Unraveling China’s Tangled Web

It’s been a turbulent couple of months here at The World of Chinese. The team has collectively been putting the finishing touches to our redesigned website and poring over Google Analytics results， as we strive to illuminate the dark corners of the web our light has yet to penetrate. By now， the website should be cleaner， fresher and easier to use than ever， so please take a look and let us know what you think.

Meanwhile， our writers have made intrepid strides into China’s online sphere， tasked with discovering what makes its social networks tick. The results unfold across the pages of this issue， and reach beyond the cover stories to other aspects of the magazine， including our Made in China， Pioneer and On the Character columns.

Zhu Beijing catches up with actress Yao Chen for an exclusive interview and attempts to understand how she attracted 17 million Weibo fans， in the process becoming the world’s third most popular microblogger (see page 26). One reason could be that she’s really rather nice…

But enough pandering to celebrities. Ginger Huang was so turned off by her jet-set lifestyle as a feature writer for this magazine that she decamped to a monastery in Sichuan， but not before stopping for a couple of days to take a stroll through Chongqing (see page 64). She also took time out from her mountaintop retreat to ask if the advent of real-name registration will bring about a day of reckoning for Weibo (see page 34).

Are you sitting comfortably， dearie? Then get ready to talk Taobao as Duncan Poupard explains the (often sickeningly sweet) linguistic ins and outs of getting served on China’s largest online marketplace (see page 73). Elsewhere， Tom Hancock tracks the phenomenal success of QQ and its ubiquitous penguin logo， from online chat client to one-stop shop for all your web-based communication needs (see page 42)， before Hu Jiyun lightens the tone by tracking the fabulous trend of font-making， a form of fill-in-the-gap style meme-making that has run riot over the web in the last couple of years (see page 58).

We’re also asking you to submit your top “Faces of China” photos for our online competition. We want snaps of the faces that define China for you—they can be anyone from anywhere in the country. The top entries will be published in the next issue and online， and the winners will receive free annual subscriptions to the magazine. As always， we welcome any feedback on the magazine or the website， so please get in touch by emailing editor@theworldofchinese.com.

Until my next sign in，

David Green

Managing Editor