Advertisement

Chinese red-light blogger caught red-handed

A barber shop in China. (Credit: Jongo/ Penn-Olsen)
A barber shop in China. (Credit: Jongo/ Penn-Olsen)

By Willis Wee, Penn-Olson

Blogging is a common way to share things online. But unfortunately for him, Lin Chenglong is one blogger who shared a little too much. Instead of blogging about travel experiences, food, or technology, Lin Chenglong prefers to blog about his experience at "barber shops" — the shady ones, if you know what I mean.

In China, small-scale brothels are often disguised as barber shops. Lin started visiting these barber shops at age 17 and eventually got addicted. In March 2009, he started a personal blog to share his experiences at these barber shops. By November 2010, Lin's blog, which is filled with photos and written content about his adventures, had attracted over 60,000 monthly visits. At age 21, Lin had already visited the barber shops for over 300 times.

Ironically, his sudden burst of fame also caused his demise. Lin's content caught the attention of the authorities and he was subsequently sentenced to a year of imprisonment. As he faced his punishment, Lin explained that he wanted to combine two of his hobbies into one — blogging and prostitution. In the end, that was probably not such a good idea. He also explained that he didn't expect to attract such a huge audience and insisted that his blog is only for personal use.

Well if that is really the case, make your blog private, Mr. Lin. The Internet is filled with folks looking for sexually-explicit photos content and blogging freely about it will naturally attract more attention. According to Baidu, Lin's blog Foshan Dapao (or literally Foshan Big Cannon), was ranked first place on Baidu's popular trends search list last week.

This story is similar in some ways to one we broke last week about an official in southern China who had been using Sina Weibo microblog to flirt with his mistress. Amazingly, he had no idea that his messages were publicly viewable. Similarly, the result was also disastrous.

This story is provided courtesy of Penn-Olson.