What did Chinese search for in 2013? As the dominant search engine in China, Baidu’s search data will no doubt shed some light on China’s culture, top events and user behaviors; and, based on top search terms in selected categories from Baidu, this post aims to provide you some insights.
Top 10 Search Keywords on Baidu
The top 10 Chinese search keywords in 2013 were weather, taobao, Wu Dong Qian Kun, The Tang Door, Mang Huang Ji, Zhe Tian, Double Chromosphere, Baidu, Da Zhu Zai and qzone.
1. Weather
Weather ranked the number one in Chinese search keywords in 2013, it showed that Chinese netizens concerned more about weather and environment issues. In 2013, Chinese paid close attention to air condition, hazy weather, blizzard and even typhoon. When netizens searched “weather” in Baidu search engine especially in PC end, the search result page would list one-week weather forecast on the left, and life quality index on the right which gave suggestions for car washing, travelling and sports. Many netizens had been used to searching weather in Baidu everyday, therefore, weather came to the top on Chinese search keywords list in 2013.
2. Taobao
Taobao’s ranking in the second place was a reflection of online shopping rush in 2013. Double 11 shopping carnival helped Alibaba made billions, and it also helped “Taobao” search times increased. Taobao was launched by Alibaba Group in May 2013. According to Alexa, Taobao Marketplace became one of world top 20 most visited websites. Taobao now has about 500 million registered users, with 60 million unique visitors daily. In April 2013, Alibaba invested in Sina Weibo, and launched Weibo for Taobao in August.
3. Wu Dong Qian Kun
Wu Dong Qian Kun is the hottest Chinese online novel written by Li Hu, first published on Qidian.com which is a leading Chinese original literature website. The novel is a fantasy kung fu story happened in ancient China.
4. The Tang Door
The Tang Door is also a popular Chinese online novel written by Zhang Wei, and it was also published on Qidian.com. It is the same with Mang Huang Ji (5), Zhe Tian (6) and Da Zhu Zai (9), all are fantasy online novels.
7. Double Chromosphere
Double Chromosphere is a kind of Chinese lottery, it ranked on the top 10 keywords in 2013 which was a reflection of Chinese fortune dream. More or less, every Chinese dreamed of being rich.
8. Baidu
Baidu is the biggest search engine in China, was founded on January 18 2013 by Robin Li. In Q3 2013, Baidu search engine market share by volume accounted for 63.55%, ranking the first in China. Baidu acquired 91 Wireless with USD 1.9 billion on July 16, 2013. Baidu’s acquisition, the biggest in China internet industry for 19 years, showed its resolution in entering mobile search market. On October 28, 2013, Baidu launched its finance center just like Alibaba’s Yu’E Bao to enter into online finance management market.
10. Qzone
Qzone is a social networking website launched by Tencent in 2005. Qzone allows users to write blogs, share with friends, upload pictures, listen to music and post status. Qzone and Sina Weibo ranked on the top 2 of China social sharing websites in 2013, according to JiaThis, in October 2013, Qzone surpassed Sina Weibo to be the number one in China social sharing websites.
Top 10 Fastest Rising Events
1. Ya’an Earthquake
On April 20, 2013, at 8:02 Beijing time, the epicenter was situated in Lushan County of Ya’an in Sichuan province. The earthquake magnitude was 7.0. About 1.52 million people was affected by the earthquake. By April 24 at 14:30, the earthquake caused 196 casualties, 21 missing and 11,470 wounded. The disaster attracted wide attention nationwide, about 8,000 soldiers came to the rescue and many enterprises and Red Cross donated money and supplies. The government announced April 27 to be the public mourning day of the dead in Ya’an earthquake, entertainment was forbidden in Sichuan, at 8:02 on April 27, the siren lasted for 3 minutes.
2. Five Policies of Real Estate Regulation
Real estate price was the top concern of many Chinese, the price in tier-one cities was soaring crazily in recent years. Newlyweds from middle-income or low-income families could barely afford the down-payment of a house in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. Even the price in tier-two and three cities were rising fast in the past few years. Chinese government had been trying to control real estate price for years, and on February 20 2013, Chinese former premier Wen chaired State Council executive meeting and the meeting announced five policies of real estate regulation. This was the fifth real estate regulation since the beginning in December 2009. In January 2010, State Council announced eleven policies of real estate regulation, 10 policies in April, and September 29 new policies. In January 2011, State Council announced new eight policies. The fifth regulation policies centered on house purchase quota and mortgage restriction, and curb speculative housing investment.
