These days, Jimmy Wales appears on every page of Wikipedia to call for donation, as he usually does every year. I donate $5 to show my appreciation to this great website from which I absorbed knowledge. At the same time, I can’t help thinking about the reason why Wikipedia isn’t so popular in mainland China.
Began in late 2002, the Chinese Wikipedia is the earlies encyclopedia websites in Chinese language, in fact, it is earlier than most Chinese website. It should have absolutely advantages in developing. However, from the year 2004 on, this website was keep blocked in mainland China for years, on and off, because some sensitive topics appeared on it. The blocking had very big negative impacts, while, at the same time, some national online wiki showed up, such as Hudong(established in July, 7th, 2005) and Baidu Baike(established in April, 20th, 2006). Bearing the censor from the government, these websites soon dominance this market.
We call online encyclopedias Web 2.0, that is, everyone is involved in it, people share their knowledge, and make their own contribute. A well built online wiki attracts more come to visit. And these visitors in turn make contributions to it. This is like some sort of positive cycle. Chinese Wikipedia had a nice start; however, its positive cycle was broken by the blocking. Because they can’t access to Wikipedia, users have to turn to other online wiki, e.g. Hudong. When a lot of people start to revise and refine Hudong, it become more completed, this in turn attract more visitors. So, when the Chinese Wikipedia final came back in 2008, it’s very hard for it to get back these users.
In short, the Chinese Wikipedia lost its best develop opportunities, because of the blocking by mainland government. I think, the government is more willing to see national online wiki, which are in their censor system, grow.
Cook with ginger
In Price Chopper supermarket, stopping at the vegetable section to choose the next week’s food, you may wonder why some people come to buy the ginger beside you. Have no idea about it at all?
Chinese food wouldn’t be the same without ginger. It is widely used from stews to stir-fried dishes. Ginger is usually used when cook pork, beef, fish, and so on. It is believed that ginger can help improve the taste.
The first step of any stir-frying cooking is heat the oil with ginger in it. Together with the green onion, diced ginger are fried before the meat being deep fried, this make the meat less smell, and more delicious.