First there’s the risable “Sex and Shanghai” blog itself (foreigner writes about alleged sexual trysts with ex-students).

Then the indignant Chinese backlash (Chinese professor’s call to unmask and expel the author ‘Chinabounder’).

Then the ‘Sex and Shanghai’ blog goes limp, taken offline “except by invitation only.”

Yesterday I suggested my skepticism over Chinabounder being who he claimed, and necessarily doing what he claimed, or even being where he claimed (back home in Denver, I suggested, which a commentor further speculated to “pimple-faced geek in Denver”.)

And now, reported via Danwei.org, an AP story headlined “Chinese Internet users hunt author of racy blog, but alleged authors claim a hoax” takes this a step further:

…a person responding to an e-mail to a contact address on the site said the authors were a group of performance artists who had fabricated its content as an investigation into online vigilante behavior.

“We did not anticipate quite the level of anger this would raise,” said the message, which said the authors behind the cyber name “Chinabounder” included a British man, an Australian woman, two Chinese men and a Japanese woman.

Already being skeptical of whomever is behind ‘Sex and Shanghai’, I don’t know if I buy that this was started as “an investigation into online vigilante behavior.”

If it is a serious investigation, and not a mere attempt at juvenile provocation–like reports of a young foreigner scattering change at a Beijing bus stop hoping to get Chinese people to chase the coins like hungry beggars–then there had better be a formal publication of findings in the pipeline.

Otherwise, here are a few observations and predictions:

First, Chinabounder, or someone claiming to be Chinabounder, has posted comments on at least one other blog. I noticed them on this post at John Pasden’s Sinosplice from back in May. If Chinabounder has commented elsewhere, then John and the owners of those other blogs could compare notes and report back to us whether Chinabounder’s posting IP is in Shanghai or not. (Or in Denver, perhaps.)

Second, Chinabounder is obviously in touch with the China Blog-osphere. He (or they) were reading Pasden’s Sinosplice Life blog at least as far back as May, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chinabounder (or at least one of the “performance artists”) has posted there before under a different name.

Third–this enters further into the realm of pure speculation–I have noticed echoes of Chinabounder’s criticisms of China on other blogs under different user names. Chinabounder’s blog is offline now and I can’t find the exact reference, but one day I read a Chinabounder gripe about China that used many of the exact same phrases used by someone who comments regularly at Richard TPD’s blog. I’m not going to say who that poster is, and though it’s possible, I don’t mean to imply that they’re necessarily the same person, only that this “performance artist” group has perhaps sometimes “borrowed” from commentators elsewhere to create the fictional Chinabounder’s rants.

But my overall hunch at this point: Someone knows. Someone in the China Blog-osphere not currently known to be associated with this whole ‘Sex and Shanghai’ thing knows. I am by no means suggesting it’s John Pasden or Richard TPD just because I’ve mentioned their blogs in this post, but Someone Established in This China-Blogosphere Knows. Maybe it’s a friend, maybe it’s a blog author we know by a different name, maybe it’s someone who overheard something at the Shanghaiist 80′s Happy Hour. Who knows. Could be anyone.

But someone knows and isn’t telling.

And with a virtual lynch mob at the IP gate, that is perhaps not a bad thing.

Because if there’s anything Chinese hate worse than reading about some of their “wayward girls” doing the nasty with “ugly foreigners,” it’s being baited by foreigners who are trying to elicit their “arrogant” and vitriolic responses in order to ridicule them.

Related: ‘Sex and Shanghai’ Backlash in Machine Translation

1. There’s a blog kept by a fellow allegedly from England who graphically chronicles his alleged sexual conquests of Chinese women in Shanghai, many of them his former students.

2. Blogs hosted on Google’s blogspot (as ‘Sex and Shanghai’ is) were until recently inaccessible in China.

3. Once ‘Sex and Shanghai’ became accessible in China, some Chinese people discovered it.

4. One of these people, Zhang Jiehai, a professor of psychology at the Department of Sociology in the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, is calling for an all-out witchhunt to unmask and expel the semi-anonymous writer of ‘Sex and Shanghai’.

5. Roland Soong, a dual Hong Kong/USA citizen who often provides English translations of current Chinese articles, news stories and blog/forum entries, has translated Zhang Jiehai’s diatribe.

6. Lots of Chinese (mostly the young male variety, I guess) began leaving blog comments that threaten the ‘Sex in Shanghai’ blogger’s person, relatives, and so on.

