Well, it's happened. TalkTalkChina's reign as the #1 stop for China Expats to go and bitch has come to an end. It's been a good ride, but all good things, as they say.
For a year and a half TTC has provided the English language China blogsphere with loads of poignant posts that led to even more poignant comments. With their posts often receiving upwards of a hundred comments, it's no doubt that the site will be missed greatly. In fact, as of this writing, the "closing" post has received 50 comments since being published last night – that's a lot of people with something to say (like "first!").
Seemingly at the top of their game, with more visitors than ever, the closing of the site is likely to be a bit of a shock. The 3Ds explain:
So why are we shutting it down now, at this time of seemingly great “success”? Well…because we are lazy. We’ve said what we wanted to say. Things are [sic] so bad anymore – China is doing better as a country. It’s no Japan, mind you, but spitting is dwindling, traffic is getting better, pollution can be filtered with cigarettes and more people are choosing more appropriate English names, like “John”, instead of “Strong”.
As a semi-frequent commenter on the site, I know I'll miss their posts and the heated debates that always followed. I'm curious what site will now rise as the void-filler for the community of expats to bitch about the "troubles" we face here in the Middle Kingdom. There are a few out there, and my bet is on the appropriately named China Rant; though their posts don't seem to have the same sharpness and apposite quality that TTCs posts contained, with a URL like that, it's well-positioned.
Actually, it's a bit hard not to feel like this was the high watermark in the China blogsphere. Not in that there aren't plenty of blogs that came before and still offer great content, and not that there won't be loads more new blogs with more rants and insight. However, in my near two years in China, I've watched the number of blogs balloon, and I'm sure old hands like Sinosplice, Peking Duck and a number of others saw it coming long before I got here. TTC seemed to be the culmination of that. It's like that point at the end of an all night rave when you see the sun start to break … and you look around to see a bunch of people wandering with a "where do we go now?" look on their face.
Well, what can I say, party at my place.