3. H7N9 Virus
On March 31, 2013, Shanghai Department of Health announced that first H7N9 virus victim in China and World. In the next two months, 10 provinces and 39 cities of mainland China discovered H7N9 victims. By May 27 2013, there were 130 H7N9 victims and 37 deaths. By May 30, the contamination slowed down and was under control. H7N9, like other bird flu, was active in winter and died down in summer.
4. Shenzhou 10
Shenzhou 10 is one of Chinese Shenzhou spacecrafts, and it was the fifth manned spacecraft launched on June 11 2013. Its mission was to dock with Tiangong space station and fulfilled several experiments. Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and a female astronaut Wang Yaping were the crew on Shenzhou 10. It returned to earth on June 26 2013, flying 15 days in the orbit.
5. Hazy Weather
China’s air condition worsened in 2013, especially serve in the northern part of China. According to China Meteorological Bureau, the total hazy days in 2013 hit a new record in 52 years. One of the severe hazy days appeared in January in Beijing, which lasted over 10 days. 20 million residents in Beijing could hardly breathe, toxic particles blocked sunlight. PM 2.5 in Beijing reached 900 mg/m3. In October 2013, the northeastern China suffered even more severe air pollution than Beijing. Harbin and other cities in northeast began heating by coal-burning, hazy weather emerged in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces with PM 2.5 over 1000 mg/m3. In the beginning of December 2013, hazy weather started in Shanghai and southern provinces which lasted more than a week. There were two main causes for hazy weather, one was because of air pollution in industrialized cities, and the other reason was that the climate condition was not conducive for pollution dispersion. Therefore, Chinese consumption on hazy weather related products soared in 2013.
6. Diaoyu Islands
China’s conflicts with Japan over Diaoyu Islands heated in recent years. Diaoyu Islands are a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan in East China Sea. In 1972, when USA evacuated from Ryukyu Islands, USA handed administrative jurisdiction over Diaoyu Islands together with Ryukyu Islands to Japan. But Chinese historical records said China owned Diaoyu Islands. Since 1970s, Chinese started China Federation of Defending Diaoyu Islands. Chinese government started surveillance on Diaoyu Islands on September 10, 2012.
7. Inheritance Tax
It was said that inheritance tax would be drafted in the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee which was held on Nov 9 to Nov 12 in 2013. The news was spread out from Liu Huan, vice president of Tax department in Central University of Finance and Economics and counselor of State Council, which aroused controversy in the country. The rumor revealed inheritance tax threshold was 800,000 yuan (USD 130,609) which evoked public discontent, 70% of senior citizens said the threshold should be 10 million yuan (USD 1.63 million). The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee announcement refuted the rumor and indicated delaying inheritance tax levy.
8. Two-child Policy
China has been practicing one-child policy since 1983, in recent years, Chinese government started discussing two-child policy. Government announced on November 11 2013, that two-child policy allows family to have two children if one parent is the only child in his or her family. In 2013, Chinese working-age population would stop growing and then probably might face negative growth.
9. Central Patrol Group
Central Patrol Group was founded in 2003, and changed its name to Central Patrol Group in 2009. Now it has 12 patrol groups, inspecting local governments performance. Since the 18th Central Committee, the central party had started two rounds patrol, number of influential and powerful officials in high position sacked in corruption investigation.
10. Internet Finance
In 2013, Internet finance became a hot topic, P2P, third-party payment, money fund were the popular keywords. Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said “If banks don’t change, we will change banks”, and it shook Chinese finance industry in 2013. On June 5, Alipay launched Yu’E Bao with Tianhong Asset Management, and the fund size reached 100 billion yuan (USD 16.32 billion) merely after five months. Later, Baidu also launched its finance center which outperformed Yu’E Bao on the very first day. Many other internet enterprises planned to enter internet finance market, it was said that Sina would launch Weibo finance platform in December 2013. The prosperous of internet finance couldn’t stand without P2P lending. P2P lending grew crazily this year, about 500 P2P platforms opened in 2013. However, 64 P2P websites bankrupted by the end of November 29 in 2013. The lack of regulation in P2P lending boosted the fast growth, as well as the risk.
