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“China’s Most Incredible Holdout” from the Bridge Bloggers” for Chinese Content

Sat, Mar 10, 2007

holdoutpost23.jpg

I found this great picture and a translation of the story behind it, by taking a tip from Virtual China today. I became a member of the chinesecontent space at Wikispaces. While this is a space mainly for a translators, there are many connections to a community of “bridge bloggers.” For example, Rebecca Mackinnon’s blog has a great list of some of the most famous Chinese-English “bridge bloggers,” bringing articles, blog posts, conversations, and debates from the Chinese-language Internet to the attention of the English-speaking world, particularly stuff that might “help the English-speaking world to understand China better.” They include LfC, Danwei, Interlocals, the China Media Project, and China Digital Times for starters.

I found the story listed on ESWN, a great bridge blog with many translations and interesting stories. The translation of this story is in Peering.Into.The.Interior. PITI writes “钉子户 = literally means ‘a slug house’ but it means someone who refuses to move out from their house. I have translated it as a ‘holdout,’ there might be a better translation but its all I could think of.” The whole story of “China’s Most Incredible Holdout,” is an interesting investigation of how this picture that first appeared on the web Feb 26th went viral, and how the original story was lost, elaborated on, and then pieced together and rediscovered by Chinese netizens. The original can be found here.

To check out “bridge blogs” from around the world go to Global Voices’ daily “Global Links” section. (”Bridge blogs” are blogs from a country or region that speak to a global audience).

categories: Virtual China
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7 Comments For This Post

  1. Brown Baron Says:

    Now that’s a great picture! That’s one effective way of making a statement heh.

  2. Camille Crawford Says:

    I really am enjoying your content. Please keep blogging! Thanks.

  3. Brad Says:

    Thanks for the link and comment, Tish. interesting indeed….

  4. turfgrrl Says:

    Fascinating story on how this story evolved and spread. Thanks for bridge blogging!

  5. Scooper Says:

    Hey UgoTrade, thanks so much for the clarification of this story that you posted on Scoopit. I lived in Asia for nearly 20 years, and saw a lot of crazy things, but this takes the cake. Nice bit of detective work you’ve done in piecing together the background.

  6. venture160 Says:

    I have done a translation of an interview with the homeowner, really interesting.

    http://venture160.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/interview-with-chinas-most-incredible-holdout/

  7. Keith Says:

    That is one remarkable story, and definitely not the kind of piece you’d normally hear about in today’s bite-sized journalism atmosphere, where foreign bureaus are being sliced and diced down to maybe one reporter and a tapedeck.

    This is the kind of stuff that will keep me coming back.

5 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. UgoTrade » Blog Archive » Interesting! Says:

    [...] Boing picked up the “China’s Most Incredible Holdout,” photo and story today (see my post [...]

  2. KuiperCliff Says:

    New man-made island in China…

    This story is destined to be much-blogged, now that Boing Boing have posted it (with added value, of course). Developers in Chongqing city, west-central China, are refusing to pay this resident’s £1.3m asking price – “he wants 20 million y…

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    [...] to Move[Ananova] Hold Out House[UgoTrade] [pic taken from UgoTrade] [...]

  4. UgoTrade » Blog Archive » Interview with China’s Most Incredible Holdout! Says:

    [...] it out!  A pioneering “bridge blogger,” has done a translation of this long interview with China’s Most Incredible Holdout,” giving  “an inside look into the local politics of relocation and the kind of [...]

  5. UgoTrade » Blog Archive » Netizen’s Rallying Round “China’s Greatest Holdout!” Says:

    [...] “nail house” blogged on Ugotrade on March 10th , and Boing Boing, March 12th, (hey I can’t resist pointing out again how I scooped Boing [...]