What Kept China\'s Search Engines Busy in 2012

HONG KONG - With an estimated 600 million Chinese now having access to the Internet, it seems both instructive and important to find out about their end of the global online conversation. What have they been reading and searching for this year? What has them worried, or optimistic? What have they been blogging and blathering about?

Baidu, the leading search engine on the mainland, has compiled two Top 10 lists - the most-searched terms online this year, and the “fastest rising” words or phrases, those that raced suddenly from mild interest among netizens to a relatively large number of searches.

The most-searched topic in 2012 was the “Wang Lijun affair” (王立军事件 Wáng Lìjūn Shìjiàn). As the Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo explains:

The dramatic fall of Bo Xilai was triggered in February when Bo's hand-picked top cop in Chongqing was suddenly demoted, then fled in disguise from Chongqing to Chengdu, where he sought refuge in the U.S. Consulate. There, according to many sources, he presented information on the murder of Neil Heywood, a British citizen with close ties to the Bo family, at the hands of Bo's wife Gu Kailai. And so began the most dramatic real-life political thriller that China had seen in decades.

Mr. Wang was eventually convicted of various crimes and handed a 15-year prison sentence.

The No. 3 term on the list centered more directly on Mr. Bo's downfall (薄熙来被免职 Bó Xīlaí beì miǎnzhí).

Once a member of Communist Party royalty, Mr. Bo was removed from his posts and kicked out of the party. His wife was convicted of murder, and Mr. Bo is now reportedly enmeshed in a secretive judicial process that deals with wayward senior officials.

A number of the most popular searches in 2012 focused on pocketbook issues: No. 2 was the price of silver (白é"¶ä»·æ ¼ baíyín jiàgè), which has seesawed all year, and No. 4 was the price of gasoline (油价 yoújià), which caused huge popular outrage and led to a nationwide series of taxi strikes.

Chinese became fascinated this year with paper gold (纸黄é‡' zhǐhuángjÄ«n), or gold certificates, the fifth-most searched term. Baidu described the certificates as “basically a savings account for gold,” an investment vehicle favored by smaller investors perhaps wary of real estate or the stock market.

No. 6 on the search list was “individual income tax” (个人所得税 gèrénsuÇ'déshuì) - llo, President François Hollande, are you getting this? - followed by the lottery for auto licenses (æ'‡å· yaóhaò). Baidu's explanation of the lottery issue:

In an effort to curb private automobile ownership, which has turned Beijing's famed Ring Roads into barely-mobile parking lots during rush hour commute, the capital implemented a lottery system on January 1, 2011 for would-be car buyers. This year Guangzhou followed suit and began issuing license plates only for lucky lottery winners beginning in August.

As the chances for getting picked by the lottery machine get slimmer by the day, Beijingers became even more furious with a recent report that Song Jianguo, head of the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, was being investigated for rigging the lottery for personal gain. The authorities claimed the accusations were groundless, but people's suspicions remained.

The terms on Baidu's fastest-rising list had a more sensationalist quality to them, led by Gu Kailai, who confessed to the poisoning of Mr. Heywood and received a suspended death sentence.

Rumors about more contaminated dairy products blew up the Chinese Internet in March, sending it to No. 2 on the fastest-rising list, ahead of online bloviating about a corporate logo change (“Old Dame' becomes a young girl: 大娘变å°'妇 Dàniáng biàn shaòfù).

Baidu's description: “When Danian Dumplings, a popular Shanghai-based chain whose name means something like ‘old dame,' decided to ditch the goofy old lady who'd been on their logo forever in favor of a curvaceous young lass, viewed from behind in silhouette as she carries a bucket, people all over China were curious, and anxious to spout off their opinions.”

“The girl who dreamed of time travel got conned” (å°'女梦想穿越被骗 shàonǘ mèngxiáng chuānyuè bèipiàn) was at No. 5. Baidu explains the fate of the girl and her missing $290:

A 19-year-old young woman named Dan became obsessed wit h the idea of going back in time after watching a hit TV series where the young female protagonist, a college student, goes back in time to hang with the emperor and cavort with handsome Manchu princes in the Qing Dynasty. She met someone online and was told that she could travel back in time after drinking a “miracle wine.” The unwitting Dan drank the wine and woke up to find her 1,800 kuai cash gone.

There were other fast-rising searches about the usual banal stuff: nude photos posted online of a film star's girlfriend, a famous comedian who inexplicably pulled out of a New Year's gala, a woman sleeping through a live televised concert, a scandal involving an allegedly corrupt narcotics policeman.

We'll close with No. 8 on the fastest-rising searches - a Time magazine cover photo of a California mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old son who's standing on a stool ( [时代] 喂奶照 shídài zázhì weìnaízhào). The cover can be seen here, along with a Time article about the genesis of the photo, which, as Baidu noted, “grabbed eyeballs in China, introducing the novel concept of ‘attachment parenting' to millions of Internet users.”