Top 10 Memes
1. Tuhao
Tuhao has been a hot word all over the media, it represents rich Chinese who love to show off their wealth on internet while claiming to be poor. Tuhao is referred over 56 million times on Sina Weibo, everybody wants to be friends with tuhao, but nobody really likes them. They have caused attention of many foreign media, BBC made a special program about Chinese tuhao. The popularity of tuhao began early in September, Sina Weibo started an acitivity “Let’s be friends with tuhao”. It’s similar to diaosi, both separate common people with rich class in China.
2. Time Travel
Time travel ranked second on the top 10 memes in 2013, it gained popularity from time travel themes novels and TV dramas. Time travel extended its meaning on internet, if you think out of the box without limits from your time and location and different from everyone else, then you are “time travelling”.
3. PM 2.5
PM2.5 means particles whose diameter is smaller than 2.5 micrometers, tend to penetrate into lungs and some may get to other organs. It could affect human health. PM2.5 is the main harmful particles in hazy weather, which was why it aroused wide concern in China in 2013.
4. Positive Energy
The popularity of positive energy originated from a book Positive Energy by Richard Wiseman, which described a human body as energy field. By stimulating inner potential, we might become a new and positive, more confident person. Positive energy means healthy, optimistic and positive force and emotions. At present, all the positive things done in China were labeled as positive energy. It became a symbol, connected with Chinese people’s emotions and expressing their desires.
5. Life is so hard that some lies are better not to be exposed.
It is a four words phrase in Chinese, originated from a popular song. Later, it got even more popular and many netizens used it to in comments. It is often used when someone said something true and harsh, other people probably commented that “Life is so hard that some lies are better not to be exposed”. Another explanation for this phrase would be “some couples finally get together that please don’t be so cruel to break them apart”.
6. I don’t know what you said, but it seems you are great.
This is another popular four words phrase in 2013, which is often used by rookies to express their admiration for experts. Or it could be used to mock or as a sarcasm when some amateurs gave their “professional opinions”.
7. Executive Distinguished VIP
Executive Distinguished VIP is an online meme in 2013, it is used to describe something of high taste, classy. Usually it would be used as sarcasm. It was originated from an online limericks, which mocked those who looked fashionable and classy but actually were vulgar and phony.
8. Too young too simple.
Too young too simple has been all the rage for years, it was the famous quotation from former China chairman Jiang Zemin in press conference with Hong Kong journalists in 2000. He criticized Hong Kong journalists as too young, too simple sometimes naive for asking stupid questions. He said something about these journalists knowing about western theories, but they were still too young. He had seen too much and these journalists still needed to improve their knowledge. He was angry then when a Hong Kong journalist misunderstood his opinion about Hong Kong chief executive’s second term election, then he said “You are naive, naive”.
9. The news is so exhilarating that everyone is celebrating and spreading it to the rest of the world.
This is another four words phrase emerged in 2013, it is often used in spreading bad news and everyone is gloating about it.
10. Tomboy
Tomboy is used to describe women who are more like men in behavior and personality, they might be rude, bold and forthright and independent. Tomboys are masculine and have more features that female shouldn’t have. Tomboys usually don’t like makeups, are easily to be friends with guys and hate girlish dresses. They tend to be careless and easygoing, like hanging out with male friends. But one of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese tomboys is that they all don’t have boyfriends.
Top 10 Culture Trending
1. The Voice of China
The Voice of China is based on a popular TV program The Voice of Holland, which was a reality television singing competition soon gained popularity around the world, the Voice UK, the Voice of Germany and the Voice of America all have licensed. The Voice of China broadcast first on July 13 2012 on Zhejiang Satellite TV, four Chinese famous singers became the coaches for guiding and commenting the singers’ performance. The Voice of China had the highest TV ratings in TV reality shows, about 4% in 2012, it was even higher than the famous Super Voice Girls broadcast by Hunan Satellite TV. The Voice of China season 2 in 2013 continued the good performance, with 5% TV ratings. The JDB Group won the exclusive title sponsor with 60 million yuan (USD 9.8 million) in 2012, but the price for 2013 exclusive title sponsor went up to 200 million yuan (USD 32.7 million), and the auction for 2014 exclusive title sponsor soared to 250 million (USD 40.9 million).
