Blogging About Blogs: A Meta-Post

To celebrate my 100th post, I thought I'd reflect a bit on the blog concept itself.

What is this blog, other than a public diary with (often not very) pretty pictures? Well, I can add hyperlink citations, thumbnail pictures can be instantly expanded to their original size, viewers can leave comments, and the so-called Web 2.0 technologies such as RSS feeds and tags make it easy to categorise and search... That is, if I can be bothered to ascribe tags accurately and consistently. As the old computing axiom goes: Garbage In - Garbage Out. The technology can only be as good as the human input involved.

After all, 'blog' is just a catchy neologism for the term 'web log' - mundanely, the idea of logging something, anything, online. It seems to me, then that in the technological respect at least, blogs are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

How about blogging as a cultural concept? The Guardian ran a reasonable article recently to mark the 10th anniversary of the technology. The vast majority of blogs, I suspect, are personal diaries, used just like this one to keep friends, family, and interested creepy strangers informed of the blogger's day-to-day life. Then there are the breaking news, technology, and economic sites, blogs dedicated to certain cities and minority interest sites about anything you could think of.

What do they have in common? How about, a common reverse-chronological format, addition of citations, and the ability to post? Well, these things aren't common to all blogs, and aren't exclusive to them either. Ultimately, the 'blog' is too nebulous a concept to pin down as a single entity. Is it a set of tools? Just a pointless exercise in time-wasting? A cultural phenomenon. A noun? A verb?

As for writing itself, when talking about another country, another culture, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of ascribing homogenous properties to something which is obviously much more complex and multi-faceted. I'm all too guilty of this flaw: "The Chinese think X", or "In China, Y does Z". It annoys me when I see it elsewhere, and it's sloppy, lazy and more than a little bigoted.

Blogs have at various times been accused of causing, or being symptomatic of, an increasing narcissism among the netizen population. I don't know about that. I'm not vain enough to expect my day-to-day life to be of captivating interest to anyone, but I hope at least some people take a peek to while away some time at work, or occasionally have a look to see what I'm up to. At the very least, I hope that I'll be reading this in a few years, not just as a reminder of what I did, but hopefully as a bit of an insight into how I used to think. (Also, of how much I used to eat).

Publishing online also keeps me more honest than I'd be in an offline personal diary. I'm constantly reviewing and self-censoring, and it stops me going off on teenage angsty rants against the pointlessness/unfairness of it all. Lies then, if any, are by omission more than anything else.

On the other hand, it's because I want this blog to be as complete a snapshot of my half year or so in the Ice City, that I've delved into the mundanities of everyday life. Hopefully, there's a gem or two among all the triviality - things that have shocked or disturbed me: dogmeat, alcoholism, countless cultural quirks. I'm also firmly of the belief that a Pinteresque capturing of the little idiosyncrancies of daily life, daily speech, can all build up to something beautiful and meaningful.

What then, of the next 100 posts? Well, this is a Harbin blog, which will be retired once I get home. In keeping with my irrational superstition, I'd like to hit a nice round and/or auspicious number with my posts. 168, 188 or 200 maybe?

Writing for me is a guilty pleasure. I know I should be studying, out doing something more useful, or even posting in Chinese, but I love the flavour of the English language. I try to rationalise the time-wasting: Maybe I'll write the novel I have inside me, and this is all good writing practice! I'm actually saving time on all the letters I'd write home! This blog is the only thing keeping me sane in a far-off land!

In the end, I guess there really is no '为什么?' of 冰冰宝贝.