The calligraphy on the front page is by Xu Bing. An interview with the artist will appear this Wednesday.
China Matrix
China Matrix is taking a two week rest before
returning in new and improved form as Virtual China's
InfoTech channel. We have kept the old site accessible as a courtesy to China Matrix users.
Contact Us
Virtual China Inc.
598 Broadway 5F
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212-226-0950
Fax: 212-214-0449 info@virtualchina.com
Where is China?
This is a question we at Virtual China are exploring in earnest. The answer is not as simple as it may seem.
Why ask "where is China?" in the first place? Well, for various reasons personal and professional, we want to go there. It would be good to know where it is.
But to truly "go" to China, one must do more than simply board an airplane,
span the Pacific, and land within the confines of its physical borders. We go to discover, to engage, to communicate. But to approach the real China beyond pure physical space, we must have an appreciation for the mind of China as it is expressed in its culture and history.
For Westerners looking to China, the Internet is a library on steroids, a place to get the latest news, dig up a map of the Beijing subway system, or find a primer on speaking business Chinese. But it is much more than just a tool for accessing data and information. The Internet is a true space -- a "where" in its own right. A new and rapidly transforming China can be found there.
As we move forward into this online 21st century, we will
increasingly "go" to
China in cyberspace, and will get there from the Internet and the web.
And as the Chinese people, culture, and language of China claim a larger and larger portion of cyberspace, China will be transformed by all the influences it bumps into on the Internet. But the influence will go both ways. The global Internet culture will become heavily tinted by China - its language, its culture, its values, its priorities and turns of thought.
We will be at the center of those changes, both as transformer and
transformed, at Virtual China.
We will explore and make accessible the world of knowledge and information
the Internet has made possible.
Far more than that, we will be active participants in creating the online
community of English-speakers seeking to learn about, to visit, and to truly
find China in the "where" we call cyberspace.
This is a question we at Virtual China are exploring in earnest. The answer is not as simple as it may seem.
But to truly "go" to China, one must do more than simply board an airplane,
span the Pacific, and land within the confines of its physical borders. We go to discover, to engage, to communicate. But to approach the real China beyond pure physical space, we must have an appreciation for the mind of China as it is expressed in its culture and history.
As we move forward into this online 21st century, we will
increasingly "go" to
China in cyberspace, and will get there from the Internet and the web.
And as the Chinese people, culture, and language of China claim a larger and larger portion of cyberspace, China will be transformed by all the influences it bumps into on the Internet. But the influence will go both ways. The global Internet culture will become heavily tinted by China - its language, its culture, its values, its priorities and turns of thought.
We will be at the center of those changes, both as transformer and
transformed, at Virtual China.
Far more than that, we will be active participants in creating the online
community of English-speakers seeking to learn about, to visit, and to truly
find China in the "where" we call cyberspace.