My chinese friends did tell me that. I`m not sure about your friend, is he in taiwan? Or maybe he has his way to get in the block site.
Chinese people have something similar to facebook, but all in Chinese language.
While Japanese people can use facebook, but normally they just don`t use it. They use twitter and mixi a lot.
I know this because I`m not Japanese who lives in Japan, so I can notice what is considered different from the rest of the world.
And I have some Chinese friends too, so I know a little about China too.