Check it out! I found a weird bird! Blue feathers! It’s gotta be a new species! (Rebel Pepper)
Weibo users respond to Twitter’s initial public offering on Friday:
@微博搜索: The US financial bubble is so huge, even a nonexistent website can swindle [traders] out of $20 billion.
美国股市泡沫太大了，一个不存在的网站都能忽悠200多亿美金。
Twitter is blocked by the Great Firewall.
@香蕉芭乐小丝瓜: There are only two countries in the world: China and everyone else.
世界上只有两个国，中国和外国。
@laoyang945: “There are people from many nations on Twitter”; “There are many of our nation’s people on Weibo.” #ChineseProficiencyTest
“推特上有很多国家的人”，“微博上有很多国家的人”。#汉语水平考试句意辨析
Aside from the words “Twitter” and “Weibo,” the two phrases are the same, yet can be read to convey differing meanings that reflect the differences between the two sites.
@小岛上的奥特曼: The farthest distance in the world: I see you listed on the stock market, yet I cannot get on your site.
世上最遥远的距离，是看到你在上市，我却上不了你。
@朋克狗熊: The world’s Three Big Websites of Deception: YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
世界三大欺世盗名网站有体油不、非死不可、推特。
@朋克狗熊 uses unofficial transliterations of the sites: Oily Body Or Not (Tǐyóubù 体油不), It Surely Must Perish (Fēisǐbùkě 非死不可), and Push Special (Tuītè 推特).
@nancy木南楠: Some people argue that our foreign friends don’t know about Sina Weibo… Dummies, “I don’t know” and “they won’t let me know” are two completely different things… Our freedom of speech still lags far behind the world. This is an indisputable fact. Whether you admit it or not, this has nothing to do with being a patriot.
有人评论说，外国友人也不知道新浪微博呀……傻瓜，“我不知道”和“不给我知道”是截然不同的概念呀……我们的舆论自由，离世界还很远，这是不争的事实，承认不承认，都与爱国之谈无关。
@假装在纽约: Many people don’t mind that they can’t use Twitter. Some of their justifications: “Twitter’s hard to use”; “it’s not interesting”; “Did you even get a 4 on your college English proficiency exam? And you want to use Twitter…”; “Why would I want to use that?”; “Even if you were able to use it, you wouldn’t want to”; “Just scale the wall”; “There’s Weibo”… But whether or not it’s easy to use, whether or not you would use it, whether or not you would want to use it—these are all separate issues. Your rights are being violated, and yet you remain oblivious and complacent?
很多人觉得不能上推特无所谓。理由：“推特不好用”；“没意思”；“你大学英语四级过了么就想用推特”；“我为什么要用”；“就算让你上你也不会想用的”；“会翻墙就行了”；“有微博”……可是，好不好用，会不会用，想不想用，这些都是另一个问题啊。你的权利被剥夺被侵犯了，而你，浑然不觉，还沾沾自喜？
@jason5ng32: On June 5, 2010, I was taken in and interrogated by state security agents. They suspected a certain Twitter account was mine, claiming that my employees and I were publishing a bunch of sensitive information on the site. Oh, how I wish I could live inside their narrow skulls—I’d make a killing on Twitter’s IPO.
2010年6月5日，我被国保带到派出所审问，他们怀疑 Twitter 是我的，说我和员工们在这个网站上发布了很多敏感信息。我多么希望活在他们的狭窄的大脑里，这样的话，今天 Twitter 上市我就能赚一大笔了。
Read more reactions to the Twitter IPO at CDT Chinese.
Translation by Little Bluegill.
