elements to it--traditional archicture, music, prefab landscape things (say, like Guilin-style karst limestone formations). Also really curious to see what kind of scripts people write. Who knows? Someone might do good business making paired marble lions for people can flank their doorways with. Or selling a two-handed namecard hand-off script.

I'll see if I can get a beta invite, and get my wife to play around with it and report her feedback: she was really into The Sims for a while, and will probably dig this. (We set up Second Life accounts, but the lack of a Chinese interface was frustrating for her, and all she did was create an avatar that looked an awful lot like herself in real life. Vanity, thy name is...) 

Thanks to VirtualChina for this.

Ode to a Foot Masseuse

This little bit of doggerel should be out in the magazine in a day or two, if it isn't out already.

Goddammit, now I have to come up with another idea and write something before next Tuesday. Maybe I should go get a foot massage.

Ode to a Foot Masseuse

They call it "reflexology," and with brief apology,

I confess I only learned the word quite recently.

What they call it, I don't care: 'round these parts, it's something rare—

A massage where neither party acts indecently.

Here in China, as you know, from Heilongjiang down to Guangzhou,

Or the Lhasa Valley's Himalayan ice,

It's hard to find a town where you can't get your feet rubbed down,

And enjoy it at a bargain-basement price.

It's a pleasure so sublime it really ought to be a crime

But I'm awfully glad the foot-rub biz is legal.
When you're seated in your chair, the feeling's just beyond compare:

I think the word I'm looking for is "regal."

They're from Henan or Anhui—not from Zhengzhou or Hefei*

But from little county towns you've never heard of

These friendly country lasses from the agronomic classes

Off'ring service that your feet can be assured of.

When those foreign guests come calling and you've spent the day Great Walling,

Or strolling Kunming Lake at Summer Palace,

Nothing's better for the feet—a major podiatric treat

That keeps those tender heels from going callous.

Corns and bunions she'll endure, toe-jam smelling like manure

Athlete's foot, or even fouler forms of fungus

But she won't so much as sigh, and it costs but 80 kuai,

That is why, my friend, my gratitude's humongous.

There's a fascinating chart, describing how each body part

Is linked to certain sections of your feet

For your spleen or for your gonads, or your Grand Primordial Monads

There's a spot to increase qi or quell the heat.

Soak your trotters in the tub, as you ready for the rub

And accept that this is going to hurt at first

There's no pleasure without pain, her ministrations will make plain

And you'll praise the fingers which, just now, you cursed.

It's a universal fate, that when guys begin to date,

They'll play the back-rub card at their first chance.

It's a hackneyed first-date ruse, and to women, this ain't news:

The masseur vamooses once inside your pants.

But our dour and faithful lass will prove she's of a better class

And your tired 'taters are the benefactors

She'll go that extra mile, and she'll do it with a smile,

And she's free of such crass motivating factors.

It's impossible to capture how from pain you come to rapture

As she kneads those knuckles up and down your sole,

I'm not waxing metaphoric when I say that it's euphoric

When the angel breaks you down, and makes you whole.

* Zhengzhou and Hefei are the provincial capitals of Henan and Anhui, respectively

Thanks, Rocky!

A delightful gift (pictured right) arrived at my office today, with a note from my friend Rocky Lee, a very talented lawyer at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Carey here in Beijing. I was very touched: he'd bought this with me in mind, knowing my weakness for single malts. And he suffered through an hour-long lecture on peat roasting, malted barley, and the mysteries of Port vs. sherry vs. bourbon casks, all delivered (doubtless in a nearly uniintelligible brogue) from a "bearded Scotsman" in the duty free shop. Forgive me for my inability to banish the image of Groundskeeper Willie that formed as I wrote those words. There's an even better bottle, Rocky assures me, waiting for us to share when he gets back from the States--though I reckon given his infamous aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, I'll probably drink more of it. Wille said it was his very favorite, after all.

Infamous? Who else could know of Rocky's missing enzyme? Why, readers of The Red Herring, where I once published the tale of how the good Mr. Lee played Virgil to my Dante in my descent into the depths of the Beijing nightlife scene. (Registration required, I fear). Lots of tech deals get made, you see, between happy hour at Centro and the wee hours at clubs like Vics, Babyface, and Tango.

