DisOrientated - A Weblog by Philip Sen - If You Don't Want to Eat Flies, Keep Your Mouth Shut

I think your search for discussion were answered by the notorious and attention-seeking antics of Glutter, who is quite open about her depression. Scroll through the archives.

Don't be perturbed by her. What you, Michael and the team are doing with LiC is great and I for one do not object to wanting to maintain a modicum of decorum and integrity to the site's content.

Posted by: Ben S at February 25, 2004 01:28 PM

Dave,
While I agree with some of what you're saying, I have to point out that the aggregator is just that: an aggregator. It lists the most recent posts from _other people's_ blogs in reverse chronological order. Whoever posted most recently will appear at the top, and I don't see any logical reason to change that. We're working on implementing user profile pages on LiC, and if Leylop posts directly to the site, there will be a link to her profile. On that page she can decide if she wants to share her race, sex, age, and/or favourite color.

Taking off my admin hat for a moment, I'd like to say that I find all this talk of "inclusiveness" a little offensive and not at all inclusive. LiC was designed to be an English language site, so let's put that aside for a moment. Anyone who wants to write in English about China should be welcome, whether it's a white male or a purple hermaphrodite. If any Chinese females want to write on LiC, all they have to do is sign up, but so far they don't seem to be breaking down the door. That just leaves us white males, who because of the color of our skin, apparently can't offer diverse viewpoints. I'll admit that I haven't triumphed over adversity or overcome my oppresors and would-be colonialists, but I still live in China and experience things. Sometimes.

My point is this: Leylop, unlike Glutter, doesn't seek to define herself by her race or sex (or as a victim of either, for that matter). She might not appreciate being pigeonholed as a "Chinese girl who blogs in English", because she is, in fact, a "Person who blogs in English." Just like me.

Posted by: Brad at February 25, 2004 05:09 PM

The blogosphere does have a geography to it -- everyone on the LiC aggregator is living in China. Sorry...I understand what you're asking for, but I think it may be difficult. Everyone has a different idea of what's interesting, and there's no universal method of classifying people (that's what blogs boil down to), without getting into sensitive areas such as race.

We all agree that the site would be better with writing from different viewpoints, and Leylop is a great example. However, she posts infrequently on her own site and (as far as I know) never on LiC. If she doesn't write more, she won't get visibility, and I don't think restructuring the site to give it to her is a good idea.

Chinese people in China don't need our help or promotion -- this kind of talk always comes across as condescending to me. If they want to write, let them come write. Go find some Chinese bloggers; post messages on their blogs inviting them to join LiC.

Glutter referred to LiC as "mostly older white males", and has used the phrase negatively in various other places. Tiger said "If I am a Chinese male writing a blog, why would I want to have ANYTHING to do with the foreigner community (mostly white male) who comes to Asia and uses and abuses Asian women?" Even Phil, while well-meaning, lamented that LiC was mostly made up of white males. Where is all this anti-white-male sentiment coming from? Does all-white mean all bad? Would an entirely non-white site be better? What's the optimal mix? Wouldn't it be easier to let anyone join, and ignore their race?

In short, if that's possible now, I think that diversity for it's own sake is pointless.

I wasn't involved in the Glutter "discussion", but it seems to me that she throws these kinds of fits whenever she feels she's not getting enough attention. She provokes and insults people, they respond in kind, and she gets satisfaction from knowing she was right about them all along. Anyone who defends her is her friend, and everyone else is the enemy. It's pretty typical behaviour for middle-class, borderline bipolar kids in the US.

Posted by: Brad at February 25, 2004 08:52 PM

Interesting that the white males are the ones striving to encourage greater diversity on LiC.

Posted by: Michael Darragh at February 28, 2004 11:13 AM

Oh boy. I just came across this today since I was in the midst of doing your list of questions for the China Internet Story. Some of the comments are fucking pathetic as usual it's all these guy self promotion on their own love of how important they are. Are you lot sick of it yet? We're not breaking down the door because we don't feel that place is representative of us and that the internet is wide are far and we don't really care to get the readers or whatever. Especially when the China English internet sphere is the ONLY place that people attack each other with the verofiousness. Hmm. Let me think.. oh there are light six or seven blogging woman I know, and they have not signed up to the site. We're not a "pack" people do things on their own and we're able to see that LIC is NOT the only place for us to exist. We don't care to change the demographics of that site because we don't see ourselves part of that blogsphere in the first place. We have our friends and our readers and that's our own community. Just because someone bought a URL doesn't mean they "own" the space completely and we must all join. I quit, the rest of them aren't and never will. Coz they feel very much the way I do about tone and participation of the site. Anyway as I said on the comment section. We live in China because it's home. We don't need to show off about how different we are to the rest of the people we grew up with going to a foreign country and having these "different experiences" coz its just our everyday lives. unlike some people its not exotic to us. That's the innate difference between our thought process compared to many of the LIC crowd. Chicken feet is just food, we speak chinese so we don't have to get irrate at the delivery guy, no that is not the first time in our lives we have seen latterns. We just live it. It's just our lifes. We're not hyper excited to be living in China. A lot of us spent most of our lives if not all of them here.

Anyway, you know I am going to say exactly the same thing in the interview (which you sent to me) Phil. Can you be objective at this juncture?

yan

Posted by: Glutter at April 22, 2004 05:27 PM

There is no such word as "disorientated". I think you mean "disoriented".

Posted by: Matt at September 5, 2004 05:09 AM

Suggest you take this up with the publishers of the Oxford English dictionary, who do recognise 'disorientated' as a word in the English language (though I concede that it may not be current in American or other dialects).

You can write to them at:

Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford OX2 6DP
United Kingdom

Best of luck!

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"There is no such word as "disorientated". I think you mean "disoriented".
Posted by: Matt at September 5, 2004 05:09 AM"

Disorientated is a common term used here. do your research. hah ignorant.

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