Rebels with fuzzy causes
The Internet has given rise to social groups that could not have existed without it. While some engaged in online campaigns that were destructive in nature, others wanted to spread love or silliness.
Mostly inspired by similar activities that first started overseas, young people took to the streets to offer "free hugs" or to simply do something eccentric or mildly crazy. Calling themselves the "flash crowd" or "flash mob," they would, say, spring up on a designated street corner and pound on the same tree, and then, just as suddenly, disappear without a trace.
Besides startling passers-by, it serves the purpose, according to organizers, of generating excitement and a sense of participation. Some analysts call it "behavioral art" and include one-night stands in the same category.
Pop go the professors
Scholars are supposed to stick to the podium on campus. But Yi Zhongtian did it all in his career and to great acclaim from his students. A miracle happened on his way to the CCTV studios, where he deciphered the classic history book The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms in a disarming style that recalled a storyteller of the stage.
A hit show was born a show not about movie stars and soap operas, but about the larger-than-life characters in a soap opera-like world of ancient China. It became the biggest classroom in the nation, and Yi, together with a dozen like-minded professors, gained the stature of stars.
Then, he parlayed his fame into bestsellers. When he auctioned off the rights to his book, basically a tidied-up transcript of his lectures, he sold it for a record 1.4 million yuan ($179,120). The current No 1 book on the bestseller chart is about Confucius' Analectics, penned by another professor who made her name on the same show.
Detractors charged that professors should keep to their own business and not be tempted by the spotlight of television. But the public seemed to embrace celebrity scholars who knew how to educate using the language of entertainers.
(China Daily 01/04/2007 page18)
