Chinese-Speaking Fandom

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This article is an overview of Chinese-speaking fandom. For the category, including articles about communities within the fandom, see Category:Chinese-Speaking Fandom.
Fandom
Name(s): Chinese-Speaking Fandom
Abbreviation(s):
Scope/Focus:
Date(s):
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Chinese Fandom and Chinese Media is often shortened to C-fandom and C-media respectively.[1] Fanquan is a term often translated as fandom, but has other connotations.

Short Glossary

Genres

  • BL meaning boy love. This differs from other uses
  • danmei for example.

Common Tropes

Cmedia has certain tropes and genres that are particularly common or unique, especially in comparison to English Media works. Here are some of these tropes.

  • Faceslapping
  • Transmigration
  • Cultivation
  • System fics (A game controls your life)
  • Vomiting blood
  • Court intrigue
  • Concubines and harems (related to court intrigue but not necessarily)
  • Kinship terms used for non-relatives

History of Chinese Fandom

Early transformative works?

Modern Chinese Fandoms

Some popular cfandoms include

RPF fandoms

Idols and actors often have their own fandoms. Often, this is spurred by reality TV shows.

Celebrity fandoms

In particular, fans of dinglius.

Chinese Authors in efandoms

Due to the global nature of certain franchises, some efandoms have a significant number of Chinese fans and Chinese-language works. Some of these fandoms include

Fan life in China

Fandom/internet Slang

  • 222
  • 车 (Chē) [2]
  • CP: Short for "couple". See CP Fan
  • 摆阵 (Bǎi zhèn) and 阵型 (Zhènxíng): literally "to set up formation" and "formation". These are used when a fan buys a lot of merch and organizes it in rows or circles. It can be seen often with repeated merch (such as the same plush or the same button pin), either in a small fandom altar or inside an itabag. The behaviour is 摆阵 (Bǎi zhèn), while the organization style is 阵型 (Zhènxíng).
  • 攻 (gōng), 受 (shòu), 年下 (Nián xia), and 年上 (Nián shàng) [3]
  • 酱 (Jiàng): literally meaning "sauce", but used after a character's name as a way to phonetically sound like the Japanese honourific ちゃん, -chan. Thus, 夏洛克酱, Xiàluòkè jiàng, would be "Sherlock-chan" and not "Sherlock sauce". It isn't used just for Japanese or East Asian based fandoms, but as a way to show adoration for a character.
  • 老师 (Lǎoshī): teacher. This word is culturally used not just for teachers and professors, but also for people to whom respect must or should be shown (thus it can be used sarcastically for a respectless person or to suck up to people as well). For that reason, many fans will call an artist or an author they really appreciate "Lǎoshī".
  • 老婆 (Lǎopó): meaning "wife". Used similarly to waifu. Female fans in particular apply the term to male characters.
  • 爬墙 (Pá qiáng): literally meaning "to climb the wall", is used when a fan moves from one fandom to another. It can be used with a bad connotation by people from a fandom that has been "jumped out of" as a synonym to "abandonment".
  • 入坑 (Rù kēng): literally meaning "to jump into a hole". It is used when a fan joins a fandom, typically when they find themselves in it before realising.
  • 同人 (Tóngrén): literally meaning "same people", is used for "fans". Can be found as a tag for fandom, fan merch and fanworks.
  • 一周目 (Yīzhōu mù): From the Japanese language. This means "first version" or "first try". It's usually used for presenting the first, unedited draft/sketch of a fanwork. Many times it is something that didn't make it to merch.
  • 邪教 (Xiéjiào): cult or literally "evil religion", is used as the equivalent of "rarepair" in western fandoms, sometimes also taking the meaning of "crack pairing". For example, while one of the most popular Loki pairings in the English speaking fandom, Loki/Tony Stark is considered a 邪教 (Xiéjiào) in China, with many even seeing it as nonsensical when compared the juggernaut Thorki, and thus, a crack ship.

