The labels on the user interface are shown in English, while the advertisements that appear as a banner on
top and within the running screen could be in either English or Chinese or both languages. Most of these
advertisements on part-time jobs, parties, and tutoring classes are geared toward the younger generation.
People from various places around the world enter the chat room using Chinese or English for the most
part at different times of the day and night due to time zone differences. Between 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
when the girls usually logged on, they could be meeting other teenagers or young adults in the US and
Canada who got off school at about the same time, or people in Hong Kong or Australia who just woke
up to start a new day, or people in Europe who were staying up close to or past midnight. According to
the girls and some of their interlocutors in the chat room whom I interviewed online, almost every
participant in the chat room was Chinese.