Made in China: Presenting Second Life in Beijing

China Tracy creates avatar of Hamlet Au's avatar (photo also by China Tracy)

As promised, here's a brief glimpse of my August trip to China to speak at the Get it Louder arts festival.  Posting this feels slightly self-indulgent (OK, very), but it's also a pictorial glimpse at how far Second Life's influence has spread.  It was also the ultimate mixed reality experience, because it would not have happened if I hadn't spotted a mysteriously beautiful avatar on an SL machinma speaking in Chinese subtitles a few months ago-- or for that matter, spotted my own avatar in the middle of Beijing's insanely busy airport.

At China's main airport, you come through the terminal into a cavernous welcoming area where a throng of tour guides are waving welcome signs at disembarking passengers, and I had no damn idea how I'd find the Get it Louder staffer who was supposed to welcome me in that throng.  And after 16 hours of flying, I sure wasn't looking forward to it.

Photo from China Tracy's blog

I didn't have to worry, however, because my own head was bobbing among them.  China Tracy was there to welcome me-- or rather, her real life persona Cao Fei was-- and she'd stuck a screenshot of my avatar on a long white picket.

Photo by Schlink Lardner of Techsoup.org

I spoke at Get it Louder largely thanks to her instigation and generous help.  Vivacious, effortlessly cool, vastly talented, and more tech savvy than most people I know in San Francisco, Cao Fei represents the very best of the new China, and I'm lucky to call her a friend.

Photo by Schlink

Many of the GiL talks were held in an upscale Taiwanese-owned shopping mall in the heart of the Chaoyang business district, which is where I gave mine.  (And I do mean upscale: the complex is ringed with security guards in full dress uniform, and when you leave the premises at closing time, all the shop girls stand in a line outside their booths, and bow as you pass.) 

I presented a general overview of SL and what I'd written about it, and of course, that meant describing Burning Man, which heavily influenced Philip Linden during the development of Second Life.  If a few years ago you told me I'd soon visit Beijing to publicly talk about a sex-and-drug infused art bacchanal in the Nevada desert, I'd call you crazy.  At the same time, while it's important to talk about China's Internet censorship (which I wrote about for GigaOM here) and other grave issues, it's important to realize how culturally sophisticated, diverse, and internationally aware the country has already become in a couple decades of relative openness.  (As it happens, for example, there's already an active bohemian/"hippy" subculture in China, the subject of an project Cao Fei is working on now.)

Photo by Schlink

That's my cool and able English translator Li Ruyi-- also an active Second Life user, as it happens, who goes by the name Lawrence Dutton.  During the question and answer period (when an audience largely comprised of young artists and students asked sharp questions), a Chinese journalist jumped up with a sheathe of notes and started peppering me with questions critical of Second Life, only one in five of which were accurate.  Not his fault, though-- he was citing a translation of the poorly-informed Los Angeles Times story from July.  What's that they say about bullshit getting halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on?  I fricking lived it.

Photo by Schlink

A group discussion after my talk, where I was joined by Creative Commons China project manager Wang Chunyan (the woman in the center), along with HiPiHi founder Xu Hui (left of me) and HiPiHi policy director Zhang Anding-- also a Second Life Resident and a talented musician.  (He composed the great soundtrack to Cao Fei's SL machinima "i.Mirror".)  Note our avatars acting as name badges.  This is also the time I got invited to see HiPiHi up close at the company office, which I wrote about at length for GigaOM.

Photo by Schlink

After the Beijing trip, Schlink and I took a plane to Shanghai, and drunk on the sights, I Twittered the following message from my Blackjack:  "The Bund skyline, I gotta say, is still more crazily spectacular than anything in Second Life so far... So get to it, builders!"  This is pretty much what I was looking at, when I did so.

There's more from the talk at the Get it Louder blog (also here); my thanks to urbane GiL curator Ou Ning and festival sponsor Thomas Shao of Modern Media, who also threw a kickass opening party.

Comments

[China Tracy]

Cool. Welcome to stay in Beijing! haha:)

[Ken March]

Hey Hamlet Au, I am so glad you have a great journey and so happy to see that u are taking in every minute and all the expereinces in china! I miss your talks at Get it Louder.

[rikomatic]

Sounds like an awesome adventure! Thanks for sharing it. The real world yet has things to delight the eyes and ears that the virtual world can not match.

Now, what did you eat?

[Hamlet Au]

Lots and lots and lots and lots of noodles. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Also, the best Peking duck and Chinese feast I've ever had, and a Shanghai dumpling dinner that's also in my Top Ten All Time Meals.

[swannjie]

wowow, this is so exciting. I am happy to see all this explosion of immersive artistic creative worlds in China. :) Also, somehow this sl in china doesnt feel like a parallel vicarious world, but quite different, as if its attached to the real world. The sl in booming China is not the same as sl in the "developed" world. People can and do contribute in a realistic way. I could imagine that a greater proportion of people could actually live and survive by going to work in sl, if they employ their activity in a useful way. Not just by camping. :)

[Janik, Beijing]

Cool :)