There is a very popular website used by Chinese people that has very similar frame and format with Face Book. Then I call it Chinese Face Book. However, it is an individual web system which is a little different and separated from the Face Book. The name of this Chinese Face Book is “Xiao nei network” that means “On Campus network”, and it changed into “ren ren network” in August 2009 that means “Everyone network”. This website was first accessed by three universities in China 2005 that are Tsinghua University, Peking University and Renmin University. With the development of this website and fast growing popularity of the users, now, Xiaonei/renren website accesses to 32000 universities in China, 1500 universities in other countries, 56000 middle schools in China and 85000 companies all over the world. It means that you can find out any person who is/was in these schools and companies on this website if he/she is a user of it.
Because of the internet control from the Chinese government, we cannot access to many international websites including Face book, Youtube and so on in China. That’s why although I have had my Xiaonei over 3 years, I knew little about Face book until I came to America. Besides this accessibility problem, there is another reason why we have our own unique “Face book”: the language problem. Although students in my generation started to learn English from more than 10 years ago, English is still a problem for most of the Chinese, because we have little chance to use English in our daily life. Nearly all the channels on TV and radio are in Chinese; the books and newspapers are in Chinese; also, people search for information from Chinese websites.
When I first saw Ryan’s Face book, I felt it’s very interesting that the Face book and Xiaonei are like twins. I can’t help comparing these two networks, and I think my further search and understanding on the educational implication of Xiaonei the same goes for Face book.
The above picture is my Xiaonei. You can see that it’s nearly the same with your Face book. Through Xiaonei network I found many of my classmates in my elementary school and high schools that were out of touch for many years. And now we’ve joined in the same class and group again on Xiaonei. We friends on Xiaonei can see each others’ status, diaries, sharing, photos, etc. Even people who don’t know each other but have the same hobby or interests can join together as a group/club on Xiaonei to share and create what they are interested in.
Next time I will introduce more about what we Chinese students usually do on our Xiaonei, and how it is influence study and education.
Because of the internet control from the Chinese government, we cannot access to many international websites including Face book, Youtube and so on in China. That’s why although I have had my Xiaonei over 3 years, I knew little about Face book until I came to America. Besides this accessibility problem, there is another reason why we have our own unique “Face book”: the language problem. Although students in my generation started to learn English from more than 10 years ago, English is still a problem for most of the Chinese, because we have little chance to use English in our daily life. Nearly all the channels on TV and radio are in Chinese; the books and newspapers are in Chinese; also, people search for information from Chinese websites.
When I first saw Ryan’s Face book, I felt it’s very interesting that the Face book and Xiaonei are like twins. I can’t help comparing these two networks, and I think my further search and understanding on the educational implication of Xiaonei the same goes for Face book.
The above picture is my Xiaonei. You can see that it’s nearly the same with your Face book. Through Xiaonei network I found many of my classmates in my elementary school and high schools that were out of touch for many years. And now we’ve joined in the same class and group again on Xiaonei. We friends on Xiaonei can see each others’ status, diaries, sharing, photos, etc. Even people who don’t know each other but have the same hobby or interests can join together as a group/club on Xiaonei to share and create what they are interested in.
Next time I will introduce more about what we Chinese students usually do on our Xiaonei, and how it is influence study and education.