Shipping Culture

Similarly to the Japanese fandom, the order a shipname is written in is very important: it signifies who is the dominant one in the relationship, and in a slash relationship, the one who tops. For het ships however, the male name almost always goes first. This has seen some changes in later years, with the rise of GB (GirlBoy).

It is common to use the first Chinese character (or hanzi) of a character's name followed by the first hanzi of the second character's name, for example: in a Drarry pairing, in which Draco tops, the pairing name will be 德哈 (Dé hā), with 德 (Dé) being the first hanzi for Draco and 哈 (Hā) being the first hanzi for Harry. The opposite logic applies with 哈德 (Hā dé). This is dependent on popularity of use, and as such, other combination types might arise amongst fans. One example of this is for the Astarion/Cazador pairing, in which if, for example, Cazador tops, fans may use 卡扎伦 (Kǎ zhā lún), in which the first two hanzi belong to Cazador's name (namely the "Caza-" part), and the final hanzi, 伦 (Lún), is the final part of Astarion's name (the "-ion" part). If Astarion tops then 阿斯卡扎 (Ā sī kǎ zhā) can be used, in which the first two hanzi belong to Astarion ("Asta-") and the final two to Cazador ("Caza-"). In some cases, the names themselves are not used, but instead hanzi will take on the meaning of something related to a character, such as with the Thorki dynamic 锤基 (Chuí jī), in which 锤 (Chuí) means hammer (as a reference to Thor's hammer, Mjolnir) and 基 (jī) is phonetically the last part of Loki's Chinese name, thus making Thor the top in this dynamic.

These Top/Bottom Dynamics are so important to the Chinese fandom that many fans of, for example, Draco/Harry will not overlap with Harry/Draco and many actively dislike the other pairing dynamic, considering it a NOTP. This also means that many Chinese fans will not touch fanfic if the dynamic is not explicit or in the tags.

As courtesy and kindness to other fans, Chinese fans will often post the pairing dynamic in the title of the story, right at the start, usually surrounded by lenticular brackets, 【 】. This can be seen on AO3.[4][5][6][7]

Fans might use A and B to talk non specifically about pairings, such as AB (with A as top) or BA (with B as top). But two letters can also be used in the the following ways, not specific to a pairing but while talking about the genre of a ship:

  • BG: meaning Boy and Girl, in this order. For "traditional" het relationships.
  • BL: Boy on boy Love, like the Japanese BL.
  • GL: Girl on girl Love, like the Japanese GL.
  • GB: meaning Girl and Boy, in this order. Usually, in these pairings, ️the woman is stronger and thus placed first. Typically not physically stronger, but she is either more resilient or more powerful (for example, with magic powers) than the man she is paired with. It's common for the woman in this pairing to rescue an emasculated male counterpart, usually from another woman. An example would be the characters 惊澜 (Jīng lán) and 沧泽 (Cāng zé), from the game 新倩女幽魂 (Xīn qiànnǚ yōuhún), Chinese Ghost Story.

Creator and fan relationship


Centres of fan activity

Sites/Apps

  • Lofter (乐乎, Lè hū, meaning something like "happy". Word likely chosen due to having a similar ending to "tumblr" as it was meant as a replacement for it. It takes the noun "Loft" due to it being an open space connected with ideas of "sharing", aesthetic and artistry, ideals which NetEase, the company behind it, whished users to associate with it.[8] Chinese fans might also use the more transliterated name 老福特, Lǎo fútè, which foregoes an auspicious or meaningful name, prioritising sound similarities)
  • Asianfanfiction(?)
  • Bilibili (哔哩哔哩, Bì lī bì lī. Purely phonetical name. Used instead of YouTube, though some creators with a VPN access, living outside of Mainland China and with a more international audience or interest in one may cross-post)
  • Weibo (微博, Wēi bó, meaning "Microblog")
  • Xiaohongshu (小红书, Xiǎo hóng shū, meaning "Little red book", like the book by Mao Zedong)
  • Douyin (抖音, Dǒu yīn, the original and Chinese version of Tik Tok, meaning "Vibrating sound")
  • Tudou (土豆网, Tǔdòu wǎng, meaning something like "Internet potato")
  • Youku (优酷, Yōukù, meaning "excellent (and) cool")
  • Taobao (淘宝, Táobǎo, meaning "to search for treasure". An online shopping website, where most of the online fan merch market exists)
  • JingDong or JD (京东, Jīngdōng. Likely a mix of Beijing, where the company was founded, and Dong, the name of the owner. Some fandom related merch can be purchased here, but typically not fan made merch)