Rocky's note marked the final release of what tension may have persisted between us in the year-and-a-half since I wrote that story. Understandably, he was a little freaked out by it, even though he really was exceptionally well-behaved through the whole thing--I played fly-on-the-wall on many nights out with him--and even though I took pains to show just how in-the-know he is when it comes to tech deals going down in China. He's often the first person I'll call still when I want the skinny on a start-up. I never intended to get him in any trouble. And so I was enormously relieved when a partner at DLA Piper, which had hired him away from the firm he was with during our adventures, told me that they hired Rocky in part because of, and by no means in spite of, what I'd written.

If you like that one, check out my pentultimate swan song, "Taking the Plunge," in which your erstwhile correspondent tailed a Valley venture capitalist during an extended stay in China.

Grant McCracken - The Wisdom of Clouds

Cerebral, provocative, but never (okay, rarely) pedantic: the anthropologist Grant McCracken's blog is one of my favorite reads The guy has a voice that blends erudition with pop culture savvy. His style's all his own, and he's deservedly confident about it: it gives buoyancy to some very heavy ideas. He's a first-rate thinker and I'm mighty glad to have found his blog. In the last few days he ran a series of three pieces very much worth perusing. Start here.

Piper Internet Research - The User Revolution

Piper Jaffray research analysts led by Safa Rashtchy published a voluminous report Thursday--we're talking 425 pages--called "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium." Among its key findings, released in an industry note:

• We expect global online advertising revenue to reach $81.1 billion by 2011, representing a 21% CAGR (2006-2011).
• The User Revolution. The advertising world is going through a revolution, one that we call the "User Revolution" as it is happening primarily with the consumers, who are taking control of content consumption and branding. We believe this trend will cause a significant rise in prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium.
• "Communitainment." The Internet has increasingly become a principal medium for community, communication, and entertainment--three areas that have collided together and are impacting each other's growth--generating a new type of activity that we call communitainment.
• The Internet Is Mainstream. The Internet has become a mainstream media outlet that now rivals traditional media for reach and advertising dollars.
• Media Fragmentation. The proliferation of online and offline media outlets has resulted in shrinking television audiences and an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
• The Golden Search. We believe search continues to gain ground, driven by the rise of search as the New Portal, the increasing use of search in branding campaigns, and the local search opportunity.
• We believe Google's wide variety of non-search-related products creates a virtuous cycle of brand affinity that drives incremental search volume.
• Video Ads Could Drive The Next Wave. We believe Internet video ads could become a game changer for large brand advertisers, who are used to the 15- or 30-second TV commercial
• Internet Usage Patterns Are Changing. Portals maintain the highest reach, but the fastest growing category of destinations is communitainment sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
• Ad networks are experiencing increased demand due to increasing Internet fragmentation, desire for more targeted inventory, increasing usage of networks for branding, and increased site visibility.
• Agencies are rapidly evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities that combine best of breed offerings.
• Watch These Companies. We expect companies such as Google (and YouTube), Yahoo!, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Microsoft, InterActive, Facebook, Craigslist, Brightcove, Yelp, SINA Corp., Baidu, aQuantive, ValueClick, 24/7 Media, Netflix, Wikipedia, MobiTV, Digg, and Hakia to be the most important players to watch.
• Conference Call. We will be hosting a conference call on Tuesday, February 27 to discuss the main findings from our report. Please contact your Piper Jaffray Account Executive for a copy of the full "User Revolution" industry report and for information about the conference call.

None of this, so succintly put, is going to come as a surprise to anyone who's been watching development on the Internet in recent years. But the report itself is chock-full of eye-opening (and, from where I sit, frankly encouraging) findings regarding the decline of television viewing, changing viewing behavior--more ad-skipping, multitasking while TV viewing, and so forth--and on the decline of broadcast TV ad as percentage of total ad spend.

Safa spends a lot of time in China, and watches Chinese Internet companies quite carefully. I ran into him just before CNY in the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel in Beijing on one of his many annual trips out here. There's a section on International Search Markets, with a nod to Baidu's rope-a-doping of Google and Yahoo in this market; and the report gives quick summaries of some Chinese companies to keep an eye on, including the ad network Allyes, the ubiquitous Focus Media, Oak Pacific Interactive (the consortium which operates Mop.com. DoNews.com,DuDu.com, UUme.com, Renren.com and a couple of others), Sina, and Sohu. But if you're looking for the answers as to how all this will shake out in China, you may be disappointed.

