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, netizens question elites’ access into the Forbidden City, a bungee-jumping pig raises alarm, neighbors take action against a noisy toddler, and a doctor’s murderer is sentenced—but the medical profession’s troubles are far from over:
Doctors’ travails
Sun Wenbing, the patient’s son who fatally stabbed Dr. Yang Wen at the Beijing Civil Aviation General Hospital last month, has been convicted of intentional homicide and sentenced to death.
The well-being of China’s physicians remains a concern, however, after a doctor in Dazhou, Sichuan province, collapsed twice after pulling continuous shifts for two weeks…and still showed up for work the next day with two broken teeth.
Palace of privilege
Backlash over a bizarre incident over the weekend, in which a woman bragged online that she drove into the Forbidden City while the palace was closed to the public, has mushroomed into a PR crisis for the Beijing attraction after photos surfaced of previous visitors driving (usually luxurious) vehicles onto the palace grounds despite a driving ban since 2013.
When pigs jump
Videos of a pig forced to bungee jump at Meixin Red Wine Town, intended to promote the Chongqing tourist site, outraged animal lovers last Saturday. The site’s operator has since apologized and said the pig was fine…as it has already been sent to the slaughterhouse.
Learning difficulty
A mother surnamed Zhong in Jiangxi province is demanding 12,000 RMB in compensation from the makers of a learning device because her son’s grades got worse after he used it, and because she found “erotic content” on the machine. The company blamed other users for embedding links to erotic material within their comments, and offered to refund Ms. Zhong the full price of her purchase, plus an extra 1,000 RMB.
Duck’s despair
After his mate flew away, a male mallard duck at a Jilin wildlife shelter began to starve himself, forcing concerned caregivers to disseminate online ads in order find him a new partner.
Legal humor
Shanxi provincial journal Government Legality was found to have published an humorous essay called “A Feasibility Report on my Marrying [Actress] Liu Yifei” over a decade ago, a gaffe which an employee has blamed on “non-standard management” in their early days (though the state-run journal retained a humor section as of 2019).
Flush with praise
A Hangzhou hospital installed urinals in its women’s washrooms to mixed reactions, with some applauding the concern shown to mothers with young boys, and others expressing discomfort.
Fair shakes
In retaliation for the stomping noises made by a toddler living on the floor above, residents of a Gansu apartment installed a “building shaking machine” (震楼器) on their ceiling—a device sold online for a few hundred RMB that can “shake, strike and create noise” for those in pursuit of “a peaceful residential life.”
Carry-on child
While rushing to catch a train, a father accidentally placed his son in the X-ray baggage scanner at a Guangxi railway station, only noticing his mistake when other passengers cried out in shock.
Cover image from PublicDomainPictures
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