While many heard of Maria Schneider who produced the web-only album that won the Grammy, very few people (or at least outside the Chinese community) heard of 杨臣刚 (Yang Chen Gang).

Yang Chen Gang produced a web-only Chinese album called 老鼠爱大米¹ (click here to listen) which is incredibly popular in China , thanks to 网络DJ (Web-DJ). In fact, he was just recently invited to (China) National TV, which is an incredible feat.

Don’t believe? Grab a friend from China and ask if he/she have heard of Yang Chen Gang. They would be very surprised that you know the name. [Or do a search on Baidu, the Google for China.]

I also learn yesterday that China Internet Users has grown to 94m (~10% of the world internet population) according to Mao Wei. I think I can trust Mao since he is the Executive Director of CNNIC who is responsible for collecting these statistics annually. That’s means there is a world of 94m chinese Internet users which the rest of the English-speaking Internet world have little knowledge and interaction with.

It’s like you have a 10% blackhole in your system.

¹ The literal translation is “Mouse love Big Rice” which is very cute.