There’s no YouTube but the Chinese do have their own video-sharing facility, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing
A CHINESE magazine has just published a list of the most popular videos watched by the country’s 450 million internet users during 2010.
While video-sharing site YouTube is banned in China, people tend to watch a government-approved version called YouKu. Its top 10 list gives a fascinating insight into what occupied Chinese minds and laptop screens during the year.
Top of the list, which was reprinted on the Chinasmack website, is a moving segment shot by a young man on his mobile phone in the aftermath of the Yushu earthquake, which struck in the Tibetan area of Qinghai province in April and killed over 2,200 people.
In second place comes Old Boys,an internet film that had men all over China – especially those who grew up during the 1980s when reform and opening up began in earnest – weepy and nostalgic.
The film revolves around a barber and a wedding singer, taking part in a Chinese version of X Factor, who examine their past and the changes that have taken place in their lives and in the whole country. The discovery of Michael Jackson changes their lives.
The next most popular video was of a duo called Xuri Yanggang, who bash out a belter of a song about the plight of the millions of migrant workers toiling to build the New China.
The next film is a straightforward funny video, showing a policeman in Beijing grooving – again the Michael Jackson influence is inescapable – as he directs traffic.
Fifth place again relates to a natural disaster, this time a segment of villagers using sticks and poles to rescue those swept along by flooding in Yongji, Jilin province.
Next up is a parody of the Tan Te comedy, followed by stirring footage of the North Korean national football team player Jong Tae-se – dubbed The People’s Rooney – his face full of tears as he sings his country’s national anthem before taking on Brazil in the World Cup.
China and North Korea are “as close as lips and teeth”, but this big brother-little brother relationship has been strained in the recent past by nuclear tests and the firing of salvoes at their South Korean neighbours, raising regional tensions.
Perhaps Jong was crying because he knew North Korea’s performance in the World Cup was hardly going to set the world on fire.
In eighth place is disturbing footage of Brother Sharp, a homeless man in the city of Ningbo whose good looks and bohemian dress sense won him thousands of online fans after a resident of Ningbo posted a picture of him online.
The footage shows the clearly mentally unbalanced individual being chased by people on the street and saying he wants to cry. The good news is that he has been reunited with his family and is being treated properly.
Next up is four-year-old breakdancing sensation Xiao Wang, who causes a stir among a group of dancers in Los Angeles with his rendition of, yes, Michael Jackson steps, combined with some extremely agile breakdancing.
It features some footage from The Ellen Degeneres Show, where the Michael Jackson theme continues, as he is dressed in a trilby hat, sunglasses and spangly suit.
To round off the list, and perhaps inevitably, there is a video of the Shanghai World Expo fireworks. It may not have made major waves outside China, but it was a big deal domestically, so it is fitting that it makes the Top 10.
Xiao Wang’s dancing is more spectacular in many ways.
China online internet use by the numbers
THE COUNTRY’S number of internet users – already the world’s largest – has risen to 450 million this year, more than a third of China’s population, according to official data.
A senior Chinese official says official statistics show that the new figures, as of the end of November, represent an increase of 20.3 per cent compared to last year.
China shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites this year, netting almost 5,000 suspects in the process and has pledged no let-up in its campaign against material deemed obscene.
The internet phone service Skype this week joined Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in the list of online services banned in China.
The number of micro-blog users in China has increased to more than 120 million, according to the 2010 China Micro-blog Annual Report released by Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.
In 2010, more than 100 million Chinese internet users were ripped off by false online shopping information, causing direct losses of 15 billion yuan, internet security company Kingsoft said in a report.
About one-third of internet users shop online. In the first half of 2010, internet sales in China increased by 60 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The value of online payments is expected to hit one trillion yuan (€110 billion) for the year, according to Beijing-based research company Analysys International.