Three weird little stories from the Chinese technology scene. First, there is a Chinese knockoff of Nintendo's runaway-success console, the Wii. In a move of blazing originality, it is called the "Vii". Especially dozy Chinese Christmas shoppers may be caught off guard. Although I don't believe Wiis (Wiii?) can be purchased in China outside of parallel import channels, so perhaps they'll shift a few. It was spotted about two weeks ago by Engadget's Chinese edition and then relayed into English. Apparently it's not a joke.

Second, according to the AP, there is a Chinese government project to build an immense virtual world as an online commercial trading center:

China's government is building a vast virtual world dubbed Beijing Cyber Recreation District, which founders say will help the manufacturing superpower evolve into an e-commerce juggernaut.

Some supply-chain experts say the project is impossibly grandiose in its goal to provide direct links between tens of thousands of Chinese manufacturers and millions of individual customers around the world. But every "Made in China" label eventually could include a Web site where customers could order more — and Chinese factories would produce custom-made goods and send them directly to consumers' homes, mused Chi Tau Robert Lai, chief scientist of the virtual world.

The 3D world is supposed to be the online counterpart to the China Recreation District, a theme park, mall and playground being built in a former steel plant in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

The story is in fact a work of grab-bag genius that manages to remark on Chinese Internet censorship, the 17th Party Congress, the product quality crisis and more, all in the name of a virtual environment that will probably never see daylight. There must be some kind of award for that. A "Pullthewoolitzer" perhaps? To imagine what this virtual world will be like, I recommend you go read Peter Hessler's description of the China Yiwu International Trade City and then imagine it as a virtual environment. Sex-y! Don't miss the quote at the end. I originally included it here, but there were so many ways to fisk it I got frustrated and decided to leave it for you to do yourself.

Finally, from Oiwan Lam at Global Voices, some Chinese universities have hit upon the perfect solution to the problem of game addicted freshmen. Ban freshmen from bringing computers to school. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?