Muzi Mei (; born 1978) is a journalist and blogger from
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, who became an Internet celebrity in late 2003. Her blog contained frank descriptions of her sexual encounters with various men, which is believed to be a first for China.
Her real name is Li Li (李麗 ''Lǐ Lì'') -- "Muzi" (木子) becomes "Li" (李) when the characters are arranged vertically, and "Mei" (美) and "Li" (麗) are synonyms (both mean "beautiful"). She studied in the Department of Philosophy in
Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and graduated in 2001.
In 2003 she was the topic of heated discussion and controversy in print media, bulletin boards and Internet chatrooms across China, and was even mentioned in stories in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' (December 12, 2005, European edition. Vol. 166, No. 24, page 31) and ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and other international media. Her name was often mentioned together with
Tang Jiali, a dancer who was the first to publish a book of nude artistic photographs of herself. This reflected a partial liberalization of restrictions on sexual material and nudity in Chinese publications beginning in 2003.
Portions of her blog have now been translated into
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and published as a book with the title ''Journal sexuel d'une jeune Chinoise sur le net'' (
Éditions Albin Michel, 2005, ). A German translation is published as ''Mein intimes Tagebuch'' (
Aufbau-Verlag
Aufbau-Verlag is a German publisher. It was founded in Berlin in 1945 and became the biggest publisher in the GDR. During that time it specialised in Socialist literature, socialist and Russian literature.
It is currently led by Matthias Koch ...
, Jan. 2007, ).
Muzi Mei was featured in an article in the December 12, 2005 issue of ''
Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
'' entitled "Sex, Please—We're Young and Chinese".
Bokee.com has hired her to promote the concept of
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
ging. She has shifted to
podcasting. "One recent podcast was an hour-long sound track of an amorous encounter, starting with 'Please come in' and finishing in climactic groans, panting and shrieking. It gets about 10,000 visits a day."
www.smh.com.au/news/technology/chinas-web-censors-struggle-to-muzzle-freespirited-bloggers/2005/12/22/1135032135897.html
/ref>
See also
*Sister Furong
Shi Hengxia (; born 1977), better known by her nickname Sister Furong, is a woman from Wugong County, Shaanxi Province, China who received worldwide notoriety in 2005 for her postings on the Internet.
Shi Hengxia is often referred to as frjj, s ...
*Internet censorship in China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China (PRC) affects both publishing and viewing online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of th ...
* BlogCN
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muzi, Mei
1978 births
Chinese bloggers
Chinese women bloggers
Chinese women journalists
People's Republic of China journalists
Living people
Sex educators
Sun Yat-sen University alumni
Writers from Guangzhou
Chinese Internet celebrities