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, a goddess takes the train, music-loving grandpas get physical, traffic cops employ drones, and schoolkids sport spring onions:
Divine passenger
Passengers on a Fujian-to-Jiangsu train were surprised find themselves traveling with what appeared to be Mazu, the goddess of seafarers, who has been visiting Singapore, China, the Philippines, and other countries as part of a cultural exchange program by Mazu temples around the world.
Grandpas vs. police
A group of elderly men, averaging 67 in age, scuffled with police over requests to lower the volume of their singing, erhu-playing, and aerobic exercise on a Shanghai bridge; no arrests were made.
Binge breaker
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television plans to limit TV series to 40 episodes to address the perceived problem of drawn-out, predictable plots, leading netizens to protest that it’s quality, rather than length, that is the real problem.
Eyes in the air
A motorcyclist in Putian, Fujian, was flustered when a loudspeaker-equipped drone operated by the city’s traffic police identified him as “handsome man in green T-shirt with glasses,” and asked him to “please put on [his] helmet.”
Line dead
China Telecom suspended a Sichuan policewoman’s mobile phone due to the “suspicious activity” of making over 100 calls a day, eliciting public ire as many other citizens, such as couriers and those in food delivery service, need to make frequent calls as part of their job.
Stop for kittens
A shield cam captured an elderly Suzhou man waving for a car to stop—and then bending down to save a small white kitten stranded on the asphalt.
Smart onions
On the first day of school, some elementary school students in Jiangsu province arrived with bushels of spring onions sprouting from their backpacks, honoring the fact that onion (葱) is homophonic with “smart” (聪).
Cover Image by VCG
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