It’s been so serious in here lately.

In my first post about this, I said the Shanghai Sex Blogger would probably end up with a lucrative book deal. He’s now entering, oh, I’d say the 4th or 5th minute of his 15 minutes of fame, and if he’s smart he’ll “leverage” (the most used and most useless word in all of public relations) his new-found faminess. The story’s pickup in the UK Guardian tells us he’s on the right track.

Chinese internet vigilantes have launched a hunt for a self-professed British bounder who has sparked outrage by blogging about his seduction of women in Shanghai. The campaign to uncover the identity of the blogger and have him kicked out of China is the latest in a series of online denunciations that have drawn comparisons with the humiliations inflicted by mobs during the cultural revolution.

Traffic on the Sex and Shanghai blog has surged from 500 hits to more than 17,000, thanks to a swarm of castration threats, anti-British rants and attacks on women who sleep with foreigners. The author, who calls himself Chinabounder, introduces himself as a wastrel, “lacking in moral fibre, but coping with the situation”. According to the posts, he is an English language teacher at a university….

Encouraging “netizens and patriots” to investigate the people and the places mentioned in the blog, he [Dr. Zhang] set a goal of expelling Chinabounder by October 1. More than 1,500 people are now visiting Prof Zhang’s site every hour.

“Trial by virtual lynching has become the norm in China’s cyberspace,” Raymond Zhou wrote in a comment article in China Daily after previous mass campaigns. He added: “Online ‘flaming’ wars exist everywhere, facilitated by anonymity. But in China they may have a self-propelling force that sweeps thousands, sometimes millions, into a frenzy. It is nearly impossible, even for the most respected scholars, to give voice to dissension.”

Chinabounder condemned the campaign against him, saying many expats and “a goodly number of local men” were no different to him.

Chinabounder’s last point is well taken, but he’s ignoring the obvious: most of his slut-brothers don’t broadcast the details of their conquest to the whole world. One key learning is that if expats can’t keep their dicks in their pants, they’d be better off not boasting about it on the Internet. Unless, of course, they’re looking for a book contract.

For me, the most interesting lesson out of this is just how volatile and malleable the Chinese masses of today can be, reminiscent, as the reporter says, of the Cultural Revolution. Of course, we saw this with the anti-Japanese riots last year, but that’s an issue that’s been smoldering for years. Here, at the touch of a key, you have a lynch mob that could well move from the virtual realm into the physical. And it all goes back to the same sources – a controlled media, an education system that doesn’t reward independent thinking, and a xenophobia that combines images of China as both the world’s greatest culture and the world’s greatest victim. Toss all the ingredients together, add a few drops of racism into the mix, stir rapidly and, voila, you’ve got yourself an old-fashioned populist lynching.

Update: Good post on this subject, with a great picture.

Pushed on by their parents and under pressue to do whatever it takes to get a job, more and more Chinese students are going under the knife to have their faces scultped, eyes made bigger (with the coveted “extra eyelid”) and lips more plump. With the job market so brutal, first impressions have never mattered more in China, and there’s a “whatever it takes” attitude that is creating a boon for the country’s plastic surgeons.

Like a growing number of students in China, Pan Ou will spend her university vacation going under the knife in a plastic surgery procedure she hopes will boost her chances of getting a good job after graduation.

“I want to be more beautiful, to perfect myself,” Pan, a student at one of China’s most prestigious law schools, told Reuters in the waiting room of EverCare Xingfu hospital.

“My face is too big and flat, like all Asians. I would also like to make my nose higher,” said the attractive 23-year-old.

The EverCare in Beijing is one of thousands of plastic surgery clinics mushrooming across China with promises to make patients more beautiful, more successful and more marriageable.

With media reports of this year’s graduates taking jobs as cleaners and domestic helpers for rich families, it’s no wonder students and their parents are seeking an edge in looks, said Yang Chun, a 32-year-old TV anchor.

“Many parents fully support their kids getting these procedures, particularly high school kids going to university,” she said. “They’ll say ‘It’s a new environment, no one will know you. Why not enter it with confidence and a fresh, new outlook,” she said, speaking after receiving a collagen injection for her lips.

Interesting, how the reporter refers to the Pan Ou matter-of-factly as “attractive,” while she sees herself as something far different. To what extent is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?

I won’t make any judgments as to whether the frenzied rush for a new face is a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is that it’s a sad story on several levels, fueled by desperation and the sad fact that looks are everything.

And it looks like fear will be the only message coming from the collective mouths of the Republican Party.

President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions.

