This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

Wang Jianshuo’s blog is one of the most popular in China, attracting some 50,000 visitors a day.
He’s been running his blog for the last three years, and has been featured in the New York Times, the BBC and MSNBC.

Formerly a Microsoft employee, Wang says the popularity of his blog has turned him from an ordinary person into a reporter. “It’s just like a daily newspaper. Every day it should be updated, because tens of thousands of readers are expecting it, and you just can’t stop.” So every day when he finishes his work at around midnight, he spends at least half an hour writing his Blog.

Wang says making the Blog keeps him attentive during the day. For example, during SARS in 2003, he kept up to date on the SARS crisis by quizzing taxi drivers about what they had heard, and he says the experience forced him to keep on thinking, exploring and recording what he experienced. He also says his blog has brought him into contact with interesting people from all over the world who have in turn given him ideas for his blog. A reader from the USA suggested he visit every Starbucks in Beijing and report about the experience, which is exactly what he plans to do.

The first Blog dates back to 1998 and the first pages were generally reviews of other websites. But blogs have come a long way since then, and now includes links to other websites, comments, news, diary, photos, poems and fiction.

It is estimated there are between 500,000 and 1 million bloggers today worldwide, and although still insignificant compared with the 300 million internet users, the bloggers’ influence has already exploded.

Wang Jianshuo’s blog has been running since Sep, 11 2002. He writes in English, and targets foreigners who he thinks has little access to information in China.

“In China, its rare to find information about daily life that foreigners can understand. In my Blog, I attempt to provide this kind of information, from the viewpoint of a local, which will attract these people.”

Wang says communication is more important than everything else, and says he once posted an article and several pictures about Shanghai Pudong Airport, which attracted a large number of visitors. He has also put up posts on taxis in Shanghai, SARS, the new train from Beijing to Shanghai, and trips to Beijing. And wherever he goes, he brings his digital camera with him. According to Wang, being personal in your blog is the key to success. Among his readers, he gets most responses from an old lady from California. She once told him that without his blog, she would never care about problems in Shanghai. But now as everything that happens in Shanghai influences someone she knows, she feels very differently about the city and its challenges.
(Source CRI)

Very soon, the greetings we exchange with each other may actually change from “How are you today?” to “Have you blogged today?”. That’s how some people are describing the speed at which Internet blogging is invading our lives. And now, the trend has even gone on to infect celebrities. Today, let’s follow the footsteps of China’s most popular celebrity blogger, Xu Jinglei. CRI reporter Wang Jing has more.

Xu Jinglei is regarded by many to be China’s most intellectual actress. From acting to directing and writing, it seems she’s always finding ways to speak out on what she wants to say. And she’s certainly been successful in attracting enough listeners. Her internet blog on sina.com has received a reported 10 million clicks, only 4 months since her entries began being posted.

So what exactly does Xu Jinglei write about in her journal online? Well, sometimes she writes about her daily life, sometimes about her work and her new film, and sometimes about showbiz news, for example, the recent dispute between director Chen Kaige and digital video maker Hu Ge. She updates her online diary everyday, sometimes even posting pictures of herself, most of which are not about the glamorous actress on stage, but about her ordinary life. She says she doesn’t want to make a distinction between the online diaries of celebrities and ordinary people.

“I don’t make a distinction between photos from my celebrity life or my very normal personal life. Because I don’t think I’m any different than anyone else. Sometimes I like to take a picture of myself with my mobile phone. Sometimes I’ll capture my friends around me. I upload them all on to the internet.”

Perhaps lured by the celebrity’s personal world, or maybe touched by her candid way of writing, web surfers are flocking to read Xu Jinglei’s blog, and each article is receiving thousands of comments at least. Xu Jinglei says she didn’t expect her blog to be so popular, but those comments are exactly the reason why she loves blogging so much.

“I love to read the comments to my articles. Not because they’re all positive, but because they’re true. For example, if an acquaintance tells me he loves my movie, he might just be flattering or comforting to me. But people tend to be very straight-forward on the internet, because we don’t know each other.”

Xu Jinglei’s strength in writing is a big reason why her blog has been so popular. And a celebrity commenting on the show-biz world is another great attraction. But some internet analysts say the biggest reason for her online popularity is that there’s no pretence in her articles, and that unlike some other famous people, she tries to be true to life and to herself.

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The bloggers in China are increasing very rapidly. But for blogger in China, it is very hard to be an professional blogger. I hope there are more and more professional bloggers to appear in China. And i want to be one of them.

Now there are more and more people become to know Johochow, problogger, etc. And lots of them are learning from them. Even i know that there is a blog which main articles are the translated articles of the western blogger. As some of the webmasters know little about English, so this blog is very popular.

Goog luck, all the bloggers!