China's a different animal in some regards: Internet penetration is still just north of 10%, and though Internet ad spend's growing at a healthy clip--twice the CAGR that Piper Jaffray forecasts for global online ad revs, according to some reports--it's growing still from a very small base. Meanwhile Web 2.0 Fever has definitely caught on in China, and the Internet has gone mainstream--at least with the most desireable segment of the demographic, from advertisers' perspectives. Media is certainly fragmented, and that's been helped along by the paucity of great programming on television. Search looks like it's on track to dethrone the portals as the primary point of entry for most Chinese Internet users, but the portals--particularly Sina and Tencent (don't know why Safa & Co don't mention Tencent)--have quite a hold still. TiVo or TiVo-like DVR products haven't made serious inroads yet (though you might keep your eyes on AaaHaa Media out of Guangzhou);

When it comes to digital media advertising in China, lots of things are still very much up in the air: Will Internet video ads be a major driver? I've met with one company that's got an amazing network of video sites--YouTube clones, P2P streaming companies, IPTV providers--and some very nifty technology. I'm confident that advertisers will be convinced of this; I just wonder how ready people are for pre-roll commercials tacked onto the stuff they're want to watch on UUSee, or 6Rooms, or Yoqoo, or PPLive.

Two things in Piper's key findings especially resonate in China: The critical importance of ad networks (like Allyes) and the rapid evolution of agencies into tech-savvy entities with expanded offerings. Watch this space and you'll find out how one agency, at least, is evolving very rapidly, God willing.

A tip-of-the-hat to Craig Watts for pointing this report out to me!

Dammit, missed the Chunjie Wanhui (again)

Joel Martinsen, one of my favorite commentators on the Chinese cultural scene, has a great post over at Danwei on the evidently disastrous CCTV Gala this year. I was blessedly spared watching it this year, though in plenty of years past I've been in sneer-and-groan sessions. That's just not any fun for me, but that's the stage that China's going through now. Allegations of plagiarism, flubbed lines, and political ineptitude aside--all that's detailed by Joel in his post--the whole "Whither Chunwan" question must be utterly confounding for CCTV programming directors. It's a relic of a simpler, pre-snarky age in China, and certainly ain't compelling content for younger urbanites. But they can't make the thing inaccessible to the vast majority of viewers out there, who still look forward, even to the costumed minority dance numbers, and who are genuinely entertained. Chunwan's really become something of a marker of the great cultural divide in China. I do pity the folks who have to put the thing together every year.

The Women in my Life

I thought I'd post a picture of this Fanfan I keep talking about, and of my little girl Guenevere. Here they are. The Fanfan photo's from the trip we took to Italy for the wedding of our good friends Mauro and Vanessa. Mauro is padrino to Johnny. In front of me is the best plate of Bucatini all'Amatriciana I had in Rome. Mauro taught me how to make it, though the real thing calls for the jowls of a pig, and I don't quite know how to find those in Beijing, so I just use Hormel bacon. But I don't skimp on the Pecorino Romano by substituting mere parmesan. Mauro also taught me his carabonara recipe, which rocks.

Some time ago, following that trip, I wrote something in that's Beijing that pissed off all these Italians--and many of my non-Italian friends--for the perceived dis on Italian cuisine the column represented. I probably deserved part of it, but let me say in my defense that I honestly do love Italian food, and made it clear in that column that we were traveling on a tight budget and were therefore limited to primi piatti. I do know that there's a world of great Italian food in the segundi range, but hey, at the time we just couldn't afford to venture into that territory. We had another kid on the way. And for the record I'm ashamed of anyone, irrespective of how good the food is where they come from, who won't do their honest best and sample as much of the local cuisine as they can when they travel. There, Fanfan gets full marks.

Photo credits for this picture of Guenevere, taken around Christmas, go to Fanfan. So, pretty obviously, do genetic credits.

What can I say? Guennie's absolutely the apple of my eye, and if I've spoiled her a bit, so the fuck what. Believe me, you'd be putty in her hands too.

She's in pre-school now, which for an American would seem sort of strange as she wasn't even two when she started. The school she's at isn't exactly prestigious, but hey, we've already plopped down a year's tuition so we're gonna keep her there until that's up in September. Aside from bringing home every cold virus prevalent in Beijing in any given day, I think it's been great for her to get socialized, and learn to be a hypercompetitive overachiever like all proper Chinese-Americans. 