2. Where are we going, daddy?
Where are we going daddy is a also a TV reality show introduced from South Korea MBC Television by Hunan Satellite TV in 2013. It was on air since October 11 2013 every Friday, five celebrity dads went out into the countryside with their children for 72 hours. These children got to spend some real quality time with their dads alone, finished tasks together. These dads had to learn to take care of their children without help from their moms, and they learned the difficulties of being a housewife, what’s more, they knew their kids better through the reality show. The show even aroused fatherhood among audience, making some people want to become a father. Where are we going daddy’s TV ratings soon rose to 5% in December 2013, growing extremely fast.
3. So young
So young is the first film directed by Chinese actress Zhao Wei, as graduation work of Beijing Film Academy. It hit the big screen on April 26 2013, and the box office amazingly achieved 720 million yuan (USD 117.7 million) which ranked the fourth in Chinese films in 2013. The film was adapted from the same novel written by Xin Yiwu, many fans of the novel had great expectations of the film. Another highlight of the film was the female lead reminded audience of the director, Zhao Wei. Both were fearless and care-free in films.
4. Crazy guess Figure
Crazy guess Figure is a Chinese online game developed by Hortor Soft, it’s a figure puzzle game which could increase players knowledge. It’s fun to play at the same time, and very suitable for people who have time to kill. About 60% of players were female, most of them were from Beijing, Guangdong and Jiangsu province. 50% were students, and the active playing time period was between 9 pm to 2 am. Crazy guess Figure took advantage of Wechat friend circle, allowing players to share their game results to Wechat. If their Wechat friends clicked the game results, they could continue playing the game on webpage. Crazy guess Figure’s players increased quickly since May 29, on June 7 it increased 300,000 new players and daily active players reached 500,000.
5. Baidu motu
Baidu motu is a mobile photoshop app, offering mobile photoshop, sharing and cloud album services. It had over 100 million users in 218 countries, and it won best app in App Store. It ranked in the top 5 mobile picture and video apps in 20 countries’ App Store.
6. Chinese dream
The concept of Chinese dream was first brought up by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the definition of Chinese dream is the prosperous and rejuvenation of Chinese nation. Xi also expressed his resolution that this Chinese dream will come true. In 2021, China will become a well-off society in an all-around way, and in 2049, China will achieve rejuvenation and be a prosperous nation. In resemblance to American dream, Chinese dream seems appealing to citizens and is a reflection of many Chinese wishes. The concept focused not only on national dimension, but also personal, historical, global and antithetical.
7. Rubber Duck
Rubber Duck was designed by Holland artist Florentijn Hofman, the first Rubber Duck was created in 2007. One of the largest Rubber Duck was 26*20*30 meters. Hofman traveled around the world with his artwork Rubber Duck since 2007, he had visited 18 cities in 11 countries by December 2013. In May 2013, Rubber Duck came to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour for more a month then it went to Shanghai shortly for five hours on June 9 and 10 in 2013.
8. Evergrande AFC Champions League
Guangzhou Evergrande won AFC Champions League on November 9, 2013, defeated FC Seoul from South Korea to be the first China football club winner in AFC Champions League. Recently, FIFA selected 13 moments that defined 2013, Guangzhou Evergrande winning AFC Champions League was the only event chosen in Aisa. Top Italian coach Marcello Lippi helped Guangzhou Evergrande make the history and he also became the first coach to win AFC Champions League, UEFA Champions League and FIFA World Cup.
9. Aircraft carrier style
On November 25, 2012, Shenyang J-15 successfully took off and landed on the first Chinese aircraft carrier. The gesture of two technicians who were making crouching and pointing with two fingers to give take off permission signals to J-15. The gesture aroused interest among Chinese netizens, later, a lot of parodies pictures taken by netizens positioning themselves like the technicians could be found online. Most of these pictures were taken in bedroom, many pasted a paper with Chinese phrase take off on their back and mimicked the technicians.
