One thing that always surprises me about the Chinese is how they will take English and twist it and take control of it… even beyond what we do in America. One example of prominent use is the term ‘netizen,’ something without any particular cachet in western writing, but that I find used several times in any Chinese article about web users. I do not know if this is simply the unfortunate side effect of some overly-enthusiastic Chinese English-language curriculum developer choosing this somewhat obscure word to define a new social movement among the Chinese, and thus ‘netizen’ becoming the only word at hand for a generation of young Chinese. Somewhat in the same vein, perhaps, as the word ‘delicious’ being chosen as the catchall term for things that taste good, leading to the somewhat odd situation of a Chinese person shrugging their shoulders when asked how a certain food item tasted, admitting, in a bored, disinterested voice, that it is ‘very delicious,’ not even close to the proper use of the word.

My personal suspicion is somewhat different, however. Americans function in a world of independence, born on the cult of the individual which rules so many aspects of policy and society even today. The Chinese do not have this luxury, existing in webs of social responsibility vastly larger than we can imagine. A single twenty five year old professional these days is responsible for the upkeep of up to six people: four grandparents, two parents, all of whom might still be alive when the young person considers having his own children. The net (ironically enough) has no such webs, and so the distinction of who one is online with who one is in the real world (or IRL, for the real gen-Y’ers) may be greater, and require a stronger word… one for which there is no great translation into English, beyond netizen.