Beth Evans
I'm a young, American public relations professional in Seattle who graduated from the University of Oregon 11 days before moving to Beijing for two years. I blog about at, public relations, China, and where one or more of those intersect.
Homepage: http://elizabethlloydevans.com
Posts by Beth Evans
Video: Beijing Street Food Series: Kebabs 串
Jun 8th
Watch the same video on YouTube here.
This is the third and likely final post in a video series of people making my favorite common Beijing street dishes. I hope that this can provide an insight into Beijing food culture for people who don’t live here. The first post is here. The second one is here.
I believe these kebabs are made of chicken cartilage. I am a vegetarian, and kebabs made of bread and vegetables are pretty boring to watch, so I waited until I was with a friend ordering a meat kebab to shoot a kebab video. I realize kebabs on the street are not unique to China, but they are by far the most common street food in Beijing, especially at night.
Audio: Chinese Indie Music Sampler – 旅行团 Life Journey
Jun 2nd
This is the second post in a (likely short) series of audio links to Chinese music I’ve bought, mostly rock and electronica. Most of the music in this series is by bands I’ve seen live. You can see the first post here.
The second band I’m featuring is 旅行团 (Life Journey). They are excellent musicians and a lot of fun live because they have great stage presence and are so fashionable. They sing in both English and Chinese.
Audio: 02 悠长假期
You can buy Life Journey’s music at:
The Chinese Underground Music, 89-3, 鼓楼东大街, Beijing
(Bus: 小经厂. Subway: Beixinqiao on Line 5.)
Phone: 13466775001, 15901080625
Open from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Update: The above store has closed. If you know of any other physical, not-online stores selling Life Journey’s music, let me know in the comments.
Last time I checked, their music was also available at the bookstore next to Lush in Wudaokou.
Lost in Translation: “PR” in Chinese and English
May 31st
One of my classes at Geely University is a business English class I co-teach with a Chinese teacher. Recently, when we were teaching cultural relevance during business negotiations, my co-teacher asked, “What are some things you do in China when you want to start a business relationship with someone?” When the class provided answers such as “take them out to dinner” and “give them gifts”, she explained to me, “In Chinese, we call this ‘公关 (gongguan)’,” a word I previously understood to be an abbreviation of “公共关系 (gonggongguanxi),” literally “public relations/relationship.”
Here I had been telling people for two years here that my major and the field I wanted to eventually work in was 公关(gongguan), thinking that was the coolest way to say “public relations” because I heard the term more often than “公共关系 (gonggongguanxi).” This misunderstanding of mine can explain how at a networking event where I was chatting with a manager at a major Chinese company and mentioned that I wanted to work in 公关 (gongguan), he replied, “公关 (gongguan) isn’t really a profession in China.”
After telling my good Chinese friend both of these stories and explaining what I think public relations is, he told me his opinion is that while “公关 (gongguan)” refers my co-teacher’s definition and is not considered a good job, “公共关系(gonggongguanxi)” is taken much more seriously. I should therefore say that I want to work in 公共关系 (gonggongguanxi) and maybe explain some of the job duties.
What surprised me the most about this discovery is not that Chinese people use the term “PR” in a very different way than I do, as most Americans don’t agree with me on PR’s definition, either. It surprised me that “公关 (gongguan)” doesn’t have the same linguistic relationship to the phrase “公共关系 (gonggongguanxi)” as “PR” does to “public relations.” Now I’m still not sure that “public relations” and “公共关系 (gonggongguanxi)” are the same thing, but I know that “公共关系 (gonggongguanxi)” is considered closer to my major and career choice than “公关(gongguan).”
People in China, especially in public relations in China, what are your thoughts on this? How do you view the relationships among the words “公关,” “公共关系,” “public relations,” and “PR”?
