There was a case in China six years ago which might sound rather similar to the English Spectrum incident in Korea, and drew similar responses:
Chinabounder, an anonymous British expat and self-confessed wastrel in his early 30s, likes to boast on his weblog of his sexual conquests of Chinese women, including some of his students. This has so outraged Shanghai's web citizens that they have resolved to track him down and "kick the foreign trash out of China".
In racy language suggesting a Terry-Thomas-like rogue cutting a dash in the seedy bars of Shanghai, Chinabounder describes seducing a different girl every night of the week.
The postings are also critical of Chinese male sexual prowess and contain occasional snipes at Chairman Mao Tse-tung's womanising and the frustrations of Chinese housewives.
The collection of juvenile if provocative musings on sexual mores in contemporary China may even be a hoax cooked up by artists to gauge the reaction in China to such unsavoury comments from a foreigner.
Access to his "Sex and Shanghai" blog - which attracted millions of readers - is currently denied as the author hides from a wave of contempt. Cyber-vigilantes, furious at his claimed seductions of married women and teenagers, have threatened him with a beating if they track him down and some comments are couched in dangerously xenophobic language.
[...]Zhang Jiehai, a professor of psychology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, describes the blogger as a "piece of garbage" and "an immoral foreigner". "Netizens and compatriots, if you are a Chinese man with guts and if you respect Chinese women, please join this 'internet hunt for the immoral foreigner'," he wrote. Other postings have called for Chinabounder's head and described his girlfriends as "national scum".
Jeremy Goldkorn, the publisher of the influential Danwei website, believes that most people have been measured in their response.
"A lot of the comments about Chinabounder have been fairly moderate - people saying how Chinese men are far worse than Chinabounder, for example, or pointing out that there was no question of rape or anything like that," he said. And there have even been imitators. An overseas-born ethnic Chinese woman has set up a site, ABC Chick in Shanghai, describes herself as Chinabounderess and defends Chinabounder. She then goes on to describe her own flirtations in Shanghai.
Your analysis seems pretty spot on to me. The ‘scandal’ these events cause is generally blown out of all proportion because the stories make good filler for an always-hungry press. My little foolishness was reported by papers all over the world; but as you say, it really was only the tiniest of flashes in the pan. Seventeen thousand visitors, given the huge size of the net population (and it was huge even back then), shows quite clearly that the CB blog was the tiniest tick on the backside of a Z-list celeb’s least favorite dog; barely worth mentioning at all.
ReplyDeleteDespite the contretemps over the Sex in Shanghai blog (aka the "China Bounder"), which seems to have been quite limited in comparison to the English Spectrum incident, the blog itself is still standing and the identity of the blogger remained anonymous until he chose to reveal himself.
ReplyDeleteChina is not normally known as a country supportive of freedom of speech on the Internet but I'm wondering is it qualifies as such in comparison to Korea in this regard. That is to say, I can't help but think that a blog about 'Sex in Seoul' written by a 'Korea Bounder' type character wouldn't survive the scrutiny and ruthlessness of local netizens. If the "Ask the Playboy" column at English Spectrum is any indication the answer seems clear enough.
Dear China: When men say they're having all kinds of hawt sex all the time they're usually lying.
ReplyDeleteJust saying.