ESWN translates a Southern Metropolis Daily story about the four Shanghai girls who jumped to their deaths:

On the day before yesterday, the Shanghai Business School published the names of the four female students who died during a dorm fire. Netizens found out that two of them — Liu Wenwen and Wang Jiayan — have registered blogs at Xiaonei.com, which is the social networking site for university students.

In Liu Wenwen’s blog, we found a photograph of her smiling joyfully and we read about her humorous diary about losing her mobile phone. At the blog of Wang Jiayan’s boyfriend, we read the simple happiness of a couple in love. The words written in memory of his girlfriend caused many netizens to sheer tears as well.

Meanwhile a third student Chen Rui had a namesake at another university. This other student was mistaken to be a victim and her photo was plastered across the Internet. Tens of thousands of netizens went to her blog to bid her farewell.

“Waiting for the arrival of number 1,000” was the tag that Liu Wenwen wrote on her blog. She was waiting for the 1,000-th visitor to her blog. The date was 3 days ago. In three days time at 11pm last night, the blog had more than 800,000 visits. By refreshing the page, the reporter noted that the number is continuing to climb. Liu Wenwen’s wish was realized, but she wasn’t there to witness it….

“When Tibet has this Shangri La-like romantic image in the west, it is unavoidably linked to the wave of thinking about anti-modernity, anti-globalization and multi-culturalism.” A Chinese blogger’s response to the New York Times.