Only for those of you who read Chinese, which I don't but wanted to pass the info on anyway. This was gleaned from a China mailing list.

The poster said:

Quote
I love to read. Since I live in the US, most of the Chinese novels I read are online. Several months ago, I stumbled onto the Chinese youth novel scene.

I was amazed at the number of young amature writers. They post their
writings online for free. It's written for youth by youth about
subjects they are interested in. The novels are rated by readers on
their popularity/quality. The readers and writers exchanges comments
via chat or postings.

The subjects are usually romance (including gay romance, but not
lesbian, haven't seen a lesbian novel yet), school life, sci fi,
history, role play, martial arts fantasy, and lord of the rings/harry
potter type of fantasy.

These novels give an interesting look into the minds and lives of
China's youth. I've made some (possbily incorrect) observations about
youth culture based on these novels.

1. teenage girls seem to have a strange fascination with and love of
gay romance novels. If you see references to BL (boy love), that's
what it is.
2. basket ball is big in school.
3. dating before college is still frowned upon.
4. anti-japanese sentiment is fairly omnipresent. (several fantasy
novels I've read wipes the japanses islands from the face of the earth
through very violent means.)
5. no talk of real life politics.
6. role playing games are huge. =20
7. karaoke is as popular as ever
8. comic books are popular with both girls and boys.

If you read chinese, here are two of my favorite novel sites:

www.cmfu.com
www.jjwxc.net

These sites get really slow or unreachable during chinese peak hours.
Unquote

Heh, you're on the Oriental List too?

Yes, I love reading about everyone's trips. I don't contribute that often as several times my replies have been rejected as were in rich text. Have transferred from Hotmail to Yahoo now so hopefully if I have anything to offer, I can get it across.