7. The ‘Sex and Shanghai’ blog is now closed except by invitation only, at least for the time being.

There are a few different spins on this story going on…but I’m not 100% sure why. Until there’s a video-taped ass-kicking, hidden Web cam rendezvous, police raid, attack on an embassy, exclusive interview with one of the blogger’s conquests or something along those lines, it’s all just mild titillation. (Think National Enquirer.)

Why would I say that?

Because it’s nothing new, that’s why.

It’s just that this version of this story is being blogcasted and people can play along at home.

(And if anyone thinks that it’s all significant because “It’s the first time anything of this nature has ever played out via the Internet and blogs!”…then my-oh-my, you really do need to get out more.)

So…slightly more interesting to me today (though I’ll try to blend these two stories)….

Angle #2 Background

I recently decided to try out Google’s Chinese-to-English machine translation tool, and to see how it compares to what Altavista’s Babelfish online machine translation tool spits out.

And just for kicks, I decided to use Zhang Jiehai’s essay for the comparison.

Here, side by side for your convenience, are the first six paragraphs of (1) Zhang Jiehai’s “rout the garbage foreigner” essay, (2) Roland Soong’s translation of the same, (3) the Google Translator tool’s take on it, and–in last place, as you’ll see–(4) the Altavista “Babelfish” translator’s feeble spit-out. (And don’t miss my closing comments and external links down below.)

My own conclusions:

1. Zhang Jiehai’s diatribe is absurd, and pardon me for stooping this low, but if he were gettin’ any himself, he wouldn’t care one iota about the ‘Sex and Shanghai’ author’s escapades.
2. I find the overtly sexual content in the ‘Sex and Shanghai’ blog to be pretty boring, really.
3. I’ve had doubts all along–still do–whether the tales in the blog are entirely true, and even if there’s truth involved, whether they’re current. Maybe the author was in Shanghai, did have some similar experiences, but is now fictionalizing them (and his own persona) back home, say, in Denver. Admit it, it’s possible….
4. After running several comparison tests of various Chinese sources–this one shows it enjoying only a slight advantage–it’s clear that Google’s machine translation ability has far outpaced Altavista’s.
5. Lots of the Chinglish diatribes by angry young Chinese commenters on the ‘Sex and Shanghai’ blog read like they were translated using Altavista’s Babelfish tool.
6. The following are phrases from the machine translation versions that I want on t-shirts:
• Certainly must discover this trash, expels him China! ! !
• “my dear graceful, you have an excellent, pretty good…refined lower abdomen.”
• Susan I sent her a letter of good can achieve flirt, and through the Boke Schwartz to her task.”

And my favorite:

• I have only one thought : can forbearance, everyone can forbearance?

OK, click away:

• The ‘Sex and Shanghai‘ blog (under wraps as I post this)
• Zhang Jiehai’s call to Expel the Foreign Garbage
• Roland Soong’s translation of Zhang Jiehai’s Essay
• The Google Translator tool
• The Altavista Babelfish tool

Update: Get it while you can: ‘Sex and Shanghai’ via the Google Cache

Related: Sex and Shanghai’s “Chinabounder”: Pimple-Faced Geek in Denver, or Traitor in Our Midst?

Roddy writes:

A friend of mine just got caught out by this while visiting Beijing, and I figured I’d write this up in the hope that it might save some others some hassle . . .

I’m sure these and variations are in operation in other cities in China and worldwide, and a general warning to be on your guard when you’re in tourist areas is always warranted, but here’s some details.

The Beijing Teahouse Scam
You are happily wandering around somewhere like Wangfujing or Tiananmen and a friendly English student starts chatting to you. He or she speaks very good English, is friendly and shows you around, maybe helps you buy a few gifts, and subsequently suggests you go for a cup of tea at a nice teahouse he / she knows. The teahouse will be very nice, you will have some very nice tea, but you will feel slightly disturbed by the fact that they served tea without letting you see a menu, or that the menu has no prices on. You will assume this is how you do things in China.

When the bill comes it will be ridiculous. My mate got presented with one that was approaching a four-figure RMB sum, for a pot of tea. Even if there is a tea house in Beijing legitimately serving tea at that price, it sure as hell doesn’t pour without asking what you want first.

What happens now varies – some scream and shout, some yell for the police, some pay up meekly, even if it requires the use of foreign currency or a credit card because they haven’t got enough RMB on them.

Variations:
1) Art galleries. ‘Art students’ strike up a conversation and invite you to their gallery. You’ll see at best second rate art at top-rate prices, and will be lucky to avoid a high-pressure sales pitch. Spend your time at a real gallery. Real galleries, for reference, do not send English students out onto the streets pretending to be art students.
2) Bars. Seems to be more common in Shanghai, and uses pretty girls in too much make-up rather than innocent looking ‘English students’ in tracksuits. This is clearly because Shanghai attracts a lower-class of tourist, but that’s beside the point.