10. Dama
Dama is a Chinese word that means middle-aged women. American media ridiculed Chinese middle-aged gold buyers who shook the world gold market, and Wall Street Journal even created a new word “Dama” to describe them. Chinese dama’s gold purchasing power created the biggest gold price upsurge in a single day in 2013. Dama purchased a large amount of gold when the price dropped from USD 1,550 per ounce to USD 1,321 from April 12 to 15 in 2013.
Top 10 Mobile Search Terms
Baidu’s top 10 mobile search terms list was based on 464 million mobile netizens’ searching behavior in 2013, weather, train ticket, lottery, etc were on the list. The list was a reflection of Chinese mobile netizens daily needs.
1. Weather
Weather not only ranked top one in 2013 search keywords, but also the number one in mobile search terms in 2013. See the introduction in Top 10 Search Keywords above.
2. Train Ticket
Train ticket was extremely difficult to purchase during holidays and festivals, especially in Spring Festival when millions of Chinese returned home. In recent two years, with the popularity of smartphone and the development of mobile browser and search engine, people could pay attention to train tickets and check information via mobile conveniently.
3. Lottery
Double Chromosphere ranked the 7th in top 10 search keywords in 2013, and lottery ranked the third in mobile search terms. Chinese becoming rich in one-night dream stimulated lots of people to purchase lotteries, and they also kept their eyes on it via mobile.
4. Gold Price
Chinese dama’s gold purchasing behavior had wide and influential effect in the society, many people paid attention to gold price in 2013. Therefore, gold price went up in the fourth place of top mobile search terms.
5. Constellation
Constellation ranked in top mobile search terms was hardly any news, because everybody seemed to talk about constellation and people searched for information about constellation anytime anywhere. Young Chinese would ask questions about constellation not only in new classmates meetings, but also in blind-date. They would search about date and basic information about constellation, also include analytic and lucky stone. Knowing about constellation helped them know each other better, what’s more, to know themselves better.
6. Translation
The flourish of study abroad market made translation one of the major services of these agencies, mobile device allows people to get translation tools and services more easily. Besides, more and more Chinese loved to travel abroad, therefore the need for translation on mobile grew quickly. So translation ranked the sixth on the top mobile search terms in 2013.
7. Oneiromancy
Oneiromancy’s ranking the seventh on the list in 2013, even before express delivery and time check, surprised everyone. Most people remembered dreams clearest in the morning when they got up, so the mobile search of oneiromancy happened mostly in the morning. Many Chinese had the habit of searching for oneiromancy on their mobile.
8. Express Delivery
Online shopping was extremely popular in China, with over 10,000 average daily transaction. Chinese netizens already got used to track express delivery through mobile device. Tmall Double 11, Double 12 promotion created millions of packages. Chinese online shoppers would prefer to track their packages on mobile.
9. Traffic Violation
There was a widespread Weibo about sharing traffic tickets online in November 2013, many netizens participated in and it called attention to transportation safety. Baidu launched a light app to check traffic violation recently, it attracted more than 1 million users merely four days after its launch. The number of traffic violation checking times hit 100,000. Mobile users had to install Mobile Baidu app, and they could find traffic violation checking light app in Baidu Light App store. Baidu Light App included many daily life service app, covering almost all Chinese mobile netizens daily needs.
10. Check Time
Another popular mobile search term was check time in 2013. It seems that Chinese like to check time table of airlines or trains on their mobile.
Top 10 Search Terms in Autos
1. Focus
The Ford Focus was one of the main compact cars in Ford European market. On December 24, 2013, the accumulated sales of Ford Focus in China reached 1.5 million. Ford Focus became the most popular car in 2013, ranking the first on top 10 autos list.
2. Tiguan
Tiguan was the first Volkswagen SUV made in China in 2010, since its launch, it won the hearts of many Chinese consumers and offered them more choices among SUVs.
