Prizes for patriots!

When I loaded up a computer at the internet bar a couple of days ago i was greeted with a generous offer of "heavy" prizes! (note, translation corrections are more than welcome; i'm pretty shit)

Apparently all i had to do was love China and i could get QQ money, "experience" or props for QQ's online game.

Of course i clicked the link. But to my disappointment it was a wrong address.

Determined, as a lover of China, to get my free "experience", i entered some of the text into a search engine, and it turned out more interesting than i even imagined.

On 17173.com, China's busiest gaming website, the promotion, roughly translated, is introduced thus:

"The mood in QQ Huaxia [online game] is urgent and angry - this is intolerable! It's been learned that "Concealing Dangerous Drugses" are hiding in the northern region..."

So what the hell is a Concealing Dangerous Drugs?

Well, it's ugly, has bad breath and is easy to kill. Oh and it's name, "Zang-du" (藏毒) is uncannily similar to "T!betan 1ndependence". ("Conceal" shares the same character as "T!bet", while "dangerous drug" shares the same pronunciation as "independence".)

And did i mention you get a "certificate of patriotism" for killing one?


You'd think perhaps, having gone to the trouble of renaming the monster separatists "Concealing Dangerous Drugses", QQ itself wouldn't admit the connnection with real Tibetans, but they do. This from an announcement of the upcoming promotion, titled (roughly as always) "Take your liberties with 'Zang-du' - QQ Huaxia to provide new services for angry youth to vent their rage":

"This time, QQ Huaxia stands up!

[...]

We're supporting the Olympics with our unique anti-T!betan 1ndependence online game content"

Of course, the online community doesn't exactly see a distinction either. And why should they? Chinese internet discussions about
T!betan 1ndependence have often used "藏毒" in order to avoid the censors and/or the Golden Shield, like i'm doing (probably unnecessarily) with that "T!bet" shit.

Now, lest i commit too severely the sins i have recently been preaching against, let me say that QQ Huaxia claims to have 1 million players, which isn't very many by Chinese online game standards. Still, they're obviously hoping that number will pick up.

"The most entertaining way for players to oppose T!betan 1ndependence - QQ Huaxia, with its patriotic new services, calls patriotic players around the world to spread the true red heart of patriotism, support the sacred flame and oppose T!betan 1dependence!"

It's significant to see a privately-owned company running a marketing ploy so unashamedly aimed at the fenqing (angry youth) and their nationalist sentiment. (Ironic, too in that the same market-driven principles resulted in China's recent rough ride in the American media.)

How well this works will be interesting, if not telling. But even if it's a huge hit, we can't forget our most popular games in the west are downright horrific if we take them at face value like this. The biggest difference is the marketing rhetoric from the company.

There already may be signs it's too bloodthirsty for many users online: at the bottom of the 17173.com page is a poll asking "how do you feel after reading this?", to which 25 out of 30 responses have been negative.

After all that, i'm not really any wiser on what the "experience" i could win for loving China is. But perhaps killing "Zang-du" isn't the one everyone on the Chinese internet is after.


Update 4/5: Needing QQ to play (i think it also costs money), i've been denied the opportunity of downloading the game and experiencing killing 'Zang-du' myself. If anyone out there can get on it please tell me how it goes...number 1 question, how does it feel compared to, say, igniting the 10 Hare-krishnas with the flame thrower in the original GTA, or stomping hecklers in the new GTA, or running down dogs with tanks in "Red Alert" (yes the 1996 one)?