Started to wonder why all those hearts were appearing on Chinese blogs and the answer may just be, the Red Heart China MSN:

About 2.3 million Chinese MSN users have added a pattern of “red heart” and the English word “China” in front of their online signatures to show their unity and patriotism.

MSN China spokesman Feng Guangshun released the figure on Thursday. Many more people have opened their MSN accounts to find a message which asked them to add the “red heart” and “China” in front of their signatures.

A bit more on Red Heart from the Wall Street Journal:

When Xingrong Chen logged into MSN Messenger yesterday, she found a message from a friend inviting her to join China’s latest Internet craze:

“Please add (L) China after your name on MSN, to show the unity of Chinese people around the world. Please send this message to your friends on MSN.”

She followed the instruction and within a second, a red heart icon and the word “China” appeared beside her user name.

“I have no idea who first raised this idea, and it doesn’t matter.” the 24-year old Shanghai resident said, “My MSN contact list is red all over now!”

Youku video of people explaining Red Heart China:

Well, apparently not everyone is as excited about this new wave of patriotism sweeping China. According to many news sources in China (24 April 08), the man who originated the Red Heart China signature has had his website 5sai.com hacked.

1. CEO Chen Huaiyuan said that the day before yesterday, the 5sai.com website came under attack from four foreign IP addresses and as of last night, the attacks still had not stopped
2. Statistical data from the 5sai.com server showed that the IP addresses were located in Europe
3. During the high frequency periods of the attack they were receiving two to three attacks every second and during the low peaks it was three to four attacks every minute