Katrien Jacobsbenefits” from them as he believes that he can learn, for instance, how to properly make love
to women. He explains that he knows the difference between sex and porn, but it is hard to
get any detailed information about sex acts in China. Moreover, it is even easier to feel sexual-
ized through contact with Japanese sex idols. Since there is a shortage of local productions and
porno graphy stars within the Chinese cultures, people’s sexual imagination involves a trans-
cultural projection.
The most common reasons cited by men adoring Japanese pornography stars is their famili-
arity with “yellow” skinned actresses—Asian faces, tiny body figures, “proper” femininity—and
a dislike of sexually aggressive or “coarse” women in Western pornography. These familiar quali-
ties of the female simply allow Chinese men to feel sexually competent and appreciated. Male
interviewees also admitted that they like to project a patriarchal viewpoint onto female models,
whereby strategies of dominance or violence are used to arouse women. One of the localized
AV actresses in the late 1990s was Yuki Maiko, who embodied the cute bishojo girl ideal in titles
such as Loss of Virginity (1996) or The Sexual School Life: Yuki Maiko (Wong and Yau 2009, 11–14).
One of the most popular Japanese stars on the Internet today is Sola Aoi, a stereotype of
youthful beauty but with the addition of cyber-cultural finesse. She became known for “having
brought down China’s Great Firewall” when she turned into a fervent microblogger on Twitter
in 2010 and managed to motivate thousands of Chinese fans to Jump the Great Firewall and
access her banned website (Ottomo 2010). She is a self-proclaimed geek girl who enjoys feverish
microblogging on Twitter and its Chinese twin site, Sina Weibo, reporting on daily life and pro-
moting her work. Sola attracted about 20,000 followers on the first day of setting up her Twitter
account on April 11, 2010. She started to interact with her Chinese followers and commented
on various aspects of their Chinese culture and the news, such as authentic Chinese cuisine, the
Shanghai World Expo, or the Qinghai earthquake of April 2010. For instance, on April 26, 2010,
she announced on her blog a fund-raising campaign for the Qinghai Earthquake victims. She
wrote that she strongly empathized with earthquake victims because she was born and raised in
a country where earthquakes happen very frequently. Her message went viral on the Chinese
Internet and she officially launched her campaigns by selling self-photographed pictures. Her
earthquake campaign was a huge hit in China, and she managed to raise 200,000 yen within a
couple of weeks, which won her the nickname of “People’s Artist with both Virtues and Pro-
fessional Skills” (Fei 2010).
At the time of her rise on the Internet in 2010, her Chinese fans commented that not only did
she have a beautiful body, but also a beautiful soul. Several months later, Sola made a promotional
trip to Shanghai as part of a televised online game distribution ceremony. Sola was to be featured
with two other Chinese digital celebrities of that year (2010)—the bloggers Sister Phoenix and
Sister Lotus. Chinese netizens wrote that it was humiliating that “Teacher Sola,” as she was now
nicknamed, would be featured together with the two Chinese “media tarts.” Sister Phoenix and
Sister Lotus had been widely attacked as opportunistic media “whores” who lacked talent.
It was clear from audience reactions during the game distribution ceremony that “Teacher
Sola” was considered to be of higher rank than the two Chinese celebrities. After her talk
show appearance, she tweeted that “It was great that I could perform on the same stage with
those two Chinese Internet icons, but their looks were a little weird.” One of her disciples,
Qianhao19860810, shot back: “They are indeed Chinese local specialties. Hope Sister Sola was
not too bothered.”
Devotees who openly praised Teacher Sola were also criticized by an editor of the Com-
munist news organ, People’s Daily (people.com.cn), for being so passionate about a porn star.
People’s Daily argued that a pornstar should not be praised, but at the same time a big colorful
Sola Aoi advertisement for the televised game promotion was placed directly next to the article