Aoi Sola Inspires Many Chinese To Leap The Great Firewall
Aoi Sola is a Japanese porn star who lives an independent lifestyle. Millions of people in China lead lives with less political self-determination or freedom, and might have found a way to jump the Great Firewall so they can do what any person in their situation would do: visit Aoi Sola’s Twitter page. AOL News reports that as tweeting birds greet the first vertical rays of the sun, Chinese netizens have greeted the dawning concept of online freedom in China with an instruction manual. They’re helping each other learn how to use proxy servers and virtual private networks so they can follow Aoi Sola. It seems to be a song of human spirit, right? The most obvious question now is “Who will play Sola in the Chinese after-school special?” and will payday loans be needed to finance such a film?
What is the Great Firewall and what does it have to do with Aoi Sola?
The Great Firewall that many Aoi Sola fans have somehow gotten around is pretty much the Chinese government’s efforts to censor online content within the country, particularly that which is critical of the government or brings human rights violations to light. Websites like www.greatfirewallofchina.org show which IPs are blocked in the Communist nation. Twitter is one of the major sites that is blocked by China, so fans in China of Aoi Sola took action when she started Tweeting. They then began to distribute software and instructions to show one another how to use proxy servers and how to create a virtual private network (VPN). The flood of traffic prompted Aoi Sola to wonder, “What sparked so much discussion about me by Chinese people? What happened? Please tell me.” reports the Dongguan Times.
Oh, that Aoi Sola, what a teaser
Americans know very well how celebrities use Twitter to flame their popularity, but this is all very new to China. Josephine Ho of the Center for the Study of Sexualities at Taiwan’s National Central University believes and speculated to Dongguan that the intense interest in Aoi Sola by Chinese fans is a large backlash against tight sexual controls that are instituted by China’s government. In other words, you can’t keep someone down on the farm forever, or they’ll boil over. Japanese porn is everywhere and wildly liberal, and the newness of it all appeals to Chinese people who are curious about it. There are wild attempts to jump the Great Firewall as we can see when entering Aoi Sola. Trampolines will never cut it, even if you go to money lenders to afford the biggest on ever.
What does Aoi Sola tweet?
Not much different than your average American celebrity is an accurate answer. Aoi Sola has more than 54,000 followers, and all of them are enjoying such profound tweets as “Listen!! I bought [an] i pad !! yeah! yeah!” Ever the savvy marketer, Sola tweets in both English and Japanese, according to AOL News. On her blog (NSFW), Aoi Sola writes that she’s working on learning Chinese, but it’s really hard to pick up.
Article Sources:
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/porn-star-aoi-sola-prompts-chinese-to-jump-great-firewall/19448320
http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2010/03/15/google-in-china-google-net-neutrality/
http://twitter.com/aoi_sola
http://sex.ncu.edu.tw/english/EnglishCenterIntroduction.htm
http://www.aoisola.cocolog-nifty.com/