From Tangshan to Wenchuan: a fault line through modern China

Following the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked southwest China on May 12, a young woman sent her own shockwaves through the Internet. Under the name "Post-90 Xiao Yun", she uploaded about 10 intimate photos of herself, including some in which she was completely nude, on to www.tianya.cn, one of the country''''s leading online communities. They were posted with an appeal to the public to donate to the quake relief effort. Xiao Yun, who claimed to be 19 and a native of Sichuan Provinceliving in Beijing, wrote that she was a student and was pleased tosee people across the country helping Sichuan. She called for further donations and promised more photos as an incentive. The move caused a public uproar and wide divisions. Whether her behavior was proper or not is open to debate, but it serves as an extreme example of how... [read full story]