A Chinese blogger recently overtook Boing Boing for the number one place in Technorati. AsiaPundit believes that was is only the first event in China’s comming domination of the medium. As well as arguably bigger numbers, China’s bloggers have more aesthetic appeal.

For instance, high-profile bloggers in the US have been disparaged for being a bunch of guys in pajamas. In China the popularity contests are being won by hot semi-nude women.:

A recent ‘beauty contest’ for female bloggers has attracted huge attention and aroused fierce controversy in China.

The contest has been criticised as “sexist” and “immoral” after some contestants posted nude photographs on their blogs.

In the first stage of BlogChina’s Beautiful Blogger contest, which was held earlier this month, several million Chinese web users voted for female bloggers whose online diaries are hosted on the BlogChina site.

The 20 highest scoring finalists were brought to Beijing to compete in a more traditional beauty contest, for which BlogChina provided free hair styling, make up and beauty treatments.

As well as physical appearance, the contestants were ranked on a variety of other criteria, including the quality of their blog postings and the popularity of their blogs.

The winner, who blogs under the name Yi Lan, is a business student from Beijing. She received a $2,500 prize.

Additional prizes of $1,250 each were awarded in four runner-up categories including ‘most talented blogger’ and ’sexiest blogger’.

BlogChina announced that more than two million people voted to choose the finalists. However, the contest attracted harsh criticism in some quarters, with accusations of sexism and sensationalism from the media and other bloggers.

One finalist, blogging under the unlikely name ‘Hedgehog Mumu’, posted several semi-nude photographs of herself on her blog. She received the most votes in the public voting, but won none of the prizes in the finals.

AsiaPundit regrets to note that Hedgehog MuMu’s site is currently inaccessible — although this may be due to bandwidth pressures rather than censorship. In lieu further story related photos, AsiaPundit will again present pictures of the other MuMu.:

Technorati Tags: china, east asia, northeast asia