random question ahoy!

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

Hey all,

I know this is a bit of a strange question, but I was wondering if anyone knows where the Mandarin-speaking JE fans hang out online? I'm moving to China and I think getting into the language through my favorite topic at the moment would be a good idea. ;) If anyone has any leads - LJ, Vox, forums, whatever - that would be great!

Thanks!

x-posted to kattunlove, arashi_on, news_jpop, sorry if you see this a bunch!

Comments

[zephia.livejournal.com]

Well.. for Arashi I regularly check http://www.arashitime.com/ but they only open registration once in awhile. There's also Baidu bars but they are kind of messy and not really a good place to meet people if that's what you have in mind. And other forums like XQ just gives me a headache trying to decipher their inet codes, lol XD Besides, there seem to be er.. quite a bit of bashing between fans of different groups on XQ I think.. just because it's a general JE forum. So I'd recommend registering at some forum dedicated to a single JE group.

IDK if this reply even helped at all XD;

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

No that's a good place to start! Maybe I'll hold out for an opening on registration for Arashi Time. ;) I thought of Baidu but it always confuses me - kinda like Yahoo, which confuses me and it's in my native language. I've never heard of XQ though. I'll give those both a shot.

It did help; 多谢你！

[youkosiren.livejournal.com]

They seem to open it up for member birthdays, so... X3

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

lol so I have to wait for June and Nino's birthday! That's... a while away. But I guess I might be busy with the whole "moving" thing. ;) Thanks for your help!

[zephia.livejournal.com]

No problem :) By the way.. http://arashi6thmember.uu1001.cn is a forum that's just starting.. They're subbing Uta no Oniisan right now :) It doesnt seem to be too active right now but they ARE open to registrations. Besides, smaller forums are always better for making friends? XD If you're interested you can check it out.

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

Definitely interested! Thanks again, though, this has already been a great help! At least I know what to expect. ;)

[salwaphoenix.livejournal.com]

Baidu i guess? i think LJ and Vox are not accessible in China, at least that's what i've encountered in Shanghai when i went there for AAA.

good luck!

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

LJ's okay... or at least it was when I was there a couple of years ago. I think it probably depends on what ISP you get. Oh China.

As an aside though, aksdflsdfgsjdfga I can only keep my fingers crossed someone will tour closer than Japan while I'm over there. That said, I could always jump across the East China Sea to catch a Dome show, it would just be an expensive venture. ;)

[zephia.livejournal.com]

I think LJ is banned in China now, wtf =_=

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

mmm, I checked out an LJ group for expats and they seem to say it's intermittent. I remember when I was there last there was an underwater earthquake that knocked out the internet pipes from Taiwan to China or something... idk but anyway I woke up and they had banned some things and left others open. It's always seemed pretty random.

[acidae.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I think the problem is that most of the bigger forums are closed off to registration because of the amount of traffic they get. Like zephia said, some of them do open up registration every so often, but some of them don't have regular schedules for it, and often they're open for very short periods of time.

Chinese fans don't have anything similar to LJ or Vox either-- most of them do own blogs (most of which are public), but they're mostly scattered throughout Pixnet and fc2, both of which don't have 'communities' or ways for people to connect unless they already knew each other, were introduced via mutual friends, or stumbled upon blogs by chance.

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

I guess I'll have to become one of those random blog stalkers, then ;) I'll try for forums as well - you never know your luck in the big city!

Thanks :)

[acidae.livejournal.com]

I'm looking through the forums I frequent and checking which ones are still open, but I think this NEWS one should be okay? I used to frequent it back when I was still into them:

http://www.newsboomjapan.net/bbs/index.php

As for Arashi, I think three of the big ones are Arashizone (http://www.dreamclub.cn/index.php), Arashitime (http://www.arashitime.com/) and Arashi Right (http://www.arashi-right.net/discuz/index.php), but they're all currently closed to registration.

The majority of Chinese fans are Taiwanese, but there's a fair share of mainland China fans too, and there's also a big mix of simplified/traditional Chinese (I'm not sure if you'll have a problem with that, since I know some people do and some don't XD). Hope that helps!.

