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New online link across Straits

By Qiu Yijiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-27 08:54

When 24-year-old Taipei resident Hsu Zih-yun asked men on the Chinese mainland whether they preferred women with long or short hair, she was delighted with their response.

As with most Taiwan men she knew, the men on the mainland preferred women with long, straight and black hair.

"That image appears a lot in Chinese literary works, especially in classic poems and love stories, to describe beautiful girls. I think what we read might be similar as well," Hsu told China Daily.

Although she has not been to the mainland, she was sure she would find it familiar when she visited it one day.

Hsu is one of many netizens from Taiwan as well as the mainland who are recently finding more about each other through a new online activity.

The activity, called "Taiwan Wants To Know" and jointly launched by QQ.com on the mainland and ipeen.com.tw in Taiwan at the end of last year, allows participants to use photos to help them learn about a wide variety of topics across the Taiwan Straits.

Netizens in Taiwan, mostly in their 20s, write down their questions on pieces of paper and take pictures of themselves holding the queries.

They then post the photos on the related website and waited for their counterparts on the mainland to reply back in the same way.

Yeh Hui-ching, the general manager of ipeen.com.tw, said the site has attracted more than 5,000 Taiwan participants and 268 of them put their pictures online. According to the activity's official website, xiaoyou.qq.com, there were nearly 280,000 answers contributed by netizens on the mainland.

"It helps Taiwan youths to discover interesting lives on the mainland," Yeh said.

"We also get big smiles from our friends."

Most of the online questions focused on study, work and entertainment and ranged from queries on dream jobs to food in university canteens.

But the most frequently asked questions were about impressions of Taiwan, such as "Do you like Taiwan?" and "If you go to Taiwan, where do you want to go?"

Yeh said page visits of ipeen.com.tw from the mainland tripled after the activity and mainland netizens began to initiate discussions on Taiwan's online forums.

"The more they know each other, the more similarities they find between them," Yeh said.

"Some even became friends through the activity."

"We are very curious about life on the other side, but there are few online activities to facilitate communication between young people," Hsu Zih-yun said.

Young netizens were also surprised by some of the answers.

For example, they never realized how famous Sun Moon Lake was for visitors from the mainland. The opportunity to see pandas was also a rare and treasured experience for them.

According to Li Chun, the project manager of the activity in QQ.com, university students from the mainland took the lead in answering questions. One question was usually followed by more than a hundred replies.

"It is just a beginning. During the activity, we see both young netizens from the mainland and Taiwan wanting to know more about each other. Young people no longer only rely on TV, films or publications for information," Li said.

"So new, creative online activities to strengthen mutual understanding are much needed now."