NOT SWEATING THE DETAILS

The fate of "Hsiao-Tsing", Second Life's pioneer Internet employee from China...

When she first came to Second Life, her story seemed so strange, and so unbelievable (and unsettling to some), I was reluctant to even reveal her SL name. She said she had come here on orders from her boss, the head of a Chinese Internet gaming company, for the sole purpose of acquiring Linden Dollars to convert into US currency-- a worker for a fabled virtual sweatshot. Inspired by the Hong Kong fantasy classic A Chinese Ghost Story, I chose "Hsiao-Tsing" as her pseudonym, named after the film's beautiful temptress spirit, who reluctantly serves a tree demon that drains the souls of its victims with a giant tongue. In a later update, the story of "Hsiao-Tsing" seemed a touch less strange-- another milestone of the next global economic revolution.

But that was four months ago, and so much has changed since then. During that time, the largest online world acquired 1.5 million Chinese subscribers in a few weeks, and the Chinese government itself has earmarked $1.8 billion to develop online worlds of their own. And just like that, "Hsiao-Tsing" didn't seem mysterious at all. Just one more explorer from the new China, navigating the digital ocean that's reached its shores.

In reality, Hsiao-Tsing is a Resident named "liangmj Coffee". Lia (as friends call her) now makes her real life living by hosting Slingo matches at Shashe Neva's Belmondo Family Mall, and selling pool tables created by Chrischun Fassbinder (she gets a commission.) She's since uploaded a real life photograph into her in-world First Life profile. It depicts a very young, slender Chinese woman with the kind of fresh-scrubbed farmgirl prettiness that you'd see in old school Communist propoganda posters. (Were she wearing a worker's apron and not blue jeans, that is.) Though she's here to make a living, her profile warns, Ms. Coffee has moral standards. "i'm poor," it announces, "but i don't sell my self i cant sexy with men here."

Since coming to Second Life last Spring, Lia's grasp of the world and her ability to interact within it has improved immeasurably. Enough to be comfortable with discussing her Second Life identity without fearing that her efforts to earn Linden Dollars for cash would somehow jeopardize her subscription.

"I think the SL boss won't cancel my account," she decides. "I think they can allow me survive here."

Since then, liangmj Coffee has befriended several other Residents from China, who've come here for reasons of their own. She tells me about one of them, who's become a dedicated Don Juan in-world. "As far as I know," Lia says, "he is upsetting with SL ladies now. He has at least four-five girlfriends. He always in love but didn't marry with any one."

Another, Yiren Byrd, is a statuesque brunette who like Lia has become a hostess at the Belmondo mall. Both of them have uploaded demure real life photos of themselves, and display them on a wall there, with a tipjar set nearby.

"Tiptip me if you like my photo," Yiren coaxes me, when she joins us in Belmondo. "I'm pretty poor."

Yiren plays Second Life after hours from the offices of the tech company where she works as a typist, she says. "We use Internet with selling our company's product," she tells me. "So typing with bills, the stuffs of Chinese computer soft. Some are [products you] can take walk away, can use it freely."

"Wireless computers?" I ask.

"Yes, some of them," Yiren answers. "Sorry, my English is pretty poor, I can't get the meanings."

She doesn't just come to Second Life to be a casino hostess. "I like script and make stuff or building," says Yiren. "I always go sandbox. I just learning." She's also been in Second Life long enough to know something about its thriving economy, and the players in it. "[A] tricky [person]," she says of one well known entrepeneur. "Ruthless. Don't have love heart." Like Lia, she works in one of China's enterprise zones-- in a city, as it happens, where I myself have distant relatives.

Despite the demands of her in-world work, liangmj Coffee still has time to socialize; she tells me she'd like a Second Life boyfriend, someone who "can help me and let me feel safe." She's met a lot of would-be suitors from America in here, "men and boys asked me want me go their USA", but so far, she hasn't found one to win her heart. A born romantic, Lia had a friend set up an Internet audio stream that endlessly plays Marx on her property-- not Karl, Richard. "Right Here Waiting" streams endlessly on her land. She often types along to the lyrics.

"Yes some men after her," Yiren assents, glancing at her friend. "You cute Lia." They consider themselves Second Life sisters, and have since become friends in real life, too-- Yiren once rode the railways of China to visit her.

But liangmj's main role here is employee, and though she's become better at earning the requisite Linden Dollars her boss demands, still, "it's hard to finish my task."

"Lian's job is not perfect," Yiren tells me, sympathetically. "I always helped her."

I ask Yiren if she's knows the kind of work she does.

"A sweating shop. I know it's hard to find a good job to live. It's hard to live in China."

I wonder if Yiren would also want to try and make a living here.

"I want play SL for fun," she retorts quickly. "I have job."

liangmj Coffee says, "What's your real job please, Hamlet."

"This is my real life job."

"Yes, so you work for Governor Linden please," she realizes. "Cool."

A tan man named Stevo Pierce has arrived in Belmondo, and has overheard the conversation. "That sounds fun," he tells me, "getting paid to play Second Life." He turns to Ms. Coffee. "When do you next have Slingo game here, Lian?"

"Soon. Need wait more players join."

Stevo Pierce nods. "I have only played it a couple of times, but I am already addicted." In his first life, Steveo tells us, he's a nuclear engineer living in the UK. And I note how amazing it all is, me in San Francisco at 3:30AM, him in England at 11:30AM, standing here with two Internet workers from China, where it's dinner time of the next day.

"Wonderful things," Yiren agrees.

Wonderful, but come to think of it, not amazing at all. Just the way things are.

UPDATE, 8/5: Some questions in Comments (below) have been raised as to whether it's even possible to access Second Life from China, so I asked Second Life CEO Philip Linden to confirm this for the record.

"According to our [server] stats," he e-mails me, "we have 22 users in China."

"From what I understand," Internet protocol wizard Aaron Linden adds, fielding my follow-up question on access through "the Great Firewall of China", the Chinese government "engages in IP address blocking, so it's likely that any request to a blocked IP address results in a null route... For the vast majority of cases, web content is the only way you get on the blocked IP list."