China's Diva Has Undergone Revolution !

We covered this in a previous post, though lightly; so today instead of writing anything semi-intelligent, I’m going to let my decaffeinated brain do the posting. If I’m lucky I may be able to pop a few insights before I finish writing this post, if not.. well there’s some funny pictures worth a scan and a quick laugh so we still all win.. sorta.

Ah the suspense. Today I’m going to focus on “Feng Jie” or “Sister Feng”, a local Chinese agency created celebrity. One thing I’ve noticed about the Chinese web is there tends to be a better appreciation for things negative, which is distantly supported by a recent Nielsen study showing Chinese to be the most likely to make negative reviews.

This dragon woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

So Chinese tend to be more negative, or cracking open my thesaurus, they tend to be more cynical and less likely to encourage others. Rather it seems as a whole, they sort of enjoy watching a good fight, a traffic accident street side argument, or your general train wreck in progress; if the above Nielsen graphs didn’t rock your boat, then a good place to find evidence of this negative gamma is on Chinasmack, where Fauna translates the latest Chinese internet memes, most of which tend toward the doer losing vast amount of “face” or “respect”.

Enter Feng Jie.

This all accumulates to a sort of tabloid-ish mentality. Now of course not all Chinese like tabloid content, but just like the west, there are a lot of people who love to see the strange, love to see their betters taken down a few rungs, and love to see some weird gossip.

Capitalizing on this admitted universal human emotion, a local agency (and there are several claiming responsibility) created “Feng Jie” an internet celebrity designed to be mocked from the very beginning.. and by becoming an easily mocked target, designed to lose face, designed to be laughed at, this local agency shot Feng Jie into super Chinese internet stardom – known by pretty much anyone in China who is online (400 million plus, depending on the latest government released stats).

What started it all? An offline printed flyer:

Sister Feng's Marriage Seeking Flyer. A classic.

Translated below is the contents of Sister Feng’s marriage seeking flyer. You’ll see some humor, but if you dig a bit deeper, balanced with a coffee cup of Chinese cultural insight, you’ll see the seeds of genius; you’ll see the (+) in the formula x+y=z.

I am now seeking a soulmate who is not supposed to be handsome nor wealthy, but should not leave me rich or poor.
My requests are as follows:
1. Must be with Combined Bachelor’s- Master’s Degree of Peking University or Tsinghua University. No grade skipping, no grade failing, no advanced study after quitting a job.
2. Must be majored in Ecommerce. Person without ecommerce degree must be keen on ecommerce or mastered in this field.
3. Must be with international perspective, but no plans of long-term living abroad or migrating.
4. Must be between 1.76M- 1.83M. Good looking preferable.
5. No childbearing history. All the abortion history of ex-girlfriends is not related to you.
6. Household registered in east coast provinces— Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shandong, or Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing etc. People from Northeast/ Southwest China and Hunan, Hubei will not be considered.
7. Candidates should have graduated during 2006-2009 and aged between 25-28, with 1 or 2 years working experience as well as ample society experience. People who served in national organizations or state-owned companies will not be considered. People who are working in CNPC, Sinopec or other worldwide top enterprises or banks are preferable. Entrepreneurs will also have a chance.
According to one investigation we find that in China there are only 6 people who have come up to this standard…

Upon first read, you’d think this was a beautiful if extremely snobby girl, someone who thinks she can get what she wants and goes as far as to denounce whole sections of Chinese society. “Who is this girl?” “What nerve she has!” etc are the natural reactions.

This is until you see her picture.

Sister Feng passing out her flyers; purposely contrasted by two beauties in the background.

So what started as a marriage flyer turned into a Chinese internet phenomenon. How was this done again? Simply understanding the culture, understanding what individual groups in Chinese culture value, and then pushing the pressure points exactly sparked a wave of controversial buzz that created from nothing, something.

Balancing an initial insult from one to you, and striking back only requiring a smirk, a quick instantaneous interaction; here’s a few more pics of Sister Feng, collected from around the Chinese web. Enjoy.