Video of Singers from my American University is Viral in China
May 25th
Prominent in student life at my alma mater are student groups who perform pop song covers a Capella. The men’s group, On the Rocks, is active in social media as a promotional tool; they have a Twitter account and broadcast their performances live online. About a month ago, they uploaded a performance of Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” with annotations onto YouTube as a fundraiser for their trip to Los Angeles to audition for the NBC television show “Sing Off.” The video currently has more than 3 million views.
Last night, as I was watching the original music video for “Bad Romance” on the Chinese site Youku, I noticed On The Rocks’ performance video, uploaded by YoutubeSpace, as a suggested related video. The video has more than 300,000 views and about 300 comments (in Chinese). I shared it on my own RenRen and Q Zone profiles (with a note that this was my alma mater, of course), then found out one of my good Chinese friends had already shared it on his RenRen as well before learning that the video had any relation to me whatsoever. On RenRen, the video has more than 41,000 share views and 233,000 views.
On the Rocks online:
Official site
Twitter: @uoontherocks
Facebook: OTR rocks my socks
Live broadcast
Watch the video on Youku, YouTube, or both below:
And if you want to compare the choreography and arrangement, here’s Lady GaGa’s version. (Nudity warning for those who haven’t seen it already.)
My Overview of #GITChina Launch
May 9th
Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the invite-only launch for the Girls in Tech international professional development group’s first every country-wide chapter launch, known on Twitter as #GITChina. You can view the attendees’ thoughts by visiting that Twitter hashtag, or if you are in China without access to Twitter, you can view the unblocked stream here. I’m pretty much the only girl in tech without a mobile device you can read tweets on, so you won’t see much of me in the stream. The event’s main organizer, Jenny Bai, encouraged me to get involved in Girls in Tech after she saw my blog post titled “Chinese Social Media as an Educational Tool.”
Programming highlights:
Jenny Bai as a floating head on Skype as she was in New York
Beta screening of “Twittamentary” by Beijing-based documentary producer Siok Siok Tan
Unveiling of the event-specific drinks “Girls in Techila” and “Girls in Technoqila” as created by Jim Boyce with Fubar
Panel discussion on the impact of micro-blogging on women in China
After-party at Fubar
My favorite: Lady GaGa music throughout the day programming. (Isn’t she perfect for the Girls in Tech theme?)
Key people involved in organizing:
@WildPixels @christinelu @isaac @acrosstheC @eIyssa @anitahuang_sh @beijingdaze @sinotechian @reneecolette @sriramkri @sioksiok @frankyu @jennybai @POPOEVER (Let me know if I missed anyone.)
Below are my highlights from the panel discussion on micro-blogging, moderated by Siok Siok Tan, with speakers Cindy Jiang, Anita Huang, Loretta Chang, and Scarlett Li.
Cindy Jiang started the first ever video blog on Internet entrepreneurship in China. She said that she has interviewed about 70 people for her blog so far, and only 2 have been women.
Siok Siok Tan mentioned that micro-blogging in different languages creates different universes because people tend to think and talk about certain topics more in certain languages.
An audience member asked about what panelists consider a breach of privacy when it comes to sharing information via social media, using the example of a viral video of a woman freaking out after she missed her plane flight. Loretta Wang, who is a journalist, said she thinks the privacy breach occurs when someone films someone without their consent then puts the content online. Whether she shares that video after it is online has more to do with its news value than privacy breaching.
Scarlett Li, who works in pop music, explained exactly how profoundly the Internet has affected music popularity. She said that you used to be able to have a top 10 list of songs, and everyone in the country would watch those top ten, but now with the Internet, we need to have a top 1000, because no one song is as popular as songs were before Internet.
More on Girls in Tech China: Official web site, Twitter account
Audio, Video: Chinese Indie Music Sampler – The Bigger Bang 大棒
Apr 26th
I’m starting a (likely short) series of audio links to Chinese music I’ve bought, mostly rock and electronica. Most of the music in this series is by bands I’ve seen live.