[zephia.livejournal.com]

I think Arashizone has the best subbing speed XD By the way, I heard they're not open for registration anymore? Even if they are it's more troublesome than Arashitime so AT is probably the best bet.

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

i hung out on baidu bars a lot (i still do, in spurts, once in awhile) and actually they have very high standards. if you're inactive they tend to kick you out. (raises hand - got kicked out from Arashi bar XD) you can't just 'watch' a community, and sometimes they get upset if you 潜水, which means you're lurking and not coming out to post. they want people to post because more posts will bump up the rankings of the bar, and when the bar is ranked higher it's akin to the artistes they're supporting being at the top of the communities in the network.

it's quite complicated, but i'd say that's where they hang out. the internet culture is pretty different, for example they call nino 狗狗 and sho 少爷. heh.

i don't think baidu is difficult when you get used to it. the people are actually really nice. just make sure to 'participate'. you don't necessarily have to contribute. you could have a look ^_^

there are ways to open up LJ and Vox in China but alas it is beyond me. you have to download an external program to open it up, but it's really troublesome.

[zephia.livejournal.com]

What? You don't even have to have a baidu account to browse the bars do you? Because I don't have an account o_o;

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

You don't even have to have a baidu account to browse the bars do you?

You don't need one to browse, you're right. I just had one already, so I joined 'officially' since I didn't want to get nagged at if I ever had to ask a question or post a response. (They'd ask you to 'wear clothes' if you post without an account. ^_^)

[kioy.livejournal.com]

Arashi:

AT - http://www.arashitime.com
AZ - http://www.dreamclub.cn/index.php
AY - http://www.arashiy.com <- I recommend this one. It's newer and more lively. It opens on members' birthdays as well as the third day of each month for registration.


NEWS:

Definitely NBS - Newsboomjapan - which has been posted.


KATTUN:

KTR - http://bbs.ktroom.com/


(There are tons of smaller or member-specific forums floating around. If you want to know, you can PM me.)

[love-kat-tun.livejournal.com]

i think there are mandrain speaking fans here
I'm a Chinese , I'm from Singapore and I can speak , chinese , japanese and english

I dun really hang out at baidu though
haha

[http://users.livejournal.com/digitalized_/]

I'm from Taiwan :)

And yeah, I guess most Chinese forums don't really promote discussion that much. I don't know about ArashiTime because I still can't get into that one, but I know the rest are all pretty crowded and they don't like having messy posts because it's harder to control.

Most of those forums are mainly simplified Chinese since they're China forums - probably easier for you to meet Chinese fans, though it'd take a little time.

If it's information/scans/subbed videos you want, then forums are the best. But if it's friends you're searching for, I might suggest surfing for blogs? If you know what you're looking for, directly commenting on other's journals makes it easier to meet Chinese fans. fc2 is originally a Japanese blog site, but many Chinese fans tend to hang around there too. I met quite a few friends with similar interests that way, like the way LJ works - just without the communities.

Guess I can't help much, since I can't read simplified much; traditional is much easier for me.

[booksandsarcasm.livejournal.com]

xD I'm not the OP but I was thinking of registering. xD I have no idea how to read characters though. x.x My family is from Taiwan too so maybe I'll force them to register for me. e-e9

[http://users.livejournal.com/digitalized_/]

I'm just curious, why would you want to join a Chinese forum if you can't read it? Since most forums require responding at least once in a while...

[acidae.livejournal.com]

btw, probably not very important, but ArashiRight doesn't close registration.

Actually, I checked just last night and it tells me this when I 'tried' to register:

ARASHI‧RIGHT 提示信息
對不起，目前論壇禁止新用戶註冊，請返回。

So unless my Chinese is slipping I think it is? At the present time at least.

[http://users.livejournal.com/digitalized_/]

Ah, I forgot, they open registration every first week of the month. So comparing to the ones who only open membership randomly, it's much easier to register. Oops :p

[rukia1314.livejournal.com]

hihi
im from hong kong (guess thats part of china lol)so if theres any needs pls feel free to ask ^^