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 tragic bus crash proves deliberate, pig trotters wash up in Guangdong, a professor gets fired for explicit messages, and a nine-character pop song gains notoriety:
Tragic Turn
Twenty-one were killed, including 5 students, and another 15 injured when a driver, surnamed Zhang, deliberately crashed a bus into a reservoir in Anshun, Guizhou on July 7. Authorities found that Zhang, who was also killed, was divorced and had been unhappy with compensation he received when his house was torn down; he had also consumed alcohol before driving.
Catastrophic flooding
The Ministry of Water Resources raised the emergency response for flood control to Level II, the second highest of four levels, as 141 deaths or disappearances and 2.25 million emergency relocations have been counted nationally, with many from the hardest-hit Jiangxi, Anhui, and Hubei provinces. Around 28,000 homes have been destroyed and 3.53 million hectares of crops affected, with 82.23 billion yuan in direct economic losses. Alert-triggering floods have been observed in 212 rivers nationwide, with 19 reaching record levels, since July 4.
Dirty professor
Wang Xiaowei, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, was fired after inadvertently sharing a screen that showed him soliciting sex from three women on WeChat while lecturing his students online.
Trotter ashore
Over 20 tons of pig trotters and other animal parts were unexpectedly found washed up on a beach in Dongguan, Guangdong province. It is still unclear where the decayed feet come from.
Road bike trippin’
A single father in Dongguan, Guangdong, took his 4-year-old daughter on a 71-day, 4,139-kilometer bike trip to Lhasa, Tibet, passing through valleys and mountains.
Loyal pet
Nearly one year after being sold, an apparently homesick old camel in Inner Mongolia walked over 100 kilometers alone back to its former owner. The former owner sent the current owner another camel in exchange, promising to take care of his old camel.
Inaproppriate action
A kindergarten teacher in Nanyang, Henan province, was fired after posting a video of her kissing a pupil on the lips and claiming to be his girlfriend on a social media platform, where she has over 200,000 followers
Pop simplicity
Chinese singer Li Ronghao’s new song went viral for having only nine characters: “Ah…Ha…What do you want me to do…” Though Li explained on social media that “Ahah…Haha indicates too much emotion [for life]” and the current lyrics are the most satisfying out of four original versions, many netizens complained that he is not a serious musician
Exploding toilet
The explosion of a toilet in Jinan resulted in severe cuts to a woman’s legs and left shards of porcelain inside her body, according to a nurse treating the patient. Some netizens conjecture that the accident may have resulted from the user standing on the toilet, which some believe is more sanitary, but has led to similar explosions in the past.
Cover Image from NeedPix
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