By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-14 05:40

March 8 was International Women's Day, but for Wang Xiaofeng it might as well have been April Fool's Day.

On that day, the senior writer for Beijing-based Sanlian Life Weekly shut down his popular blog, as did Yuan Lei, an entertainment reporter for Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend.

The duo had planned the practical joke some two weeks earlier.

On that day, both blogs displayed this message: "Because of unavoidable reasons known to all, this blog is now temporarily closed."

That evening, a Reuters report said: "Two of China's most adventurous web logs closed on Wednesday under government orders, the latest in a wave of shutdowns as Chinese censors tighten controls in cyberspace."

The report was used by at least 200 international media organizations.

"We tried the prank to test how foreign media would react. And this is exactly what we anticipated," explained Wang Xiaofeng in an interview with China Daily.

Wang's blog, named "Massage Milk," is among the most popular in China. His acerbic writings on culture and entertainment have won him a best Chinese-language blog award from Deutsche Welle as well as a legion of loyal fans. Yuan's blog, named "Milk Pig," is mostly short comments on the nation's entertainment scene.

A source close to Reuters' Beijing office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told China Daily that they failed to reach Wang for confirmation and did not check with the relevant government agency.

Wang Xiaofeng had been annoyed that he was constantly misquoted by foreign media.

"Every time they interviewed me, they tried to steer the questions towards political topics, in which I have no interest. Even if I made no mention of anything political, the articles would come out as if I were an activist," he said.

"Most of the foreign reporters are not readers of my blog, and the few snippets they read in translation are usually out of context so they appear to be political," he added.

Once he told a Western reporter that out of the millions of blogs in China, maybe only five are purely political. "Why can't you look beyond that?" he asked.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/14/content_534795.htm

And we don't know for sure when the brownshirts will came and drag us off here.