The first band I’m featuring is my favorite Chinese band, The Bigger Band 大棒. They are pretty good musicians from a technical standpoint and great entertainers, both live and in music videos. They don’t have an album out and the only way you can buy their music is online is on iLike, as far as I can tell.
Audio: 03 Down! Down! Down! [Demo]
Outside China? Watch the “Oh! You” music video on Facebook here.
You can see The Bigger Bang from 2:30 to 3:10 p.m. at Day One of Strawberry Music Festival this Saturday on the Strawberry Stage.
You can buy The Bigger Bang’s self-titled EP at:
The Chinese Underground Music, 89-3, 鼓楼东大街, Beijing
(Bus: 小经厂. Subway: Beixinqiao on Line 5.)
Phone: 13466775001, 15901080625
Open from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Update: The above store has closed. If you know of any other physical, not-online stores selling The Bigger Bang’s music, let me know in the comments.
Blogging in China for the Clueless
Apr 21st
I’ve known for a while that I should make my blog accessible in China and give it a unique URL. I want to share my process with those who are in my situation and equally clueless about the technicalities of blogging. These three blog posts made it possible for me (in addition to my Web designer friend who helped me with step #2).
1. How to unblock your website in China
2. How to Install WordPress
Note: Because I’m using ICDsoft, the host recommended in #1, my hostname in Step 6 is localhost:/tmp/mysql.sock and my root directory in Step 7 is /www/www. It took both my friend and I quite a few mistakes to figure those two things out.
3. Migrate Your Blog from Blogger to WordPress with all the Google Juice
Note: These instructions solidly covered my most important concerns like keeping subscribers and redirecting my Blogspot URL but I lost most of my widgets including blogroll in the process.
Update 04/27/10: When you migrate from a URL/blog host blocked in China to an unblocked one, all image links will appear broken to users who aren’t using a VPN (like in Google Image search results). I’m currently working on replacing my images one by one. :(
The Best Post I’ve Read on the Google/China Fiasco So Far
Apr 2nd
One of the bloggers in my blogroll, Imagethief (also known as Will Moss), published a post last week that includes what he calls “A handy cheat sheet for interpreting the Google China story.” The cheat sheet succinctly summarizes opinions of multiple groups of people throughout the main steps of the fiasco. (Is fiasco too strong a word? I don’t think so, but tell me in the comments if you disagree.) His analysis from a public relations standpoint is also insightful.
If you are interested in reading English-language blogs on China, I highly suggest you subscribe to Imagethief. That blog is one of the best I’ve found in that category.
Video: Beijing Street Food Series – Shandong Big Jianbing 山东大煎饼
Mar 25th
Watch the same video on YouTube here.
This is the second in a video series of people making my favorite common Beijing street dishes. I hope that this can provide an insight into Beijing food culture for people who don’t live here. The first one is here.
This is of Shandong Big Jianbing, which comes from Shandong Province. Shandong Big Jianbing is pretty rare in Beijing but its spinning wok that Beijing-style jianbing lacks makes it a better video candidate. The two videos above have the same content but are from different sites, one from YouTube and the other from Youku.
Video: Beijing Street Food Series – Stir-fried Bing 炒饼
Mar 19th
Watch the same video on YouTube here.
I’m starting a video series of people making my favorite common Beijing street dishes. I hope that this can provide an insight into Beijing food culture for people who don’t live here.
This video is of people at an outdoor restaurant near where I live making the common Beijing dish stir-fried bing, 炒饼 in Simplified Chinese. This restaurant makes it better than any place I know. It’s hard to translate “bing”, but it’s something like dough or batter that’s in a lot of simple Beijing dishes. In this video, it’s the last ingredient they add. Here they are making a double batch, one for me and one for another customer. The two videos above have the same content but are from different sites, one from YouTube and the other from Youku.
restaurant in this video
view of the popular street food area from where I sat while I ate
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