I loved Talk Talk China (TTC) and I’ve missed it since it shut down a few weeks ago.
I did not always agree with it, of course. But I nearly always came away from it having learned something more about either China, ex-pats living in China, or the interaction between said China and its ex-pats. Though it was nearly always funny, it was also frequently important. So important, in fact, that we put it in our blog list, which list is normally reserved for only blogs that are directly on point with doing business in China.
Another reason (maybe even the primary reason) to love Talk Talk China was its comments. It would get 100+ on nearly every post. Many were from regulars (many of whom were experts on China) who could be counted on to be viciously funny and unmercifully dead on. I miss them too.
The hugely influential (and rightly so) Peking Duck blog recently described the new China blog, Sinocidal, as TTC’s successor. Further research reveals Peking Duck is not the only one having so anointed Sinocidal:
- The Bring on the Night Blog describes Sinocidal as having taken up TTC’s “torch.”
- An anonymous comment on the Eyes East Blog, stated that “some of the guys from TTC (my reprobate baby brother Dulang among them) have just debuted a new place to rant.”
- Hongkie Town Redux, which proclaims, “Talk Talk China is gone but Sinocidal is here.”
- Green Bamboo, which speculates Sinocidal is being blocked by the Great Firewall for having dissed the Beijing Olympic mascots. Has anyone not dissed them?
- Sunny Side Up, which describes Sinocidal as having lots “of familiar faces there so get on over and pour some petrol on the pyre.”
- Yellow Wings, which pitches Sinocidal as the place to be since TTC’s demise.
- Brec Starhawk, a musician in Hangzhou (is he a musician because of his name or does he have that name because he is a musician?), lists himself as one of Sinocidal’s five bloggers and has this to say about the site:
After the demise of talktalkchina, a few of the regular commenters and myself have started a new website to fill the void. It is called www.sinocidal.com. We do not intend to re-create TTC although it is a post and comment type blog. We intend to have a lot more fun [more fun than TTC or more fun than they were having before Sinocidal???] and have contests, music and other amusing things. We were banned in China after only 1 day. It seems the Olympic organizers did not like our banner of the 5 “FUWA” killing themselves. This has been sorted out and we should be up and running in China in the next couple of days.
Too early to tell if Sinocidal will be up to the high standards of TTC, and also too early too tell if it will pull in the quantity and quality of comments TTC did. But, it does look promising and I urge you to check it out.
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