This week is news-intensive. Three of our top five videos are hard news, and very political. This is another piece of evidence that suggests the younger generation goes online for more than just entertainment, but is genuinely interested in information.

Uploaded on: February 4, 2010
Total Views: 1,125,672
Thumbs Up: 11.3%
Comments: 2,927

This video clip is only a simple slide show with subtitles talking about President Obama’s announcement to “get much tougher” on China regarding currency rules to protect American’s competitiveness. Hormone-laden Chinese youth of course won’t like this news, no matter how much they may have been fond of Obama previously.

Uploaded on: January 31, 2010
Total Views: 817,478
Thumbs Up: 85.9%
Comments: 1,142

A typical CCTV news piece about Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of China He Yafei protesting to the U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr., on Obama’s approval on a $6.2 billion-dollar arms sale package to Taiwan. Yes, Youku users were mostly enraged. But there were a surprising number of commenters who broke ranks with the usual line to wonder what was wrong with Taiwan buying arms from the U.S.

Uploaded on: January 29, 2010
Total Views: 799,876
Thumbs Up: 12.1%
Comments: 5,465

Xiao Qing (小青) posted a note online, seeking help for a face-lift. She wants to look exactly like Jessica Alba, with whom her ex-boyfriend has been crazily obsessive. Her ex not only covered all available surfaces with pictures of Jessica, but also forced Xiao Qing to imitate Jessica at all times, including in bed. Xiao Qing had to wear make-up while sleeping. After one altercation on streets when Xiao Qing finally had enough and tossed off her Jessica style wig, they broke up. The sad thing is that Xiao Qing wants to get back with him so badly that she decided to get plastic surgery. Since she had no money, she went online and publicized her twisted love story. She promised to pay anyone helping her 2,010 RMB. A wild story, with many ordinary commenters trying to talk Xiao Qing down. In Chinese culture, what you receive from your parents, your body, your face, your hair and your nails are all precious and better to keep intact. Why change your face for someone actually loves a fantasy?

Uploaded on: January 30, 2010
Total Views: 766,463
Thumbs Up: 94.3%
Comments: 821

This is the season for going home for millions of Chinese. Traditionally geographically-fixed Chinese are now roaming China and the world for better opportunities. When it comes to Chinese New Year, the contemporary world marvels at the spectacle of hundreds of millions of people traveling at the same time. What touches me in this video collage is that the normally restrained Chinese are now publicly and fluently expressing their love and longings to their families. Well, I personally wouldn’t find it so easy to say such heart-felt words directly to my solemn parents.

Uploaded on: February 4, 2010
Total Views: 689,377
Thumbs Up: 70.4%
Comments: 0

China opposes on Obama’s upcoming meeting with Dalai Lama. What a surprise. I have to say I am a bit surprised by the thumbs-up rate; I expected a higher rate, but it’s actually barely over 70%.

Uploaded on: January 24, 2010
Total Views: 2,553,280
Thumbs Up: 84.0%
Comments: 1,331

Xu Jie (徐杰) is an 11-year-old boy who can imitate a few established female singers with such fidelity that listeners often can’t tell Xu from the original. He’s particularly skillful when it comes to sad love songs. Xu Jie, born and raised in Taiwan, gained fame there through a talent show, and uploaded his singing clips to Youku, immediately attracting millions of Youku users. This clip is from his performance at the Youku Top Talents Award Ceremony, where he received an award. The event garnered intense media coverage which furthered Xu Jie on his fast track to open China’s market.

Uploaded on: January 24, 2010
Total Views: 1,304,048
Thumbs Up: 82.5%
Comments: 1,557

Our cutest Michael Jackson Jr., Xiao Bao, couldn’t possibly have been overlooked by the Youku Top Talents Award! Looking at his clothing and the way he moves and smiles will simply melt your heart. And baby he can dance. Only 4 years old, Xiao Bao was discovered in a talent show, but doubled his fame online.

Uploaded on: January 23, 2010
Total Views: 1,257,387
Thumbs Up: 66.2%
Comments: 1,574

Shanghai stand-up comedian Zhou Libo attended the Youku Top Talents Award Ceremony. I am betting his catch line will be one of the top web lines for the year of 2010. Already, many Chinese netizens are quoting his catch line inspired by Youku Top Talents Project (Niu Ren Project，牛人计划). “What is Niu (牛, bull)? It’s all pressured out (逼, bi, being pressed).(牛是被逼出来的。)” Niubi is a popular slang but considered obscene in Chinese, and can refer to someone’s being arrogant but can also mean something like “damn awesome!” The audience roared with laughter. The bull in China stands for strength, hard work, persistence, and silence. And as of today, we are still in the Chinese lunar year of ox, bull.

