Translating success: China see, China do

Jun 18, 2007 01:47

It's gotten to the point where China has become almost synonymous with the word "knockoff".

A wildly successful startup in the West, often just given a .cn domain name and released into the Middle Kingdom to gobble up Sino-profits. I've touched on these Chinese copycats before.

They're not uncommon.

The New China likes money. And if it there's a proven method of making money in the West, you can bet someone is gonna try it here in the Far East.

Exhibit A:

Alex Tew's Million Dollar Homepage
An innovative student from Britain starts up a Webpage and sells each and every pixel on the screen (a million of them altogether) for a dollar each. At the top of the page is the slogan "Own a Piece of Internet History!" Advertisers buy up all the space within six months, and this kid makes off with a cool million.

Meanwhile, over in China:
1baiwan.com (translates into "1 million") has labelled itself as Million Dollar Homepage Chinese Edition, and claims "We are the first and only successful Chinese Million Dollar Homepage." At the top of the page is the slogan "Be a Part of Chinese Internet History."

Exhibit B:

Little Red Paperclip
26-year-old Kyle MacDonald from Montreal sets out with the ambitious task of trading a single red paperclip for a house. He did so in small increments, step-by-step, trading for a pen, and then a handmade doorknob, gradually increasing in value until after 14 trades, he finally had a house. Very cool!

Meanwhile, over in China:
Little White Lie
Chinese girl Ai Qingqing claims on her Web site that she was "inspired" by MacDonald, and sets out to trade a paperclip for a house in 100 days. Hers was a drama that captivated the media, with reports that she had even lost her job because her trading was distracting her from work.

But, of course, things are not always as they seem:

The trading ended on January 23 this year, when Ai signed a contract with a record company to become a singer and broke up with the man who was the brains behind the operation.

Yang Xiuyu, nicknamed Li Er, had revealed that he masterminded the whole thing, not just the idea of copying the Canadian miracle, but every step along the trading route.

He wrote the blog and chatted with netizens using the name Ai Qingqing. In real life, Ai Qingqing was Wang Xiaoguang, just an actress in the drama produced and directed by Yang.

The 34-year-old discovered the money-making potential of Internet advertising and promotion four years ago when he was working in a Shanghai-based foreign company and surfing on the Internet to kill time like many other white-collared workers.

He said he planned to act as Wang's manager when Wang became famous with his help.

"I could have earned more than a million yuan (about US$130,000) from this operation," Yang boasted.

After splitting from his "actress", Yang's profit turned out to be considerably less than he had hoped.

But the operation was nevertheless a lucrative affair, netting him a six-digit profit. "I should have signed a formal contract with her. I'll do that next time," Yang said. Source

So what have we learned here today?

Lets just say that these two examples don't build much of a case for Chinese creativity. But if necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, then Chinese invention shouldn't be far off.

Because like no other country, Red China seems to have a serious craving for green.

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