Chinese Blogs and online Reading
danjo
July 04, 2007, 06:37 AM posted in General Discussionsunmun
July 04, 2007, 07:55 AMhttp://www.xinhuanet.com/ http://www.gzlive.net/ http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/
aaronpan
July 04, 2007, 08:14 AMblog.sina.com.cn/ 这个是中国人气最高的博客网之一，你可以找到任何你感兴趣的话题，而且都是native speaker写的
dphaskel
July 04, 2007, 03:46 PMExcellent discussion topic, I'm interested in hearing more suggestions. I've found this site pretty worthwhile, news and random smattering of stories: http://www.popyard.org/
aeflow
July 04, 2007, 03:57 PMYou can try portal sites like http://www.163.com/ (NetEase) and http://www.enorth.com.cn/ which have news stories on topics like health, IT, finance, science/tech, entertainment, sports, etc. If you are outside of China you could also try http://www.voachinese.com/ (United States news from Voice of America), which is a news portal site (they also have audio). You could also try Google News at http://news.google.cn/ which has categorized news stories (including "entertainment" and "society" and others). Personally I avoid Chinese-language blogs for now because blogs (in any language) typically make heavy use of slang or witty humorous phrasing or pop culture references or netspeak or fad-driven memes, which can sometimes be up-to-the-minute and hard to follow and not listed in any dictionary. I'm more into trying to review and expand mainstream vocabulary especially including technical vocabulary in areas like science, health, finance, computing, and from your description, it sounds like you are also looking more for portal sites rather than blogs. One thing to keep in mind is that Chinese portal sites tend to be wall-to-wall text, which can be intimidating. Also, one-line headline links can sometimes be a bit cryptic due to abbreviations, while the actual story behind the link can be easier to follow.
danjo
July 05, 2007, 01:28 AMThanks for all the suggestions, very useful. One thing I'd like to point out that looks pretty neat: within that www.lifeofguangzhou.com site there is a "bilingual news" section with both the Chinese and English for a story: http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_10/node_22/node_25/index.shtml
aeflow
July 05, 2007, 03:14 AMThere is more bilingual news at http://www.freexinwen.com/chinese/eng/news_bilingual/index.htm This is VOA-based, so might be blocked from China.
danjo
July 05, 2007, 05:25 AMYep, blocked in China. Irritating sometimes...
johnb
July 04, 2007, 07:29 AMI enjoy 不许联想. For general reading material, perhaps try one of the big portals like Sina, which has material on pretty much every topic under the sun.