Uploaded on: January 26, 2010
Total Views: 1,171,800
Thumbs Up: 98.0%
Comments: 4,461

The most widely circulated image is startling: a man in shorts stands in the middle of the busy street with shiny knives, his chest bloody. The stance feels tragic and somewhat heoric. Within two days, views surpassed one million, with a thumbs-up rate as high as 98%. Li Enwang（黎恩旺）called the local press before he acted. He painted his chest red, and went to his previous company for money he claimed the previous boss owed him. Though it turned out the boss was mostly innocent, still, netizens are on the other side. Why? Li said, his biggest dream in his life is to stay one night in one five-star hotel. He was born in a disavantaged family, and never had any chance to do anything he would like to. He doesn’t want to die with nothing. He wanted to threaten his previous boss to lend him money to open a barber shop. He said, it’s not that his previous boss is unable to help him, but very much able to help him.

Uploaded on: January 27, 2010
Total Views: 1,010,935
Thumbs Up: 43.3%
Comments: 1,760

This paike video records one Rich Second Generation’s marriage. Li Zhaohui, one of the richest man in Shanxi, married a movie star who is most famous for her impressive and hilarious supporting role performance in the popular movie, If You Are The One（非诚勿扰）. Though young, Li Zhaohui controls a big company after his father was dramatically assassinated in his office.

Tao Xiangli, a migrant worker from Anhui now living in Beijing, has only five years of primary education. Yet he single-handedly designed and built a functioning submarine out of oil drums, taking his submersible craft into the depths of a reservoir.

Millions of Chinese learned of this legend originally from Youku. As has happened to many Youku talented individuals discovered on Youku, the mainstream press soon enthusiastically followed. The final installment of the Youku Top Talents Awards (Niu Ren) Ceremony was held in Shanghai over this past weekend, and has so far been watched by close to six millions Youku viewers.

Though bathed in the limelight, Tao – one of 35 award winners – kept his demeanor as a humble farmer as he beamed sincerely. Tao accepted the award, but said little. Pressured by the host on how the idea of building a submarine had first occurred to him, he smiled shyly, and stammered out his reply: “Age.”

“Age?” The astonished hosts pressed on.

“Age. Thirty. You have to do something at the age of thirty.” He didn’t quote the original saying by Confucius, which says 三十而立 – sanshi er li, “at thirty I was established.” But Chinese fully understood the reference.

His story was told more in details by the Youku paike who discovered him while one day he passed by the reservoir and noticed a strange man testing out what we now know was a homemade submarine, replete with a real sonar system.

It is a long and hard journey both for Tao and Youku paike, who goes by the name of Zhima (“Sesame”). In this case, Sesame opened up a gateway – if not to fortune, than at least to fame.

According to Sesame, after witnessing an initial test failure, he no longer dared watch and record Tao’s dream; it seemed so far beyond reach. But over the course of three years Tao, worked on the project night after night after his demanding daily work. His girlfriend, who feared that one failure might prove fatal, never showed up and never offered support. To understand the fear, watch the faithful recording of the final experiment on Youku. Though you are assured of it final success, the three minutes of seems to go on for far longer, and you find yourself holding your breath while the reservoir’s surface ripples gently in the wind.

A single token of love, but one nonetheless moving, was that one day Sesame noticed Tao went down to the reservoir wearing a hat. Previous experiments under harsh sunlight had burned Tao’s skin. Sesame inquired, and Tao replied in his signature terse style: “From my girlfriend.”

It was mission impossible. Tao had no money. He could only buy one or two cheapest components from second-hand markets after receiving his meager wages. He had initially estimated that the project would take a year and cost about 10,000 yuan, but everything tripled. When asked about the most difficult aspect of this project, begun in 2007, Tao didn’t cite flagging confidence but practical economic hardship.

To the many who simply dismiss him as a lunatic, Tao replies calmly: “Well, maybe it’s different from overseas. You know, overseas, you would be encouraged, but here, there’s the constant pressure of people criticizing and disparaging you. Then you just want to work it out (to prove a point).”

The surprisingly constructive negativism is in many ways characteristically Chinese. As the the independently-spirited Shanghai stand-up comedian Zhou Lipo interpreted it at the Award Ceremony stage: “What is Niu (牛, bull)? It’s all pressured out (逼, bi, being pressed).” Niubi is a popular slang but considered obscene in Chinese, and can refer to someone’s being arrogant but can also mean something like “damn awesome!” The audience roared with laughter. The bull in China stands for strength, hard work, persistence, and silence. And as of today, we are still in the Chinese lunar year of ox, bull.