Interaction with Ao3

Chinese-language fandoms have presented unique challenges in tagging and tag wrangling. The issue of diacritics was especially contentious in the The Untamed fandom. See the "Hello everyone. i'm one of the ao3 tag wranglers for mdzs" twitter thread for more.

As stated earlier, shipping tags have also been complained about. For example, see this 2022 weibo post complaining about how different characters topping are thrown together in one ship tag (machine-translated):

The biggest problem between AO3 and foreigners is that there is no distinction between positive and negative. Searching AB and turning a few pages will give me a bunch of BAs, which seriously hurts the feelings of people who are not inverse! ! ! [9]

AO3 supertalk on weibo

See also Blocking of AO3 in China, particularly the section "Chinese Fans on AO3: A History".

Due to censorship on other dominant fanfiction platforms in China, such as Lofter, Weibo, and jjwxc, there is a practice of putting the sex scene on Ao3 and linking it from the main work - leading to AO3 being referred to as a "parking lot" (停车场) for porn"[10]. See below for more discussion around censorship in Chinese Fandoms

Conventions / Events

Fan Activities

Event Organisation: event types -- Asian fandoms really like cafe type events, so merch would include like cup-sleeves and coasters etc that come with your drink.

There are a few challenges that seem unique to Chinese Fandom. Selling fan merch, like acrylic standees and shikishi, seems popular.

  • 24H challenge (and variants)

Fan Merch

Merch can be usually purchased in one of three ways:

  • Through Taobao (or one of its minor apps, 闲鱼 (Xián yú), known as Goofish);
  • During a con;
  • Otherwise directly from the artist.

In recent years it has become harder to sell/buy certain fanmerch on Taobao, due to licence and copyright issues (one big example is the Pokémon fandom, due to Nintendo's policy). BL and Slash merch has also become scarcer, especially if there are explicit and/or homosexual/homoromantic acts described/depicted in the merch (everything from two men kissing to NSFW content). To avoid being taken down, many times fans make vague listings with fandom slang and put up warnings, such as "If you do not know what this is DO NOT BUY!" or to not be asked what the article really is. This is more common with doujinshi or zine-like publications, which can commonly appear marked as "notebooks".

There is also the issue of counterfeit fan merch on taobao and even on non-chinese websites, which has artists preferring to sell their merch solely at cons. This unfortunately has not stopped people from stealing designs or the actual full product and trying to make a profit with stolen goods. There is this example on etsy, which has been frequently accused of being a copied con article without the artist's permission. The copy seems to have been created from a merch haul photo. Due to similar acts, Chinese artists do not wish to publicly post their merch online, as it can easily be stolen by factories or people who want to make a profit.

Most NSFW merch needs to be bought by hand and it is not on display at cons, but rather sold "under the table". There are cases where this type of merch is only even offered if the buyer displays knowledge of certain fandoms or pairings. Sometimes the merch "as is" won't have any explicit content, but purchasing it will give the buyer access to a "key" or a QR code that usually links to a foreign site, such as one from the USA, where the actual explicit content is hosted.

Popular merch items, such as merch by BNF, big doujinshi or collection merch (a collection of merch by a particular artist, usually consisting of more than three objects, such as a doujin, stickers, charms, postcards, book covers, lanyards, tote bags etc. all with the same theme or pairing) sometimes need an online sign up or have a raffle for buyers at the con, so as to avoid queues and cannot be bought by other people. Because of this, these typically can more easily contain NSFW or slash elements.

