Beautiful people blogging

Sina's new blog-hosting service, which we mentioned earlier this week in connection with criticism of its word-filtering policy, has attracted quite a few famous people to start putting their words online. Actress Xu Jinglei (pictured), Super Girl runner-up Zhang Liangying, authors Yu Hua and Yu Qiuyu, TV host Sally Wu, teen novelist Guo Jingming, and even token foreign celebrity John Gordon, have all set up blogs on Sina this past month as part of Sina's "Inaugural Chinese Blog Competition." Now that these blogs have had some time to accumulate posts, it's time to look at what these celebrities are writing about, and how that writing has been received.

Over on MindMeters, Fang Jun says, "They're not really true blogs; they're just putting things they've written online in blog format." This does seem to be the case; most of the blogging celebrities don't interact with their adoring fans in the comments sections. Zhang Liangying states outright, "On my blog I only write posts - I won't comment or leave other messages, so be clear about that, okay?" This hasn't stopped her fans from posting comments, though - even a simple photo-post can garner nearly 200 comments.

Guo Jingming says, "orz"

The other major teen idol on Sina, Guo Jingming, posts photos, too. Lots and lots of photos. Candid photos and posed photos. Clear photos and mobile-phone photos. But he also writes quite a bit, in a conversational, LiveJournal style. His entry on blog-related anecdotes is a funny piece in which he relates how some reporters don't believe he writes the posts himself, and others breeze through the blog questions to needle him about plagiarism instead.

Yu Hua, whom Fang Jun dismisses as "not very interesting," seems to be somewhat active in his blog's comments, but since he's busy working on the second half of Brothers, he's recycling old material for his blog posts or cross-posting articles that he's written for other publications.

There have been accusations that these bloggers are writing merely for self-promotion, to take advantage of media hype surrounding new technologies. Though some commenters have reacted negatively, urging writers to stick to their writing, Yu Hua says, "I now understand that no matter what I do, I'll always be criticized."

Liu Zhenyun, author of the novella that became the movie Cell Phone, writes:

I don't understand blogs. My friends at Sina have told me lots of benefits of blogs, but I still don't understand. But I generally get the fact that they are a place where you can directly communicate with lots of friends. Because you can't see each other, you don't have to lie, you can tell the truth; you don't have to say nice things, you can say bad things. Of course, hearing lots of bad things is of even more help to me.

Zhu Wei, editor-in-chief of Sanlian Life Week, writes a column called "On Quality" for the magazine. This week's column is titled "On The Ring of the Nibelung," a look at the historical context surrounding the creation of Wagner's opera cycle. But why read it in boring old paper, or even on the various websites carrying Sanlian content, when it's so much cooler In Blog Form?

Another Sanlian writer, Wang Xiaofeng, reacts in disbelief to Zhu Wei's blog. On his own blog, Massage Cream, Wang writes:

God, god, god!

I used to believe that there were a few things I'd never see during my lifetime, like the sun exploding, the Pacific Ocean drying up, China following a multi-party system, and our editor-in-chief running a blog. But our editor-in-chief has suddenly appeared on the contemptible Sina Blog service. So now I've begun to believe that in my lifetime I may see the sun explode, the Pacific Ocean turn into cropland, and China implement separation of powers ... imagine, what a beautiful future - you can walk through fields of sorghum to get to America.

In the Zhu Wei's friends list, Wang Xiaofeng's blog is described as "Wang Xiaofeng's Pornographic Spot," playing off an alternate reading of "Massage your breasts" for "Massage Milk" in the title. The same sort of double-meaning can be read into Zhu Wei's title, 日知录 "Record of Daily Knowledge," as well.

Competing with Sina's blog competition is a similar event taking place at Sohu (whose blog hosting service is only in its Alpha version). Bokee (formerly BlogChina), which has offered blog hosting for several years, has questioned the credentials of the two latecomers to host a "blog contest." Sina's is open only to blogs hosted on Sina; Bokee's contest, while open to all blogs, only accepts votes from registered Bokee users, so some commentators have suggested that this is a tactic to drive up Bokee's registration numbers by leading people to register multiple times to stuff the ballot box.