Using Douban.com to discover new Music in China

We continue our quest to inform you about Chinese online social media networks by introducing Douban, a user-content site focusing on the exchange of music, movies, literature and other forms of media. Think MySpace music, Amazon.com and RottenTomatoes all rolled into one (kind of confusing) site. It’s in Chinese and does not have an English option, but we will attempt to help you navigate through the hieroglyphics as long as you are willing to step into the pyramid. This article is for those who are really interested in what the young adults of China are listening to, reading, and watching.

Literally translated as “Bean Shell,” Douban has a user community of over 10 million and the largest library of media reviews. The site is divided into four parts: Douban Books, Douban Movies, its most popular section Douban Music, and the current events/news section called JiuDian (“Nine-o-clock”). Unless you read Chinese really well, JiuDian and Books won’t do you any good, so we’ll skip that today and focus on the music and movies sections. Both are accessible enough to give you some insight into the Chinese entertainment world.

Douban Music
It's exactly like MySpace Music, Garageband, or any of those other sites where bands can create a profile, post their bio, pictures, and music, announce show dates and gain an audience online. This is a very valuable resource for you music geeks who want to see what’s going on in the Chinese music community. Even foreign bands inside and outside China have tapped into Douban’s potential to gain access to the Mainland music circle.

Like China herself, Douban is a little disorganized and you have to get through the noise to find the most worthy content buried underneath. If you already know the name of a band and want to find music and reviews, just type the band’s name in the search bar. But if you don’t have that objective, you will see how the site just throws a bunch of band names, pictures, and album reviews up for you to browse by name, genre and/or region in a tortuous fashion. It does however do a good job of listing shows that users have announced. Your best bet is to put the page through Google translator and browse the site in broken (hilarious) English. It’s not perfect, but you’ll get the idea and might find a great new band you’ve never heard of before.

Douban Radio (within the Music section OR direct link: http://douban.fm/)
Douban radio is an online music listening page and is a lot like Pandora . It has a small pop-up window imitating the appearance of radio. Function buttons include: a volume control, a switch, and "like” and “discard" tags. Of course, it shows album and song names. Douban radio is also available on the IPhone and Andriod. Some users have even developed a third-party desktop version and published it in the Douban radio group. It enables you to use douban radio without opening an internet browser.
Last I checked though, almost every song that came up was a crappy Mandopop song, so its not something the average laowai would frequently use. However, it could go over well at a hipster-hosted ironic cheesy-Chinese-themed party OR a just a normal party hosted by Chinese people.

Douban Movies
If you are really interested in expanding your knowledge (and language) of modern Chinese culture, do so through film. Click on Douban Movies and browse the many reviews. Like the Music section, it’s not too streamlined, but Google translator should help you sift through the clutter. A lot of the movies are western, but keep browsing and you’ll find some great (and not-so-great) Chinese films that might be able to find at your (legal?) DVD store. The most popular films have English subtitles.

Making Friends on Douban
If you are serious about improving your Chinese or making friends, Douban has a great online community you can join and meet people with similar interests. But it’s not just Chinese people who join this site, people from many countries frequent Douban. If you don’t read Chinese, here are the basics on how to sign up:

1) Go to douban.com and click the registration button (currently this is the big green button on the front page)
2) A form will come up. You will fill in your user e-mail, password, and a new username (all in this order). Then just fill in the CAPTCHA (where you copy the word that you see in the colored box) and click the box in which you agree with the terms of use (who reads these anyways?). Then click SUBMIT.
3) Click the link in your email inbox.
4) Start your douban journey.