Lost Laowai Celebrates 2nd Birthday

I’m a bit crap at remembering birthdays, and so this is a bit late – but Lost Laowai officially turned 2 years old a week or so ago.

It’s a bit hard to believe that it was that long ago I started clacking away on my keyboard attempting to put together some sort of site that could deliver information and opinions about China that didn’t have any particular “agenda” (hence the whole “no-nonsense” China guide/expat community slogan).

The site still has a lot I would like to improve and build upon, but by and by I’m quite happy with the way it has evolved – in no small part to the awesome contributors that regularly grace this blog with their wonderful words.

Looking ahead, my plans for the site are to improve the general content areas. Adding more content to the Expat Life, Learn Chinese and Teach ESL sections.

I’m going to continue developing our relatively new “media” section which showcases China videos, music and podcasts as well as some great photos of China.

I’ve also got a few features I’m hoping to add/re-launch, including job listings, classifieds and events.

And, of course, I’ll keep maintaining (and hopefully improving) the China Blog Network – a way for China-themed blogs to connect to one another and maybe increase their traffic a bit.

Hao Hao Report getting hao’er all the time

I’m a bit behind in announcing this as well, but in line with Lost Laowai’s (and in turn the Hao Hao Report’s) 2nd anniversary, the Hao Hao Report has gone through a rather major upgrade and now features a few new bells and whistles of its own, as well as a whole lot of future-readiness – yup, we’re in it for the long-haul.

The regular spiel for anyone that still doesn’t know what the HHR is:

The Hao Hao Report (HHR) is a way to quickly see what the most popular English language articles regarding China are. The HHR accepts blog posts, major news articles, videos and basically anything about China.

Articles are submitted, and then voted upon by the HHR community. If the article gets “Hao’d” enough times, it is then promoted to the site’s main page and is deemed “Popular”. If not, it fades into obscurity faster than a child star who’s just hit puberty.

Essentially the site is designed to be three things:

1. A fast and easy way to get a snapshot of what important things are being said/written about China
2. A community for people interested in current events about China
3. A method by which China-centric bloggers can promote their stuff

The new upgrade puts the site on a more stable and solid framework, and allows for easier and more frequent feature integration. I’ll save the tech talk, but suffice to say, I’m damn giddy about the new setup (despite it taking me a bit to figure things out).

And to you all…

What would this site, or the HHR, be without our community members, subscribers, regular readers and commenters? In short – nothing. You guys don’t just make this site, you make it something I’m proud to be a part of.

Despite what the voices tell me, I’m just one guy, and there’s no way I could keep this site going if it wasn’t for the efforts and encouragement from our community and the China blogsphere as a whole.

Thank you all – and here’s to another year of being a Lost Laowai (raises warm can of Snow beer).