3. Jetta
Jetta is manufactured by FAW-Volkswagen, which is a joint venture enterprise of First Automobile Works and Volkswagen. Jetta is famous for its high quality, it was the bestseller in Chinese market in 2006 among the same types of cars.
4. Bora
Bora is manufactured by First Automobile Works (FAW), Bora 1.4T was launched in 2010 which surprised Chinese consumers with its improved vehicle dynamic quality and comfort. Its price was very competitive, ranging from 128,800 to 147,800 yuan (USD 21,000 to 24,000).
5. Cruze
Cruze is a compact car produced by General Motors Company, it was launched in China by Shanghai GM in 2013. Cruze’s first debut in Paris unveiled its avant-garde design style, which drew lots of public attention.
6. Magotan
Magotan is a derivative from Passat B6, and was first launched by FAW in 2011. To satisfy the needs of comfort, FAW launched a new Magotan B7L in 2012.
7. Sagitar
Sagitar was launched by FAW in 2006, which was based on the fifth Jetta sold in North America by Volkswagen. Sagitar has first-class handling and could be compared with BMW 3.
8. Santana
Santana was manufactured by Volkswagen in California. Santana could be seen all over China in 20 years since its launch in 1985. In October 2012, Shanghai Volkswagen announced that they would stop producing old Santana. The new Santana was launched on December 16, 2012.
9. Passat
Passat was first launched in 1974 and made huge success in Europe. Passat produced in 1999 was extremely popular around the world. Its global sales reached 11.3 million by November 2013. Shanghai Volkswagen introduced Passat B5 in 2000, and Passat B6 in 2005. In 2007, Passat B6 manufactured by FAW-Volkswagen was called Magotan.
10. Lavida
Lavida was launched by Shanghai Volkswagen in June 2008. Lavida kept the good quality of Germany car, and it also combined with Chinese characteristics to meet Chinese consumers’ taste.
Top 10 Private Education Services
1. New Oriental School
New Oriental (Beijing New Oriental Education & Technology Group), is headquartered in Beijing and listed in New York Stock Exchange in 2006. It is the largest comprehensive education group in China. New Oriental was founded under the tendency that China gradually strode toward globalization and more Chinese educated young people dreamt to go abroad. It offered mainly English courses, such as TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT, LAST, IELTS, New Concept English and CET-4, CET-6, etc. Besides, they also covered primary school courses, middle school and high school courses.
2. 51zxw
www.51zxw.net is a video teaching website founded by the teachers from computer training schools and vocational colleges. All the videos are recorded originally by the experienced teachers in various fields. The website aims at offering professional education to more students with the grand vision of making the best teaching videos and improving the computer skill of the whole nation. With the help of this website, people can learn by themselves without the restriction of time and space.
3. offcn
www.offcn.com was founded in 1999, and exploring the field of training program for National Civil Service Examination in 2001. Offcn grows from a startup information technology and education company to a comprehensive group in education industry. They provide services including the training program for civil servants, public institution staff, village cadres and offer products such as books, audiovisual material, website that combines editing, publishing and distribution. Since civil servant or public institution jobs started representing good payment, decent social status and permanent social welfare, more and more Chinese paid attention to this kind of exams.
4. chinaacc
www.chinaacc.com is one of the flagship brands of China Distance Education Holdings Ltd. Chinaacc is a large and authoritative institution that offers accountant distant education in China. Nowadays it becomes an online training base for the staff in “Big Four” International accounting companies and it is also working with UNESCO on some pilot projects about technical and vocational education training.
5. Huatu
www.huatu.com has around 100 branches nationwide. It offers training for the examinations of central and local civil servant, public institution and “three support public policies and one assistance” program (a program that encourages university graduate go to work for the poor countryside), village cadres and police.
6. Kekenet
www.kekenet.com , an online English learning website, was founded in 2006. Through years of hard work, Kekenet has become one of the national favorite free English learning websites.
7. APTECH
APTECH is an IT career and education company relying on Peking University education resource and adopting the cooperation with universities. It focuses on the training programs for skilled IT personnel in shortage.
8. Hujiang
wwww.hujiang.com is a foreign language Learning website, providing foreign language learning portal site, E-commerce service, online SNS learning community and learning software.
