A Nation of “Copying”
Yes, this nation of five thousand years of history has a fondness of copying. It is said that immitation is the highest form of flattery. China, the nation of etiquette as we like to call ourselves, seems like fattering others a lot. Going back to history, it’s not difficult to realize that it has always been a part of our culture. To start, we invented the printing technology to make copies of books. In the field of arts, there are people who make a living copying other people’s works. Not that we don’t like the real stuff. It’s just that making the fake ones can really get you somewhere. Qianlong (乾隆） Emperor, probably the biggest art collector in China’s history, had three of his favorite calligraphy pieces kept in his study room. It turned out that two of them are very good copies.
From copying Wang Xizhi (王羲之）to Louis Vuitton handbags, we’ve done it all. Now copying has turned into a new page - web2.0. Blessed by low entry barrier of new web2.0 concepts and a vast pool of programing talents, we’ve been able to churn out one or more Chinese copies of almost every single successful web2.0 site outthere. Here are just some examples.
Baidu vs. Google
xiaonei vs. facebook
livedigg vs. digg
Bababian vs. flickr
Get Off Our Sisters, You Dirty Hairy Monkey!
Zhang Jiehai, a professor in Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, recently launched an Internet manhunt of a Englishman who works an English teacher in Shanghai and blogs about his sexual encounters with many Chinese women, some of them are allegedly his students. Professor Zhang wants this guy to be identified and expelled from China.
