???? – 2005retired
Alfa Romeo V6 engine
“Alfa's Violin has played its last movement, and the garage is quieter for it.”
“A clean paradise, kept spotless to the very last tide.”
The Aegean Sea website — Aiqinhai to its friends — was born in Hangzhou on May 20, 2001, founded by Zhang Jianhong with poet Bei Dao as general advisor. It preached freedom and democracy with an ideological, humanistic heart, and styled itself The Last Clean Paradise of Chinese Literatures. For those who gathered there, it was less a website than a refuge.
On March 9, 2006, the site was closed. Paradise, it turns out, can be shuttered like any other address. But a clean paradise leaves no stain behind — only the memory of what it stood for, and the people who stood there with it.
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“Alfa's Violin has played its last movement, and the garage is quieter for it.”
“Shut down with a thank-you note — the politest goodbye a trading card ever got.”
“It asked only for a blinking cursor and gave us the whole PC era in return.”