9. Etiantian
www.etiantian.com is a distant learning educational institution founded by Beijing NO.4 School. It takes advantage of the advanced network information technology to provide an open learning program and share the education resource of NO.4 school to all primary and middle schools students.
10. Xueda
www.xueda.com founded in 2001, is headquartered in Beijing. It has opened 273 personalized learning centers in 62 cities with 15,000 employees. It is a large personalized educational chain institute. Using the method of personalized tutoring, its main goal is to help students from primary to high school with their study and to arouse their interests.
Top 10 Search Terms in Cosmetics
Baidu’s Zeitgeist of 2013 listed top 10 search terms in cosmetics, which gave us an understanding of Chinese netizens favorite cosmetics brands in 2013.
1. Chanel
2. Watsons
3. Estee Lauder
4. Mary Kay
5. L’Oreal
6. Lancome
7. Dior
8. Sephora
9. Clinique
10. Chando
Top 10 Search Terms in 3C
Samsung Galaxy S4 ranked the first on Baidu’s top 10 search terms in 3C products in 2013, what’s astonishing was that Xiaomi 3 surpassed iPhone 5S to be the second on top 10 IT devices.
1. Samsung Galaxy SIV
2. Xiaomi 3
3. iPhone 5S
4. Meizu MX2
5. HTCM7
6. Xiaomi Hongmi
7. Apple MacBook Pro
8. Apple Mac Air
9. Lenovo Y470
10. Dell 14R
Top 10 Tourist Destinations
In 2013, the top search terms of tourist destinations was Hong Kong. Most Chinese would search about tourism in Hong Kong, and the second was Xiamen. Except for Dubai, Maldives and Singapore, other tourist destinations were all located in China.
1. Hong Kong
2. Xiamen
3. Qingdao
4. Jiuzhaigou
5. Dubai
6. Lijiang
7. Wuzhen
8. Maldives
9. Singapore
10. Mount Tai
Top 10 Topics
1. Green Tea Bitch
Green Tea Bitch is a new term that describes a kind of young ladies with innocent appearance but cunning minds. In front of public, they seem to be very weak and sentimental but actually they have audacious ambition and craftiness. They will betray their body to gain the money or power. To some degree, the popularity of this term reflects the worse moral degradation.
2. Diao Si
Diao Si, or Diors Man is a self-mocking word which means a group of people who have obscure and mediocre life with confused future and emotional void but also expect to be recognized by the society. Due to the lack of goals, they live the life without passion. Under the surge of prevailing Chinese internet culture, it is created by a Baidu Tieba netizen who used this word frequently in an article. Owing to numerous members in Baidu Tieba, this word became famous from the Tieba to the nationwide internet world.
3. Shu Nv
Shu Nv, sophisticated lady or cougar is a word traveled from Japan. It refers to the mature woman from 30 to 50. But not all the mature women are Shu Nv, they should be sophisticated, graceful, confident and considerate with rich life experience.
4. Che Zhen
Che Zhen, literally means car vibrating which is a metaphor describing the lovers who flirt or have sex in the car. It is one of the modern ways to have sex. Some study shows the first romantic place to have sex is the seaside and the car follows the second.
5. Tuhao
See above in Top 10 Search Keywords.
6. Time Travel
See above in Top 10 Memes.
7. Fei Zhu Liu
Fei Zhu Liu, resembling beatnik in U.S. in the 50s, is a fashion trend accepted among the young people. This young group wants to show their uniqueness by wearing unusual clothes and strange hair styles. Most of the Fei Zhu Liu are from the generation of 90s. Most people think they are just idiots.
8. Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network and digital currency based on an open source protocol, which makes use of a public transaction log. Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin’s price has been surging crazily in the recent, it hit an apex of USD 1,240 on December 5 2013. Early in January this year, Bitcoin’s price was USD 13. Chinese buyers played an important role in the surging of Bitcoin in 2013.
9. PM2.5
See above in Top 10 Memes.
10. Loli
Loli is the short name of Lolita. Lolita is the name of the 14 years old girl who is the main character in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita.” And when this word was brought in to Japan, it referred to the young and cute girls or the related culture trend, such as Lolita Fashion.