With an appearance before the American Legion in Salt Lake City today, Bush will begin a series of speeches over 20 days centered on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he and his top lieutenants have foreshadowed in recent days the thrust of the effort to put Democrats on the defensive with rhetoric that has further inflamed an already emotional debate.

It worked the last time. Remember the TV ad with the wolves ready to descend and kill us all if we elected John Kerry? The only question now is whether Americans can possibly be so stupid as to let it work again. It was a year ago today in New Orleans that we all saw with our own eyes just how splendidly this administration can protect its citizens from harm. They did a heckuva job, demonstrating all they’d learned from 911 when it comes to managing a crisis. It’s good to know we’re in safe hands, unsullied by patronage and cronyism.

As we all know by now, fear is the only weapon they have left, and unfortunately Karl Rove knows well how to apply it. Although a majority of Americans are now against the war in Iraq, prepare to hear the Democrats who agree denounced as quitters, Neville Chamberlains, cut and runners, cowards, and friends to terrorists. Once again, the Republicans have thought out their talking points with meticulous calculation, and as the election fast approaches you’ll see the Wurlitzer pumping these messages out tirelessly, with Drudge, Limbaugh and Michelle controlling the levers.

What about the Democrats? What are their messages and talking points? As the cliche goes, the only thing that can keep the Republicans in power is the Democrats. If I don’t see signs that they (Dems) can coordinate their messages and thwart the kind of brainwashing we saw Rove perform in 2004, then I will not be at all surprised if the upcoming election is a major disappointment. The voters want to know what the candidates stand for. What the Republicans are saying they stand for is complete and utter crap, but at least they give the voters an image, a picture, a theme. With the Dems, even now, all we see is disorganization and in-fighting. Can’t we all get along and create a unified front, at least for a couple of months, so we can boot the GOP out of Congress? That’s all that matters. After the election, resume your feuding. But for now, we need to stand together to fight off the tidal wave of Republican propaganda heading straight in our direction.They know exactly where your weak spots are and they will expoit them with zero mercy. Time for us to do the same to them, and God knows today’s GOP has weak spots aplenty.

Our Shanghai sex blogger scandal is bringing out the worst in this Chinese academic, and from what I hear it’s being echoed by his readers in his blog comments. Sonagi has done a great service with her translation, which is sure to get your blood pressure rising. With this post by Zhang, the whole episode ascends to a new level of bizareness, and everyone involved is looking ugly. There are no heroes in this story, no one to admire or learn from. My guess is the whole mess will end up a major source of embarrassment for China on an international scale.

See this post for lots of links and comments about this odd story.

UPDATE: Yet more original translations from the good doctor’s blog. Is this guy angry or what?

Begat, Bothered, Bewildered
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 30, 2006

Doing his stations of the Katrina cross, President Bush went for breakfast with Mayor Ray Nagin at Betsy’s Pancake House.

As Mr. Bush tried to squeeze past some tightly placed tables, a waitress, Joyce Labruzzo, teased him, saying, ‘Mr. President, are you going to turn your back on me?’’

‘No ma’am,’ he replied, with a laugh and a pause for effect. ‘Not again.’

(more…)

You can buy the English version here, but publication of the Taiwanese edition in Chinese was aborted. This post goes into all the reasons why. Interesting, especially to those of us who’ve been keeping tabs of all the attacks and accolades the book has garnered.

This is a first for the Peking Duck – a post about basketball. (Enjoy it while you can – there aren’t going to be many more; watching tall people throw a ball into a hoop is useful only as a remedy for my chronic insomnia.) Yao Ming is challenging the Chinese government, urging them to allow the country’s basketball players to play overseas.

Yao Ming has called on Chinese sports authorities to let his national team-mates play overseas to get the experience they need to make China a force in international basketball.

“We cannot make enough progress by the national league alone: it’s like trying to build a cart without knowing how,” said Yao after their second round 95-64 rout by Greece.

“Chinese players have to go overseas to play. I mean, they should go there alone and fight for their positions on the teams. This is the only way to lift the overall level of Chinese basketball.”

The last-16 finish met the Chinese Basketball Association’s (CBA) target, but it was short of what Yao was personally aiming for: a quarter-final place.

Why won’t they let the Chinese players go overseas to get the practice they need? I don’t know much about sports – somebody please help me!

Amazing.

Via another of those great bloggers whose site I should visit more often. (We used to link to one another all the time back in the days when Gweilo Diaries ruled the East, and then, as so often happens among the early bloggers, we go off in our own directions. Thomas Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again.)

What’s the story? When you click the link, it now says, you can visit “by invitation only.”

The plot thickens.

Update: His sitemeter’s still working. His daily hits have gone from 500 on average to 17,000 today alone. Maybe I should rethink the theme of my own blog….