|  May, 2011
| | | Subscribe to this Newsletter | | | This Month's Most Viewed | | 
Country Love - Professional Content With more than 100 million views and nearly 52,000 comments since its Youku premiere on May 5, this month's most-viewed professional content is Country Love, a TV series from beloved Northeastern Chinese comic Zhao Benshan. Country Love is a light comedy that looks at the ways in which rural residents' lives are changing for the better. | |  BMW Woman vs. Karry Girl - UGC Content This month's most-viewed UGC purports to be a paike video of a fight between a wealthy young woman driving a BMW and a (presumably) less well-off young woman driving a cheap Karry minivan. Videos dealing with the worsening gap between China's haves and have-nots are always popular with netizens, and with 3.75 million views in May, this one was no exception.
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Pi San, Creator of Miss Puff, to share his thoughts After four episodes and more than 7.5 million views, Pi San, creator of the Youku animated series Miss Puff, shares his thoughts on the series and on the potential of new media for independent artists. Q: Every episode of Miss Puff revolves around a new object and a new male character. How do you come up with ways to tie the given objects to the characters in the story -- is there ever a story behind which things you choose to feature? A: The episodes aren't just about objects; they're about Miss Puff's understanding of human emotion -- and not just of love, either. The 'hourglass' in the first episode, for instance, is a metaphor for truth and lies; the 'wine' in a metaphor for fate...every one of these, I think, reflects an aspect of Miss Puff's personality -- the way she looks at things and the way she looks at the world. Primitive peoples used to worship totems; in our stories, I think we're doing something similar, just with different people and different objects. More of his thoughts can be found in our buzz. | | | | | | Hot Topics | |  Yangtze Drought
The Yangtze River Delta has been hit by the worst drought in 50 years, causing massive damage to crops and necessitating an unprecedented release of water from the Three Gorges Dam upstream. More than 1,300 lakes have been rendered useless for irrigation and drinking water; boats have been left stranded, and a 220-kilometer stretch has been declared off-limits for container ships. Video from a paike outside Hengyang, Hunan province shoes how bad the situation is, with paddies rendered useless for planting and fields parched and cracked. It is a very sobering video. The Yangtze River Delta has been hit by the worst drought in 50 years, causing massive damage to crops and necessitating an unprecedented release of water from the Three Gorges Dam upstream. More than 1,300 lakes have been rendered useless for irrigation and drinking water; boats have been left stranded, and a 220-kilometer stretch has been declared off-limits for container ships. Video from a paike outside Hengyang, Hunan province shoes how bad the situation is, with paddies rendered useless for planting and fields parched and cracked. It is a very sobering video. | | |  Time to Graduate
It's graduation season, and outgoing students are uploading scores of videos looking back at their college years. Many are maudlin; most are filled with in-jokes that are probably incomprehensible to anyone who didn't share their college experiences -- but this well-made time-lapse video, featuring views of the student's campus over a four-year period, is a simple, quiet reflection on what it means to spend four years together. Well worth a look. The end credits are a mini-resume for Liu Jin, the recent graduate who made the film. Anybody hiring? It's graduation season, and outgoing students are uploading scores of videos looking back at their college years. Many are maudlin; most are filled with in-jokes that are probably incomprehensible to anyone who didn't share their college experiences -- but this well-made time-lapse video, featuring views of the student's campus over a four-year period, is a simple, quiet reflection on what it means to spend four years together. Well worth a look. The end credits are a mini-resume for Liu Jin, the recent graduate who made the film. Anybody hiring? | | | 
Wang Gongquan Gets Something Off His Chest Billionaire investor Wang Gongquan made headlines earlier this month when he announced on his Sina Weibo microblog that he was leaving everything behind to elope with his long-term mistress and fellow venture capitalist Wang Qin. He'd been working up to it for some time, though, starting with cryptic little messages on his Weibo account and building up to his 'Song of Elopement,' a stirring ballad of his own creation, in which he sings that throughout the ages, love has always been more precious than gold. Internet users, being a cynical sort, have suggested that Wang only made the announcement as a way of promoting himself. It's been two weeks since he eloped, and so far no answers have been forthcoming. | | | | | | This Month in Kung Fu | | On May 12, Shi Liliang, a kung-fu master in Quanzhou, Fujian province, set a personal record for the Shaolin technique of 'shui shang piao' ('drifting over the water') when he ran 40 meters out into the water supported by nothing more than a few flimsy pieces of plywood. One of our paike was there to capture the scene. | |  Barack Obama Savors the Moment One of the sweeter bits of video editing we've seen in a long time, this user-generated video depicts the inside of Barack Obama's head after the weekend in which he destroyed both Donald Trump and Osama Bin Laden. | | | | | | Viral Ad of the Month |  High School Teacher Rocks iPod Touch A teacher at the experimental school affiliated with Xiamen University shows off his piano chops (and his ability to navigate two tiny piano keyboards with hardly any slipped notes) by playing the theme to 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' We're not actually 100% sure that this is a viral ad, but netizens are, as usual, asking the questions nobody else dares to ask -- in this case, why the envelope bearing the name of the school is so prominently displayed. | | |  Happy Children's Day!
June 1st is Children's Day in China, and we're celebrating with a dose of Xiao Bao, everyone's favorite pint-sized pirouetting prodigy. Xiao Bao won hearts around the world with his Michael Jackson dance routines; in this video, we take a look behind the scenes at his history and all the hard work he puts into training. Happy Children's Day from all of us at Youku! June 1st is Children's Day in China, and we're celebrating with a dose of Xiao Bao, everyone's favorite pint-sized pirouetting prodigy. Xiao Bao won hearts around the world with his Michael Jackson dance routines; in this video, we take a look behind the scenes at his history and all the hard work he puts into training. Happy Children's Day from all of us at Youku! | | | | | | | | | | |  | | | |