In any case, you’ll be in danger of paying a lot more for something than you should do, and at the very least you’re going to waste your time.

How to avoid it: Sad to say, if you are in an area where there are a lot of tourists in China, then 99% of people who approach you want something, whether they are postcard sellers, tour touts, Mao watch merchants, or scam artists as described above. Do not go anywhere which will involve spending money – be it a teahouse, a gift shop, an art gallery or a restaurant – with these people. If you are convinced that someone who approached you while you were standing on a street corner with your upside-down map and a copy of the Lonely Planet is genuine, fine – but go to a place of your choosing, and laugh in the face of anyone who gives you something you didn’t order, or presents you a price-free menu.

You can read the follow-up discussion and more information about these types of traveler scams in China at Chinese-Forums.com. Our thanks to Roddy for the warning and permission to share it via The Chinese Outpost.

Today you’re learning that I didn’t make it to Shanghai either, partly because various folks I’d hoped to meet there were going to be out of town when I could make it there, partly because we had too much going on here around Xiamen and Anhai to keep us busy.

But I feel like writing something about Shanghai anyway. Here it is….

But understand that these are not tourist Web sites, for those from Western countries who are planning a visit. No, these booming sites reflect the boom of Westerners who are invading Shanghai to live, to work, to play and–well, in some cases–to simply blog.

Before I introduce you to some of these leading sites, a word or two of background.

Nearly a century ago, before those minor interruptions of the Chinese Communist Revolution and years of hardline Communist rule, Shanghai was the happening place in Asia. Westerners had flocked there for business, missions work, and pleasure. In fact, it was a prime destination for many in the Leisure Classes of the United States and Europe, the Paris of the East.

It was also a financial center for that part of the world.

But then–pardon the overgeneralized history lesson—the Communists came into power, kicked out the foreigners and imprisoned, chased off, or executed the Chinese who were seen to be in collusion with the Foreign Devils. And Shanghai become just another city in Chairman Mao’s version of paradise.

But then fast-forward several years. Chairman Mao died. The Gang of Four fell from power, Deng Xiaoping said, “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice?”–not to mention “To get rich is glorious”–and suddenly the leading entrepreneurial and financial spirit that had left Shanghai to roost not too far away in Hong Kong for several decades began to return.

Already Shanghai is easily the financial capital of Asia again and, depending on which statistics you look at, is poised to give New York City a run for its money as financial capital of the world sometime in the next couple decades or so. (An article in this past weekend’s Seattle Times provides some additional food for thought on this “rise of Shanghai.”)

With all this activity going on in Shanghai, and so many Westerners taking up residence there, it should be no surprise that numerous Web sites are right there in the heat of things.

To get you started, here a just a few representative sites to help give you an idea of what’s going on in Shanghai, where I think there are now more Starbucks per capita than in Seattle.

• Shanghai Expat–A comprehensive community portal for expatriates of other countries living (or planning to live) in Shanghai.
• SmartShanghai.com–An urban webzine covering the nightlife, dining, culture, art, and stage in Shanghai.
• Shanghaiist–Part of the “Gothamist” network, Shanghaiist is a website about Shanghai and everything that happens in it. That means news and events, restaurants and bars, happenings and goings-on.
• China Herald–Weblog with daily updates of the news on the emerging civil society in China, from the quirky perspective of Brussels and Shanghai-based internet entrepreneur and China-consultant Fons Tuinstra.
• Shanghai Diaries–Former U.S. journalist, now a freelance writer and editor in China, Dan Washburn has launched “a website about Shanghai, China … and lots of other stuff.” (He’s also the editor of Shanghaiist.com, mentioned above.)
• Running Dog–News And Current Events From Shanghai, China and The World.
• Shanghai Streets–An incredible photo blog documenting scenes and people on the–you guessed it–streets of Shanghai.
• Shanghai Sky–Another incredible photo blog, this one Flickr-based, documenting scenes and events in Shanghai.

There are many more quality “Shanghai Sites,” but an hour spent browsing through just these–if you aren’t aware of what Shanghai has been up to in the past 25 years–will amaze and inform…and perhaps even change your view of the world.

And in case you missed Shanghai’s first heyday, check out this one:

• Tales of Old Shanghai–”Documenting a vanished age in a city which gloried in being `The Paris of the East’ and wasn’t shy about being `the Whore of Asia’.”