News You Might Have Missed: Weibo Lights Up on Love, Sex and Apples

Things have been getting weird recently. Couples are going to extreme lengths to look like each other, boys are making news for their clueless gift-giving, Beida is (allegedly) giving out degrees for sex, dangerous needles are appearing in cabs and spoiled children are demanding their Apple products. We certainly have a few opinions on these matters, but here's what's getting said on Weibo.

Blame Qixi, blame the weather, blame this feckless new generation, but there's plenty of ridiculous displays of coupling to talk about. One engaged couple decided to get plastic surgery to look more alike before their wedding. If you think that’s weird, join the crowd:

• "The society is becoming more and more abnormal, people are more stupid than ever. There was one couple recently that wanted to have sexual reassignment surgeries and now this couple wants to be like twins."
• "Sick."
• "What if you break up?"
• "You guys will look alike after a long long time anyways."
• "Is the woman trying to look more like the guy or vice versa?"
• "At least they are alike in terms of IQ."

To help celebrate Chinese Valentine's Day, a weibo message asked girls about the weirdest presents they'd ever received from their boyfriends. Here are a few of their responses:

• "No gift, but he bought himself a motorcycle on my birthday."
• "A stuffed animal from his roommates. He took it from the guy and it was dirty."
• "An invitation to his wedding to another girl."
• "Last Chinese V, I went to the web cafe and watched him playing DOTA. That's where it ended."
• [referring to a male friend and his wife] "He gave her a hair accessory, but she was being treated for cancer and had lost all of her hair."
• "The red string from the baijiu bottle."
• "A button from a shirt he didn’t want any more."
• "The things you put in shoes to look taller."
• "A jar of handmade stars I'd made for him. He gave that back to me as a gift."
• "Two live chickens."
• "A red envelope with no money inside."

Zou Hengfu, a fired Beida professor, has accused former colleagues of giving degrees to pretty waitresses at a campus restaurant in exchange for sex. If you haven't heard about this scandal yet, there's plenty to read on it here, here and here. As for Weibo reactions, this is what people have said:

• "I finally know what shameless is!"
• "Don’t know whether I should believe this or not."
• "These things must have happened. It’s only a matter of how important the people are and how many there are!"
• "No matter what, in this case, Beida has lost!"
• "Ignore whoever brought this up, the public should ask: Beida, are you really innocent? We need proof, not just talking!"

More of a scare than a scandal: While in a Beijing cab, a man was stuck by a needle that later tested positive for HIV. There's been no more developments in the case other than that the police aren't investigating and the girlfriend isn't waiting around. And here we'd been complaining that our biggest headache was not being able to hail a cab at all.

• "Horrible! Must eliminate all unnecessary outings!"
• "The Earth is too dangerous. Everybody to Mars!"
• "To everybody who has decided to bring the society down: Please stop hurting the innocent people!"
• "[This phenomenon has] finally made its way to Beijing."
• "From now on, no more leg-crossing in the cab."

We've got proof that college-age students are still children – some very bratty ones at that. During a recent back-to-school shopping trip at Zhongguancun, a girl threw a tantrum because her mother was not able to afford the "Apple three-piece set," namely, an iPad3, an iPhone 4S and a MacBook. "If you don't buy these for me, I'll lose face when I start university," the girl screamed. According to eyewitnesses, the mother retreated to a corner, squatted down and began wiping away silent tears. Here's how Weibo World reacted:

• "F***! Why are you still keeping a child like this! What’s wrong with this girl? Why can’t you work for it yourself! Who are you to bully your mom!"
• "It’s that mother’s own fault. She allowed the kid to become like this."
• "The bitter fruit of giving children what they want."
• "In this case, going to school won’t make a difference."
• "First get some education, then go to school, otherwise in the future she’ll be useless."
• "You educated your own child – can’t blame others. "

Photo: weibo.com