The Dragon Lady-Empress of China !!

One of the most powerful women in Chinese history was Cixi. She controlled China for more than 40 years in the late 1800s.Cixi was so ruthless, heartless, cruel and greedy tyrant that people called her the Dragon Lady. In western countries such as Great Britain and the Unites states, Cixi was also known as the Empress Dowager. But in reality she wasn’t an empress; she was the mother of the emperor’s only son. After her husband’s death , she raised her son to rule China. She still had power when her son was old enough to rule but himself. After his death, the Dragon lady made sure her 4yr old nephew becomes the nest emperor, which was against the law but she helped him too.

She lived in a group of palace buildings called the Forbidden City, within the city of Beijing. Only the servants who lived in the palace saw Cixi. She used to speak to all her visitors from a large red throne shaped like a dragon that was hidden behind a silk screen. Her every order ended with “Hear and obey”. (Source: encyclopedia).In 1908, when this Dragon Lady was dying, she had her nephew, the emperor poisoned. She wanted to make sure that he died first and thus would never rule without her.

The lady ruled China for many decades. The nation was fairly stable under her influence, but the government was dishonest and didn’t take steps in favor of the people and their benefits. Empress Dowager Cixi was largely conservative and represented the conservative political faction at court. The interesting and strange fact about the Dragon lady was she used to wear gold shields on her very long fingernails to keep them from breaking. Moreover, the name by which she is most frequently known is simply Cixi, which is neither her birth name nor family name. It is an honorific name given to her in 1861 after her son ascended the throne. Empress Dowager Cixi's name at birth is not known, although a recent book published by one of Cixi's brother's descendants seems to suggest that it was Xingzhen. (Source: Wikipedia).All writings show that she was certainly a bright, ambitious and powerful woman in history, but her life was anything but a fairy tale.

If you are interested to know more about Cixi and her history; Read more....

Posted by:Jaspreet

Virtual world economy-- Gold farming !!

Gold farming is a game in which a player attempts to acquire certain items of value within a game, usually by exploiting repetitive elements of the game's mechanics. This is how the Chinese gold farmers earn their livelihood by playing the massive multiplayer game. They then gather the virtual money earned in the game and thereafter sell it for real money. I wasn’t aware of such practice though heard of virtual world economy-- .But this is referred to as Gold Farming. Chinese Gold Farming (CGF) refers to people in poorer countries who play MMO video games for the sole purpose of generating the virtual currency in those games to be sold to other game subscribers

Playing online games for 12 hours is a fulltime job for thousands of Chinese workers. They work in seven twelve-hour shifts a week. It's highly repetitive work .They follow the loot-maximizing strategy which involves hanging around the same little area and whacking the same monsters over and over. Wages depend heavily on location and the size of the gold-farming company. Julian Dibbell has written many articles on Chinese gold farming and their lifestyle. He in few of his articles have also explained that these people involved in the game at times get bored of the same routine throughout. But at times they have more fun - The owner of one gold farm proposed that rather than grinding out more loot, his workers would build 40-man team who will serve as mercenaries. These mercenaries will be hired by the players of the game to accompany them while they attack the toughest areas of the World of Warcraft (WoW). But this strategy came to an end in no time. One day word came down from the bosses that the 40-man raids were suspended indefinitely for lack of customers.

But this is really amazing that these gold farmers earn only while playing a game. You will be astonished to know that there are around 100,000 people in China who are employed as gold farmers, as of December 2005. The rising prevalence of gold farming has led to the creation of gold-farm brokerages. The sale of virtual items and assets has found its way into auction sites such as eBay. Although it was a common sight to see gold farmers list their virtual items on these sites, the sale of these virtual items does not actually take place there.

The market for massively multiplayer online role-playing games, known as M.M.O.’s, is fast-growing .There are gold farmers or gold farms in other countries as well, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico. However only Indonesia comes anywhere close and even then it still is in a league below that of China.

Posted By: Jaspreet