Declaring a separation from irrational online public opinion

Lu Jinbo, a superstar publisher and the man behind the Han Han and Wang Shuo brands, keeps a blog on Sina where he discusses publishing, pop culture, his daughter, and from time to time, current events.

In yesterday’s post, he turned his attention to online public opinion in the wake of the Hangzhou “70kph accident.” Lu has been involved in online conversation for over a decade, and in the piece translated below, he worries that bigoted, hate-filled comments give outside observers the wrong impression about Chinese public opinion in general.

I don’t believe in much. Like XX Network Broadcast, for example (even though I just finished bragging that I appeared on it*). However, right now I’d really like to air out a particular disbelief — online public opinion.

Online public opinion seethed about the Hangzhou accident, centering on the theme “swift, harsh punishment,” and apparently wishing that the driver had been shot dead on the spot. And prior to this, in the case of Yang Jia killing six police officers in Shanghai, online public opinion, as represented by Ai Weiwei and his ilk, said, “spare him with a state pardon.”

My opinion: Hu Bin (the name of the driver) was just a disobedient youth. He sped, and had a traffic accident — is that a capital crime? — he did not drive drunk, and he had no motive for taking revenge on society or disturbing public security. Yang Jia, on the other hand, took six innocent lives, so why did he become a hero? Ai Weiwei, if your brother was one of the six ordinary policemen who were killed, would you still glorify him as a “hero?” Hatred of the rich. Hatred of the system (officials and police). These have a basis in society and in history. However, when public opinion relies on hatred, not the law, not reason — does that make for a society that’s even a tiny bit better?

Nationalism. Hatred. Bigotry. Violence — This is normal online public opinion.

Americans love being a global cop. The French government does not have friendly policies toward Chinese people. There’s historical enmity between us and Japan. The Koreans like to snatch away “Chinese medicine patents” and claim “Sun Yat-sen was a Korean.”*

So our public opinion, our patriotic youth, cry “serves them right” about the 9-11 crashes, they torch the French flag, they pour out drinks from Carrefour, they want to kill the Japanese, they boycott Korean goods.

One thing that made a deep impression on me was when the JoongAng Ilbo sent an email asking to interview Han Han. One question was: In our observation of the Chinese Internet, Chinese youth are strongly anti-Korean. As a representative of Chinese youth, how does Han Han view this phenomenon?

— I strongly advised Han Han to accept the interview. I thought, Han Han, at least, is a special case, because he says, we’re neighbors, and the youth of Asia ought to learn from each other in peace.

Leaving aside nationalism and violent tendencies, have you ever noticed the comments that get attached beneath racy pictures? The vast majority are all XXXX. Utterly indecent. And in most other comments sections as well. Whether at Han Han’s blog, or here, or at Li Chengpeng’s, or Baobao and Ah-zi’s. They’re all hurling abuse for no reason.

Do oral sex and vituperation allow net users to vent, and do they increase the happiness index?

I first went online more than a decade ago. At that time, “net friends” (网友) was the trendy term. You could say that they were the social elite of the time.

But today, from reminiscences of “net friends,” my “net friends,” our youth, or 21st Century compatriots, may very well be nationalists, bigots, oral sex fiends, compulsive fulminators….

These phenomena are all “on the record” on the Internet. I am quite worried that outsiders will judge Chinese youth on this basis.

So in a small voice, I declare my separation from “online public opinion.” I wait the voices of more rational, common-sensical, ethical, internationally-aware young people to appear on the great stage of the Internet.

# The Network News broadcast Lu alludes to in the first paragraph was a mention of his partnership with a state-owned publishing company. His blog post about the broadcast contains a short summary of his experiences in publishing over the last decade and forms a handy snapshot of the development of the “author as brand” trend in Chinese literature.

Today’s Network News reported about successes achieved by Northern United Publishing & Media and its private partner, our Wanrong Books, to be specific. I appeared on-screen for three seconds, and my voice was heard for ten. Reportedly, in two days, Focus Interview will have a far longer clip, and I keep thinking that if it’s not one minute, it should at least be thirty seconds….at any rate, to show his face on CCTV’s Network News, your friend went out at six in the morning and was running all over all day until coming home at midnight….

The best thing about the program is that my mom and dad finally believe that I’m engaged in legitimate business!

In the past few days I had interviews with Business magazine and German’s Frankfurt Rundschau. One question that came up in both was, what’s your view of your field’s assessment of you?

I said, you probably mean that I’m a controversial figure. I know that most of my colleagues don’t like me. But I feel that I am an innovator in the field, a reformer. What I’ve done for publishing needs to be placed against the current of history to realize — and at this point, I couldn’t hold back my laughter. Heh heh.

Subjectively speaking, the ignorant are fearless. I have either led the industry or have been an early adopter of the following changes:

• 2000: Edited the country’s first “net lit series” (I wasn’t even an agent then);
• 2002-2003: Graphical adaptations of novels. Annie Baobei’s Qiyue and Ansheng and Guo Jingming’s Happiness Engraved in Memory sold around 100,000 copies apiece and started a trend;
• 2002: Printed small-sized books on lightweight “Munken paper” rather than standard two-sided paper, making for thick, light-weight books;
• 2005: Paid out 2 million each to Han Han and Annie Baobei, starting the domestic trend toward “astronomical manuscript fees.” Content became the chief battleground in publishing;
• 2006: Created Girlneya, the “100 million yuan girl,” in a practice called “publishing industrialization”;
• 2006: Built an alliance of downstream retailers;
• 2007: First ad insert in a book, Wang Shuo’s My Millennium. The ad bookmark brought hundreds of thousands in profit;
• 2008: As an individual, formed a partnership enterprise with a state publishing company (a listed company). Through April, 2009, after a year in business with Publishing & Media, the central government finally stated that our reforms are totally in accordance with relevant rules.

In addition, in the area of publishing work, I adhere to:

• Business strategy — a specialty publishing agency, only handling literature;
• In dealing with authors, establish an agent-like long-term stable relationship in which the individual or brand, rather than any particular book, comes first; for the product, the majority of books are hardcover, leading a hardcover book revolution.

Today, lightweight paper is widely used, hardcover books are rising in popularity, price wars over manuscripts are ever more intense, and alliances are still developing. Bookmark advertisements, publishers industrializing publishing by getting involved in content (what I consider to be a forward-looking concept), and the trend of private book agents partnering with state-owned enterprises all continue to go on. It’s sector reform and development in miniature. My own small experiences are part of explorations involving countless other colleagues, and it’s only because I’m a publicity-hound that people are dismissive. To quote an old saying, “It is unfair!” Ha!

Note: It was actually the New Express, a Guangzhou-based newspaper, that fabricated a news item alleging that a Korean newspaper had claimed Sun Yat-sen for the country. The newspaper was later reprimanded by GAPP.