During cons and meetups it is also common to give away or exchange gifts with con goers. These are usually postcard or greeting card shaped, either made out of paper or plastic and they're given to people who walk by or interact with a booth. They can showcase a fanart or a fan-edit, and often puns, both in Chinese or English. They can also be a manifesto in favour of a pairing.

International Fans

For those living outside of China,

  • International PO for fans of cmedia outside of China?

Censorship

NSFW filters are very strict and creating and sharing NSFW content is not allowed. Pornography has been illegal in China since 1949 and LGBTQAI+ content (even not NSFW) is considered immoral.[11]

Chinese fans have severe difficulties accessing international fandom sites, as these are typically blocked in china. The following fanspaces/fandom activity related spaces are not accessible from Mainland China and accessing them from there can be considered a crime:

In order to access these, Chinese fans need to purchase a VPN service, which is illegal. VPN services are constantly being shut down in Mainland China, and as such, a service that might work well for a few months, might suddenly stop working or become unreliable (Express VPN is a good example). VPN services tend to allow slower access to unlimited internet. These services are hard to purchase in China (usually one needs a VPN in order to buy a VPN in the first place, so many people might buy one while traveling abroad or using a proxy), thus creating another layer of difficulties in avoiding censorship. Free Chinese VPN exist, but these are often forms of malware or spyware, and Chinese fans avoid using them. Some government officials, or people working in propaganda are legally allowed VPNs and access to blocked sites.

Although likely only temporarily, the following fandom spaces are not blocked or banned in China:

While these are technically accessible, they are extremely slow to load, thus demotivating users from accessing them. As a rule, international social media, forums or programs that allow instant or safe communication are never allowed in Mainland China (e.g. Steam international is available in China, but only to a degree. Most functions except the Shop and the Library do not work. Messaging does work. Plenty of games are banned. Steam China exists and it is more censored but built to not appear half-working).

Most of the banned programs and websites have their own Chinese counterpart (like Wechat and Whatsapp, Diandian and Lofter being similar to (or in Diandian's case, a direct copy of) Tumblr, Xiaohongshu and Instagram, Weibo and Twitter (X), Youku, Bilibili and Tudou sharing their function with Youtube etc.). At the moment (2024) getting an account on and access to some of these websites has become very difficult outside Mainland China without being a citizen, as a Mainland Chinese phone number (that requires a direct connection to one's ID, or in a foreigner's case, to one's Passport) is required.

Knowledge of English, or other foreign languages, is extremely important in order to be able to access fandom spaces outside Mainland China (and in general, any space) and especially NSFW or LGBTQAI+ content, although machine translation has been helpful in later years. Fans of "western" fandoms tended to have a better grasp of a foreign language, as it was usually needed to access the content or understand it.

Media coverage

Academic coverage

References

  1. ^ For information on the interaction with English-speaking fandom, please see English-speaking cmedia fandom.
  2. ^ https://chaleuria.com/lesson-2-all-kinds-of-cars/
  3. ^ https://chaleuria.com/lesson-2-all-kinds-of-cars/
  4. ^ Example of a Drarry fic with a Draco/Harry Dynamic https://archiveofourown.org/works/53731819
  5. ^ Example of a Drarry fic with a Harry/Draco Dynamic https://archiveofourown.org/works/53549785
  6. ^ Example of Cazastar pairing with a Astarion top dynamic https://archiveofourown.org/works/52873852
  7. ^ Example of a Thorki fic with a Top Thor Dynamic (without brackets) https://archiveofourown.org/works/43109025
  8. ^ https://baike.baidu.com/item/LOFTER/5454758
  9. ^ "AO3和洋人最大的问题还是正逆不分，搜AB翻几页就给我一堆BA，严重伤害了本不逆人的感情！！！" weibo post by D20__, Archived version, 13 August 2022.
  10. ^ https://twitter.com/MuZhiYou/status/1557870197176152064
  11. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China#:~:text=Pornography%20has%20been%20illegal%20since,commonly%20accessible%20within%20the%20country.
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