Viral Week is our weekly round-up of the weekend’s trending memes, humor, rumor, gossip, and everything else Chinese netizens are chatting about.
This week, baby pandas turn 1, a child paleontologist discovers fossils, a professor doctors degree for mistress, and a coffin shop owner tries to make a match:
Birthday panda-monium
Eighteen giant panda cubs had a first birthday party last Tuesday in the Shenshuping Conservation Base in Wolong, Sichuan, with fruits for the cubs and panda-shaped pastries for the human guests.
Deadly photography
A Shanxi doctor was accused of leaving an elderly patient in the intensive-care unit to pose for a photo for a hospital brochure, which may have led to the patient’s death the next morning.
Fossil finder
A 9-year-old boy identified the fossil of a dinosaur egg from 65 million years ago while walking with his mother by the Dongjiang River in Heyuan, Guangdong. Local museum staff have confirmed the finding and discovered 10 more fossilized eggs in the area.
An academic affair
A Fudan University professor who attempted suicide last week left a note admitting that he penned and published five academic papers in the name of his student and former mistress, who then broke off the relationship. Academic fraud is rampant in China’s overcrowded PhD programs, and the university has since announced an investigation into the matter.
Solemn business
Worried that his line of work scared off suitors for his daughter, a Shandong coffin shop owner put up an ad promising the thriving family business as her dowry. He was besieged by calls from gold-digging prospective sons-in-law (the wholesale price for coffins is 500 to 700 USD each online).
Stroke of genius
A Shaanxi man, who is unable to swim, created a “dry land breast-stroke machine” to experience the joy of the exercise. However, he was forced by his wife to dismantle it three days later (since it was built using her favorite ottoman without permission).
Scholastic scuffle
Two university students in Jinan took heat for fighting over a seat in the school library, one of the few air-conditioned study spots available on campus.
Sold-out seats
Passengers criticized a woman who bought six seats (for three passengers) on the train so that her children could lie down and sleep, while her defenders argue that she’s well within her rights to “hog” the seats that she paid for.
Cover image from Wikimedia Commons
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