Unfortunately The Modern Leifeng seems to no longer be with us, though his old blogspot blog, last updated in 2010, is still extant, and he's still posting about football in the orient over at Wild East Football. Likewise GongShangFa-blog appears to be "pining for the fiords", which is a pity given that writer's enjoyably acerbic commentary on the China scene.
Froogville, an early blogger on the China scene, stopped updating in late 2012 and hasn't been seen since. I urge all HHGG fans to check out this post which suggests about as good an explanation of the plot of Douglas Adam's masterpiece as is ever likely to be put forward.
Run Run Roll, a Taiwan re-expat blog that charted an expat's attempt to keep living the expat dream for as long as possible, finally rolled to a halt last year it seems and no longer loads. Under The Jacaranda Tree hasn't posted in more than a year, but, more to the point, it's been just too long since they posted anything I was interested in reading - they're out.
Exiledonline is still up, but failed to live up to the standard of the original eXile after they got thrown out of Russia. I urge you to read this excellent 2010 Vanity Fair article which tells their story, but all the same they're out too.
So what's left? Here's some China/expat blogs that are still up-and-running and well worth your attention:
- The Peking Duck - a veteran China blog that still delivers quality.
- The Big Lychee - The longest-running China blogger that I am aware of, albeit Hong-Kong oriented. Still posts regularly as clock-work, as he had since at least the days of Tung Chee Hwa (and possibly back to the immediate pre-handover days in '97), and still always has something interesting to say. Today's piece on the state of the Hong Kong English-language media is a must-read.
- Just Recently - I guess it's now time to confer veteran status on JR, who has steadily posted since 2008 and every week uncovers a nugget of interesting information.
- The Writing Baron - My old pal JB, still battling in the trenches as an journalist, skeptic, and music writer in Taiwan.
- Imagethief - back to blogging with this well-written piece.
People have been talking about the "slow asphyxiation" of the blogosphere, at least the world of China/expat blogs, for a while now. Personally, whilst I no longer use the blog to simply share links that people I know will be interested in reading (Facebook and Twitter are much better for this) I still occasionally have an idea about something in the news that I'd like to write down somewhere and is just too long for a Facebook post, where it will likely get lost amongst the cat memes anyway. Blogs like the ones above show I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
1 comment:
Interesting links and wrap up, thanks.
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