(Forwarded from [EMAIL PROTECTED] list)
Seth Johnson Committee for Independent Technology [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------- Original Message -------- Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 08:18:41 +0800 From: "Alan G. Alegre" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Very interesting....on different levels... ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Prosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 10:54 PM Geoffrey Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I recently came across a statistic claiming there are an >estimated 78,000 Chinese cybercafes (or wangba). I am >interested in learning more about the development of this >remarkably large "ecosystem". > >Is anybody aware of a good English-language resource on >the development and present dynamics of the Chinese >cybercafe industry? Geoffrey, I certainly don't know the answer to your broad question about internet bars or cafes in China, but I am teaching this year in Yangzhou University in Yangzhou, China, and am presently sitting in an internet bar (as it is called here) at the edge of campus at 10:45 PM. There are approximately 50 stations and all are filled. Many of the students are playing games, or watching movies as they have no TV in their dorms (and we have 24,000 resident students). Some are doing homework. As I move around certain areas of Yangzhou from one campus where I live to another campus where I teach, I certainly have seen several dozen internet bars, and at certain times, most are filled. Those farther from campus have a different sort of clientel, less educated, and more likely to play games on the internet. In Yangzhou, we pay 2 yuan an hour (8.2 Y per US dollar). I just asked a student who is a regular here, and speaks some English, who says that he thinks that there may be about 100 internet bars in Yangzhou (a city of 4 million), but that the government controls all internet bars and this limits the number of them. I also understand from other sources that there are 100,000 internet police in China. Recently, all of the English language internet services were "down" for three days two weeks ago, and 2 days the following week. I have been gone for a week so I don't know if they were down this past week too. Information from the US indicates that probably the internet police were scanning messages coming in, perhaps about terrorism, and this slowed down or caused the English language services to be blocked for the days that we couldn't get the service. US and British newspapers have been accessible and then blocked, and some are open a couple of weeks and then closed for a couple of weeks. The policy seems to be inconsistent. Chinese language internet sources have not been affected. At the university (7 campuses) each college or faculty has its own computer rooms for students, typically filled during the day when they are open. This adds more perhaps than the 100 mentioned above. Michael Prosser - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Internet and Democracy Across Asia: MAY 2001 Online Trends in Governance, Civil Society and Media More information at: http://www.e-democracy.org/do To SUBSCRIBE, send e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - C-FIT Home: http://RealMeasures.dyndns.org/C-FIT Send "[Un]Subscribe C-FIT_Community" To [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