Zhou went on praising on Youku’s Niu Ren Project(牛人计划). China being notorious for its inefficiency and and waste of real talents, a platform such as Youku’s is in need for those silent, disadvantaged, overlooked grassroots talents otherwise would never have a chance. “We need this grassroots Oscar ceremony to provide a channel.”

As Tao disclosed in other interviews, he knew he was an overlooked talent awaiting a discoverer. He needed Youku to be discovered. An inventor by heart, Tao has applied for over 20 patents and quite a few have already been approved. Tao never planned to sell his “submarine”, but he does have certain inventions he considers to be investable – for instance, a machine that can turn a cup of flour on one end into a bowl of cooked noodles on the other.

Youku founder and CEO Victor Koo said Youku delights in discovering so much grassroots talent, and is happy to see so many of them embark on a bigger adventures on a bigger stage.

But even if he encounters failure, Tao said of his own inventions, he will still continue on. “The most important thing is to do what you love to do.” Yes, this is non-stoppable.

Uploaded on: January 18, 2010
Total Views: 1,294,399
Thumbs Up: 22.5%
Comments: 2,900

Chinese started joining in on No Pants Day. This news from Guangzhou was about 20 youngsters who took off their trousers on subway to raise people’s awareness of the importance of environmental protection. The very low thumbs-up rate tells you that Chinese and westerners, even when they agree on a particular cause, might well go about expressing themselves in very different ways. I’m still not sure whether the connection of less clothing to and environmental protection is made…

Uploaded on: January 16, 2010
Total Views: 967,574
Thumbs Up: 94.0%
Comments: 666

After a complete solar eclipse, Chinese observed an annular solar eclipse the beginning of this year. Many Youku paike enthusiastically contributed their footage. This was the most popular one which was taken in Tengchong, Yunnan Province.

Uploaded on: January 17, 2010
Total Views: 948,006
Thumbs Up: 98.3%
Comments: 3,882

The guy on his knees for hours was begging for his lost mobile phone SIM card, in which stored many precious photos and video clips of his mother who died a year ago. He has no father, and relies on those photos and video clips to live on. A theif broke into his apartment when he was at work, and took away everything including the mobile phone. Guess we all should duplicate what we cherish just in case.

Uploaded on: January 20, 2010
Total Views: 808,473
Thumbs Up: 94.1%
Comments: 564

Haiti earthquake related reports were the headlines all over the world, but here in China with a bit of “Chinese characteristics”. The biggest news was this one on Haiti survivors rioting over rescue relief. It confirmed for many Chinese their smug beliefs that we Chinese are now more civilized and developed on a road to be the global leader. During the Sichuan earthquake, after all, did we not behave differently and in a much more glorious manner? Another popular news clip of course was about the eight Chinese volunteers died there.

Uploaded on: January 15, 2010
Total Views: 716,238
Thumbs Up: 18.8%
Comments: 2,432

Zhao Jue Monastery (昭觉寺) is promoted here in this paike video as a traditional yet modern one. Traditional in the sense that monks there practice Kung Fu and drink tea, modern as they chat online, use mobile phone and drive a car. Please note the background music is, for some reason, Christian.

Youku Launches Copyright Identification Management Platform
Pioneering Move in China to Promote Respect for Intellectual Property

BEIJING, Jan. 20 — Youku, China’s leading Internet video site, today announced the launch of its copyright identification management platform, the first of its kind in China. As Youku increases the scale of content acquisition and cooperation with its content partners in China and abroad, so increases the need for a more stringent copyright monitoring system built on more advanced technology. With the launch of the new platform, Youku radically improves its capability to identify and prevent the upload of infringing video content by Youku users. Through this system, legitimate copyright holders can take full advantage of Youku’s value chain, from content to platform to marketing.

Youku Chief Technology Officer Yao Jian said, “Trial operation of the copyright identification system has already begun for European and American audio-video copyright holders. Following this initial stage of operations, we will continue to improve and perfect the system, making it more efficient and more convenient to use.”

This year, Youku will embark on content acquisition on an unprecedented scale, as well as invest more in research and development for improved speed and a better overall user experience. The pioneering introduction of this copyright identification system in China will effectively accelerate the industry’s movement toward legitimate content, and will serve as an important protective measure for the Internet video industry.

Youku further announced that it has joined the China Network Copyright Committee, which announced its establishment today. The committee is the first official committee addressing online copyright issues in China.

CNNIC (the China Internet Network Information Center - don’t bother trying to figure out how that acronym’s supposed to fit) just released its 25th semi-annual survey report. You’ve probably already seen that the new number for total Internet users is 384 million, up from 338 million at mid-year 2009, and up from 298 million at the end of 2008. For Youku, of course, of significance is the report’s claim that there are now 240 million regular users of online video; CNNIC says that about 62.5 percent of China’s Internet users are watching video online. This is no real surprise to us, since we see internal numbers on unique visits to our site per month. If you add up home, office, and Internet cafe users, Shanghai-based iResearch puts our total number of monthly unique visitors at over 200,624,000, which we believe actually undercounts but still means that well over half of all Chinese Internet users visit Youku within a given month. And if you look at our monthly uniques as a percentage of the CNNIC number for Internet video users, we’re talking 84 percent. That’s a hefty share of the market!

Uploaded on: January 9, 2010
Total Views: 1,860,934
Thumbs Up: 79.7%
Comments: 205

Though it garnered a relatively high ratio of thumbs-up, this banal viral ad on a car is a real disappointment for many, but ranked as the No. 1 on our most-viewed Youku video this week. As some viewers revealed, it was all because of the attractive headline - Thailanders here again! If you recall, the Thai boxing vs. Kung Fu sensation was only a couple weeks ago.,

Uploaded on: January 9, 2010
Total Views: 1,456,057
Thumbs Up: 68.4%
Comments: 4,274

A red car took a turn too fast, flew over a ditch, drove right into a building, bounced back, rolled over, and finally got stuck in the ditch. Miraculously after all this, out from the totalled car comes a fashionable babe with only scratches her hands. Then, she starts dancing. She was apparently high on drugs, but the villagers, news reporters, local policemen, and quite a few Youku viewers who live in a different world all sincerely believed the babe was scared into this bizarre euphoria. Yes, there are two different worlds in one China now. The local policeman finally located the driver’s so-called “daddy” to take her home.

Uploaded on: January 8, 2010
Total Views: 1,023,182
Thumbs Up: 92.6%
Comments: 3,488

According to the uploader’s note, this Turkish boy’s dancing surpassed Michael Jackson’s, which might be a bit of an exaggeration and was the cause of most of the thumbs-down. But this boy is superb! It does seem like MJ reincarnate. In Chinese, he has the fanr (范儿, the charisma and talent, the “it” needed to succeed.)

Uploaded on: January 12, 2010
Total Views: 942,591
Thumbs Up: 36.7%
Comments: 1,060

This year, money will be an issue (就差钱). As reported, a sequel to Money is Not An Issue , a mini comic play that made Xiao Shenyang a household name overnight, has been officially selected into this year’s on CCTV Spring Festival Gala (春晚). But Xiao Shenyang will no longer be performing in this play. Many comments were expressing their disappointment in the worsening Spring Festival Gala programming. This is really an interesting social phenomenon: On one hand, Chinese care an awful lot about this gala; on the other hand, Chinese are crying for more artwork what can more accurately reflect their real life, rather than painting a simple rosy picture.

Uploaded on: January 8, 2010
Total Views: 829,815
Thumbs Up: 94.3%
Comments: 1,622

In order to pay tips to a waitress at KTV, a young robber went into an ATM with a brick in hand. He seems to be a novice in this line of work, and he was easily fought off by the slender woman and fled hastily with whatever he fished from the floor. He was soon apprehended in an hotel, and confessed to his crime straightforwardly. I can’t decode the 94.3% thumbs-up rate, but the buzz word among 1,622 comments left by Youku users is humorous. It’s “technical content (技术含量)”. We are living in a technology era, and all robbers should arm themselves with an iBrick, rather than a primitive real brick.

Chuan Zi (川子), a Beijing grassroots singer who enjoys a good reputation within the Youku community and even once dedicated a concert to Youku fans, is promoting a new song destined, I’m betting, to be another hit on the site: Happy Lane (Xingfu li,幸福里).

Obviously heavily influenced by Cui Jian, the “Godfather of Chinese Rock, Chuan Zi trades in straightforward, masculine marches. Here’s my translation of the lyrics. Sorry if the rhythms of the Chinese rhyme doesn’t quite come through.

Somewhere not far away from happiness, I think that is it
It has an appealing name, Happy Lane
40,000 yuan per square meters, I am making hard money everyday
I am ever cautious when spending too, but to move into Happy Lane
It would take me three centuries, and I still couldn’t afford
I have an old neighbor
Who moved into Happy Lane for no apparent reason
How on earth he made that much money
I am mad, really mad
I am mad, really mad

Where is Happiness itself? Not here in Happy Lane
40,000 yuan per square meters, no relations with me
Where is Happiness itself? 40,000 yuan per square meters
The house is too expensive, and we can not afford it
Where is Happiness itself? Not here in Happy Lane
40,000 yuan per square meters, we can not afford it

One of our favorite websites, ChinaHush.com, carried these translations from Chinnews.net and from the very popular forum Tianya condemning the forthcoming dismissal of nearly half a million substitute teachers. The dismissal of substitutes became a much-talked-about issue in 2008 (see this story), and has apparently been in the works since 2001, when a plan was announced to “dismiss people without teaching qualifications and gradually retire substitute teachers.” The recent announcement that 448,000 more teachers would be dismissed has raised netizen ire, and led to the postings of videos like this one.

The video above centers on a substitute teacher named Ge Yongxiu in Jiaomuiniu Village in Jinchuan County, Sichuan–a mountain village in a Tibetan cultural region of the province. She’s been a substitute teacher for 29 years. According to one of the comments by 凌海柏洋 (and we’re not sure of the accuracy of this), she only failed the college entrance exams by half a point, so she was unable to attend either Sichuan Normal University or Aba Normal Vocational College. When she started teaching in 1980, her salary was only 6.50 yuan a month — less than $2 at the exchange rate at the time. She now earns 500 yuan a month (about $70) a month, about one-sixth of what a minor government bureaucrat in Sichuan’s Tibetan regions makes. She says that she’s the breadwinner in her family of four (her children are both in high school), because her husband was injured in a fall and is unable to work a normal job.

Ironically, one of the textbooks that the children are reading is called Wei Zhonghua zhi jueqi er dushu, or “Study for the Rise of China.”

Many of the commenters remark that they were taught by substitute teachers like Ms. Ge, and credit teachers like her for making them who they are today. Others say they cried at watching this video. We believe this could turn into another instance where popular netizen anger over a proposed policy could see that policy softened or even reversed–something that’s become commonplace now in China, where the leadership at all levels pays very close attention to popular opinion as expressed on the Internet.

Uploaded on: January 3, 2010
Total Views: 1,600,693
Thumbs Up: 79.6%
Comments: 1,933

The mother of the late Anita Mui, a famous Hong Kong singer, came out during the New Year holiday accusing Andy Lau, alledgedly Anita’s dream lover and lifetime friend in reality, for taking advantage of Anita’s love. The real issue seems to have been that Anita’s family members can’t accept Anita’s will as she donated most of her estate but only left her mother 70,000 HK Dollars per month. While Anita’s family members saught Lau’s help in correcting Anita’s will, Lau was said to reject their appeal by saying he didn’t know Anita’s mother. The accusations about their tangled affair and/or friendship, began to fly–a perennial hot topic for Anita and Andy’s fans.

Uploaded on: January 1, 10
Total Views: 1,481,546
Thumbs Up: 90.0%
Comments: 1,329

Zhang Jie and Na Na, a pair of popular young singers that long have been rumored to be lovers, finally declared their love on a New Year Concert in Shenzhen. The title of the song they sang was Why Must We Stay Together, but they changed the lyrics to We Must Stay Together in the ending part.

Uploaded on: January 2, 2010
Total Views: 1,363,790
Thumbs Up: 73.6%
Comments: 1,535

A video news report on Taipei New Year Concert, which a glamorous affair with tons of big names in the entertainment industry along with a 188-second-long fireworks show.

Uploaded on: January 4, 2010
Total Views: 1,121,523
Thumbs Up: 88.2%
Comments: 476

Auspicious snow foretells a bumper harvest year, they say: 瑞雪兆丰年. Northern China welcomes 2010 with a copious falling of nice white snow! This collective Youku Paike video upload truthfuly and diligently records gorgeous wintery scenes and the palpable happiness and hope. (Notably absent are shots of people stuck on the tarmac at the airport, in traffic on Beijing’s jammed and slushy streets, or hapless pedestrians falling on their asses.)

Uploaded on: January 3, 2010
Total Views: 1,030,847
Thumbs Up: 31.7%
Comments: 952

With Christmas gone and Chinese New Year around the corner, it’s time for people to guess what the CCTV Spring Festival gala (春晚) will be like this year. This report is about Xiao Shengyang, the comic entertainer who gained overnight fame on last year’s Spring Festival gala. According to one insider, he will paired with another popular female entertainer, Jin Yuting (金玉婷), on a short comic play (小品) Song Ren Qing (送人情).