Newfound Respect for Single Parents

It's the fifth day of the Lunar New Year--po wu as it's called in Chinese. It's not quite 7 pm as I begin this and already it sounds like Baghdad out there.

Since the evening of the first day, with the exception of the other day when we had dinner at Fourth Aunt's house, it's just been Guennie and me alone, 24 hours a day. Fanfan has Johnny at her folks' place, but I would have gone stir crazy out there, and besides, the outsize bed they generously provided was still too small for the four of us to get a restful night's sleep. So it's just me and my little 2-years-and-ten-month-old princess. I had somehow imagined that she would keep herself quietly entertained with the various toys she's accumulated. She knows how to work the DVD and the remote, so I figured I might have time to catch up on reading, scour the news for interesting things to blog about, and do some work. No such luck. Single parents out there, my hat's off to you. I don't know how you do it. (The drawing on the left, by the way, is her most recent rendering of me. She did it this afternoon. The one further down was also supposed to be me, but she decided just now that it's a warthog. Thanks, Guen.)  (It's now me again).

I'll admit I've tended to spoil her, and now the bill's come due. She sees this as her chance to put into full practice all the manipulative techniques she's mastered. So no noontime naps, a minimum of walking (why walk when you can be carried?),very late bedtime, and dinner in the living room watching one of several Pixar movies she's obsessed with (or the Disney Lion King trilogy--thus the warthog?). And Dad just sucks at saying no.

I've failed, also, to keep up my end of the language education deal. She's so conversant in Chinese that I reflexively speak to her in that tongue, and not, as I'm supposed to, in English. Lazy fucker that I am, I'm just counting on the boxed DVD set of Sesame English Fanfan bought to get her English on par with her Chinese. I take some solace in knowing I'm doing a better job of speaking only English with John.

Tomorrow I'm taking Guenevere out to pick up Fourth Aunt and her husband, and then we head out to the in-laws' place up north for lunch, then finally come back with Fanfan and Johnny. What a relief it's going to be. I've managed to mop and pick up all the toys, but there's a scary pile of dishes I need to get to as soon as Guennie goes down. That's not likely to happen soon, with all the fireworks.

Anyone reading this may have noticed the family-heavy nature of posts. I don't intend for that those to continue dominating, so do come back once the holiday's over and I'm back to work and thinking about things other than my kids, the in-laws, and the extended Kuo, Zhang, Liu, and Nie clans.

The Amazing Nie Family

One of the unexpected perquisites of marrying Fanfan was the huge and happy distaff side family I inherited. Fanfan's mom, pictured here top, third from right, is the third of seven siblings including six girls. Last night, the third day of the lunar New Year, we had a fantastic meal at the home of Fourth Aunt (四姨), who's usually regarded as the best-looking of the bunch. As you've doubtless guessed, she's the one with the pigtails and the Red Guard get-up. The whole family was or still is in the entertainment business: First Aunt （大姨）, who still lives in the family's native Shanghai, is an exec at Yang Guang TV, Second Aunt was a performer I think and lives in Nanjing, my mother-in-law teaches directing at the Central Drama Academy, Fourth Aunt was part of a drama troupe and is a talented pianist. And so on. They're all very good cooks--especially the three sisters just mentioned.

The family gets together pretty regularly, usually in Shanghai for the Nie family patriarch's birthday. Nie Yuehan is the stuff of legend. He was a Whampoa Military Academy (黄埔军校) graduate, an underground Party in Shanghai member during the War, and rode a bicycle from Shanghai to Wuhan while in his 70s. He just turned 90 last September and is still in fine health. We video-chatted with him on Skype last night from Fourth Aunt's house. Here he is with his great-grandson and namesake, my son John (Yuehan is usually how "John" is rendered in Chinese).

The highlight of the family gatherings is when the daughters, accompanied by the one son on accordion, all sing. They have a whole repertoire of stuff worked out in three-part harmony, and the "Six Phoenixes of the Nie Family" really do it up.

In order, left to right, are Nie Sisters numbers 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, and 6. This was taken at the home of Fifth Aunt, where Fanfan's grandfather now lives.

Fanfan definitely identifies with her Beijing roots and can't speak Shanghainese at all (except, strangely, for the word "nipple," and I really don't want to know why), but I'm mighty glad for that side of her family, and that Guenevere and John will have the chance to grow up with a clan like this.