The Fifty-Cents Party

Before going into the actual subject, please allow me to reminisce a bit.

I moved to New York from China shortly after my birthday in 2003. The time I spent in New York was not a pleasant one. I was the only Chinese person in the entire sixth grade, and the few friends/people-I-know were upperclassmen so we didn't get to know each other that well anyway. I didn't really speak English so I didn't really make any non-Chinese friends. In addition to that, there were bullying (which I bet every new Chinese and even non-Hispanic/White student went through) and cockroaches in the kitchen. I was very lonely. The only thing I have was internet and the few friends that I made over the internet not long before. I was losing contact with my elementary school friends primarily because we all moved on. There was nothing to talk about between us anymore.

I remember during that time my mom used to hide the laptop...I don't remember for what reason...but I found the laptop and everyday after school, I would take it out and go on the internet, and then just before mom came home, I would put it back exactly the way it was, as if nothing had happened. Although I stopped playing online games during that period, I had nothing to do but surfing on the net (I don't really have real homework, and I barely study for anything; once, I even brought home a test because I didn't know what it was) I felt like if my life were deprived of internet at that time, I would have had absolutely nothing to do. My pastime was centered around 163's online community; I had no where to go or socialize in the real world.

So one day, I asked 一龙, one of my friends I made over the internet, something like what does he do when he's not on the internet. He said: "I hang out with friends." I was shocked. I could not imagine what it was like to have friends to "hang out with." In fact, before I came to America, I only went shopping (for my farewell gift) with my friends only once. I never hang out. Now I think about it, I never had real friends. I was shocked. I was shocked at how lonely and pathetic I was.

And then everything changed as I moved to Fort Lee. I began making friends. Real friends with whom I talked about things and go to places with (although usually just the library and its surroundings). My English was improving so I actually began studying and working for classes. I stopped going on QQ (Chinese equivalent of AIM) as often and then gradually I stopped paying attention to Chinese affairs. I don't remember what I devoted most of my time to during that time (7th and 8th grade)probably because it was nothing important. But I think I missed a lot. I missed the emergence of Hanhan, the coinage of new terms like the Fifty-cents Party, and so many other things that people are so familiar today but I only recently got to know what they are. Things I should have known long time ago but did not know until now. I was out of touch with both Chinese popular culture and the American.

I don't know exactly what brought me back to the Chinese internet community...probably douban.com, a website for book, movie, drama, and music reviews. I read other people's reviews from which I get learn about things. And then, the first time in quite a while, I logged on to QQ again, and began chatting with the same old friends again (the internet ones). I am still not completely satisfied. I still feel something is missing. But I don't know what it is. Relatively speaking, my life right now is good. At least I handn't gotten the feeling of constant loneliness in quite a while. I'm glad.


Now, the Fifty-cents Party. This is a nickname for a group of people who are hired by the government as "internet commenters." Basically, they go on various news websites and popular forums and comment in support of the government or the government's policy. For each comment they get fifty cents Yuan, hence the name. This is supposed to be an "underground" organization that the commoners should not know, but everyone knows (interestingly a local government once publicized a news that they just hired 600 internet commenters as if trying to brag about their feat to the higher administration; that news was immediately spread to major news websites but its links were shortly made invalid. Haha.) I just learned about this recently from Hanhan's blog although I should have known that long time ago.

Anyway, I finally understood why the tone of some "netizen"'s comments on particular issues are so inconsistent with the usual tone and position. For example, regarding the Google's threat to withdraw from China, the opinions I saw when the news just got out were rage--the netizens' comments I saw on various forums were generally more mocking and sarcastic of the government and more sympathetic toward Google. The majority of them seem to prefer Google to Baidu (the Chinese search engine); in fact, some of them seem to detest Baidu. Just a day or two ago, the official Chinese statement came out, condemning the US for hinting that its internet isn't open and such. And the comments of this news in 163.com were mostly things along the lines of: "Get the hell out of China, Google! We don't want you here! I always use Baidu." And pages after pages of comments were filled by words like these. After a while, I read so many that I really don't know which are the true supporters of China's policy and which are just the hired internet commenters' talking.

A popular Chinese blogger wrote that hiring internet commenters (in the name of directing public opinion in the right way) is a bad strategy because government isn't able to see what the real public opinion is anymore. It's fine to monitor public opinion, but it's harmful to the stability of the government if the government is ignorant of what the people really think. I can't agree with him more because I am already feeling this frustration. What percent of the public is truly in support of Chinese government and what percent wants China to negotiate with Google so that Google stays? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows.