Source: NYT (11/30/03):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/international/asia/30CHIN.html

Internet Sex Column Thrills, and Inflames, China
By JIM YARDLEY

GUANGZHOU, China, Nov. 26 < For the past month, as China's propaganda
machine has promoted the nation's new space hero or the latest
pronouncements from Communist Party leaders, the Chinese public has seemed
more interested in a 25-year-old sex columnist whose beat is her own
bedroom.

"I think my private life is very interesting," said the columnist, Mu Zimei,
arching an eyebrow and tapping a Marlboro Light into an ashtray. She added:
"I do not oppose love, but I oppose loyalty. If love has to be based on
loyalty, I will not choose love."

Mu Zimei is both reviled and admired, but she is not ignored. The country's
most popular Internet site, Sina.com, credits her with attracting 10 million
daily visitors. Another site, Sohu.com, says Mu Zimei is the name most often
typed into its Internet search engine, surpassing one occasional runner-up,
Mao Zedong.

Her celebrity < which exploded when she posted an explicit online account of
her tryst with a Chinese rock star < first seemed to baffle government
censors but now has drawn a familiar response. Her forthcoming book was
banned this week. She has quit her magazine columnist job and halted her
blog, or online diary.

Yet at a time when "Sex and the City" episodes are among the most popular
DVD's in China, the Mu Zimei phenomenon is another example of the
government's struggle to keep a grip on social change in China. Her writings
have prompted a raging debate about sex and women on the Internet, where
more people are writing blogs or arguing anonymously about a host of
subjects in chat rooms and discussion pages.

"She does bring a huge impact on Chinese society," said Zeng Fuhu, a top
editor at Sohu.com.

Such sweeping talk does not impress Ms. Mu as she sits in a bistro in this
south China boomtown. Women at a nearby table try to eavesdrop as China's
scarlet-lettered woman estimates that she has slept with about 70 men, and
counting.

She said she never realized her online diary would be so widely discovered,
or that it would grow into a national controversy. But she defended her
right to sleep with as many men as she pleased < and to write about it.

"If a man does this," she said, "it's no big deal. But as a woman doing so,
I draw lots of criticism."

Sex, and governmental anxiety about it, is not a new issue in China. In
January 1994, the government banned "The Abandoned Capital," a sexually
explicit, best-selling novel by an acclaimed author, Jia Pingwa. Then in May
2000, censors banned another sex-soaked best seller, "Shanghai Baby," by
Zhou Weihui.

But Ms. Mu's case is notable because her most controversial work appeared on
the Internet. Mu Zimei (pronounced Moo Zuh-MAY) is the pen name of Li Li,
who began working in 2001 as a feature writer at City Pictorial, a glossy
magazine covering fashion and social trends. At the end of 2002, editors
overhauled the magazine and decided they wanted a sex columnist who could
write about "real life" issues.

Ms. Mu said she was chosen because editors knew she was familiar with the
subject. Her first sexual experience < on April 30, 1999, she noted < ended
with an abortion and left her wary of the opposite sex. She followed that
with a "pretty normal boyfriend" before concluding she was not a one-man
woman. "Personally, I felt I was suitable for temporary relationships," she
said.

Her biweekly column in City Pictorial began in January. Her topics included
recommendations on the best music for good lovemaking, the aphrodisiacal
benefits of eating oysters and technical pointers on making love in a car.
It was racy stuff for China, but hardly without precedent.

What changed everything was her decision in April to start her own online
blog at a new Chinese site for personal diaries. She said she thought it
would be fun.

While writing her magazine column, she had hopped from man to man, sometimes
hopping to two men at once, sometimes hopping to married men. Her topics,
though, remained more thematic than explicit.