Below are some snippet translations of this past week’s IWOM mark.

Check more summaries on IWOM mark in CN version

1. Spring Travel (春运)
Chinese New Year is getting close, and Spring Travel, which each year offers “the biggest migration of human history” where millions upon millions return home has always been a source of hot discussion online. So what’s new for this year? Real name registration on purchasing train tickets or watch The Festival of the Empire (春运帝国an Internet parody video clip focused on spring travel, made last year by Hu Ge, famous for his first parody internet video Steamed Bread). To understand the overall sentiment of travelers, look no further than the tag line of the Spring Travel site (www.chunyun.cn): “Hoping every person who wants to go back home for the spring festival can get home.”

2. “Double-knife guy” asked for his salary in a desperate way

3. Amazon.cn again experiences “pricing gate”, the second time in a month
On January 23^rd, a mobile hard disc drive which was originally priced for 500 RMB showed up as 118 RMB on amazon.cn and attracted lots of orders. However, without any notice, Amazon.cn cancelled the orders 3 PM on January24 ^th , which caused complaints from netizens causing Amazon to send a letter of apology. Similar issues happened one month before for “25 RMB pricing gate.”      

4. Internet Addiction War, a ‘shanzhai’ movie using the World of Warcraft game as the background, creates buzz overnight

5. 2009 Annual Rank for Chinese Characters
In the past one year, the meaning of many Chinese characters were redefined by Chinese netizens. The  “annual character” site, NianDuHanZi.com, called for a vote and the character “Wall” (墙) won the annual award.

Check more summaries on IWOM mark in CN version.