2017 Year in Review: The Beijinger's Most Viral Articles of the Year

There's never a dull day in Beijing, as the collection of our most viral blogs of the year below prove. Whether it's short racist rappers, police raids on bars, tales of deportation, or a general flaunting of culture at the expense of the aggrieved other, this year was as exciting as the rest of them.

Of course, the biggest topic of 2017 was The Great Brickening, which we're surprised to say did not breach the top 12 blogs of the year but which we covered pretty extensively. Either way, we'll be happy if we've seen the back of most of these trends come the new year but that's not to say that what the future holds will be any prettier.
 

January: You've Just Lived Through the Worst Week of Bad Beijing Air in Recent Memory
Reads: 7,659
We kicked off the year with news that saw us grinding small particles between our teeth while looking out onto a thick blanket of smog. And while New Year's Eve memories are often fogged up by the side effects of fun, smog was predominantly to blame in dizzying Beijing residents this year. The air pollution was so severe at the beginning of 2017, that we issued a semi-official certificate for those who lived through what is now known as "The Worst Week of Bad Air in Recent Memory."
 

February: Furor in China After Wikipedia Calls Acupuncture "Pseudoscience"
Reads: 23,669
Some like their pills while others prefer their needles. Either way, this post about Wikipedia's acupuncture page claiming it to be a pseudoscience really hit a nerve. If you've ever tried to argue against the effectiveness of Chinese traditional medicine with locals, let it be known that the altercation may not end with missing teeth but will more than likely severely damage any likelihood of future contact. After this online skuffle, alternative medicine, religion, and politics might as well be the three sure-fire globally recognized argument starters and while some netizens defended TCM in general – saying that science is not yet developed enough to understand it – others pointed out the recent slew of early deaths that have been attributed to individuals not seeking correct palliative care.
 

March: Chinese Travel Ban Ridiculed on Twitter: "Come to Korea Where There Are No Chinese"
Reads: 17,128
Joke or no joke, China's travel ban on group tourism to South Korea turned against them in March when one witty Twitter user used the government's ban – intended to punish South Korea after they deployed the THAAD missile system – to make fake travel ads espousing the bliss that comes once the tourist hordes have gone. Viral images of idyllic South Korea landscapes were adorned with slogans such as 'South Korea – Chinese-Free Country,' 'South Korea – Safe, Clean, Calm, No Chinese,' and the like. Whether it actually helped to defuse the threat of limiting tourists from China, who make up more than 85 percent of visitors to South Korea's Jeju Island, is questionable. War's no laughing matter, but at least these ad's brought some laughter to an otherwise tense situation.
 

April: The First 100 Characters Every Beginner Needs to Memorize
Reads: A whopping 447,710
Isn't it absolutely fantastic and plausible that the blog that received the highest number of reads this year was pedagogic? Well, that's mainly the power of what happens when a Chinese outlet picks up your content. Either way, we were happy to see it do so well and if it inspired that foreigner who has lived here for 15-plus years but can barely bark more than a "kneehow," mission accomplished.
 

May: Heaven Supermarket Raided
Reads: 20,323
Bar raids are nothing new to Beijingers, but this May saw more than usual swoop down on the city (bless the One Belt, One Road summit). Some foreigners chose to stay in for the weekend and not risk their fun being ruined by the blue-shirted army, while others played it safe and made sure to carry their passports in case of a surprise shakedown. Great Leap #12, Café de La Post, and even Queenie's sandwich bar also saw raids. We'd like to remind you that while generally unpleasant, serious troubles can easily be avoided by carrying proper identification as well as the golden rule of staying away from illegal substances.
 

June: Red Dress Charity Run Attracts Online Controversy as Animosity Towards Expats Grows
Reads: 12,366
Charity events are usually greeted with applause, gratefulness, and ‘thank you’ notes. Well, not when said charity event entails boozed-up foreigners wearing red dresses that barely grace the knees. Red Dress Charity attracted a blizzard of bad press during their annual run this past June with the two main culprits being the saucy red dress (regardless of the gender of the person wearing them) and beer. Besides your usual vague condemnation, name-calling, and disgust, some netizens went as far as to use the occasion to play the "a large share of foreigners in China are losers" card. Touché.
 

July: Two Deported Foreigners Share Their Story
Reads: 13,903 
Some of those that managed to slip by the bar raids in May still ran into trouble come July. Two foreigners that found themselves on the wrong side of the law shared their stories with the Beijinger, prompting one Canadian expat who was embroiled in trouble to say, “People should know that they’re willing to go into your office, and it doesn’t matter how respectable your work is,” whereas a deported American advised other foreigners in China to “walk on eggshells. Avoid trouble altogether.” Sounds sensible to us.
 

August: Rapper Xie Di Wants to Shoot Foreigners in His New Song, "Wack Laowai"
Reads: 8,839
Aw, what better way is there to lift expat spirits after a round of raids and deportations than a rap explaining how not welcome they are in the Middle Kingdom. Hailing from Chengdu, rapper Xie Di came out with a slightly aggressive (ok, ridiculously aggressive) song against foreigners who come to China for ... God knows what reason. Besides calling them various belittling names, he topped it off with saying that he'd like to shoot a gun at them. Charming! Sadly for little Xie Di, China's expat population is not as fragile as they can sometimes appear – we live through Beijing's morning traffic every waking day.
 

September: Beijing-Based Photographer Luo Yang Shoots to Smash Stereotypes of Chinese Girls
Reads: 6,754
After an eventful run of chaotic summer news, Beijing calmed down as the heat lifted and September looked to art for inspiration with news of Beijing-based Luo Yang's crowdfunded book and exhibition of her GIRLS photography hitting the top spot of our blog. Yang has been taking pictures of Asian women in China and, occasionally, Europe in hopes of capturing images that free them from perceived stereotypes. Together with her pictures, Yang collects anecdotes of the women she photographs, thus giving each photo a story. The fruit of Yang's labor has since gone to print and contains 80 of her favorite images from the collection so far.
 

October: Beijing Bans Airbnb Bookings, Forces Clubs and Bars to Shut, and Boosts Security in Advance of 19th Plenum
Reads: 9,024
The calm didn't last long, however, as we were soon thrown back into the world of bans, rules, changes, and regulations thanks to the 19th Party Plenum. The occasion was marked with the closing of bars, subway lines, and increased ID checks and the like. New to the equation was that Airbnb was forced to outright cancel all bookings within a 20-mile radius of Tiananmen Square. We're sure glad it's over.
 

November: China's Official 2018 Holiday Calendar Announced Earlier Than Ever!
Reads: 4,926
When November hit, China received a little treat of its own in the form of 2018's official holiday calendar and boy were we excited. Days in green signify the much-needed holiday dates, which are balanced by the dreaded payback weekend dates in red. While it is a public secret that Chinese employees have significantly more days off than their European counterparts (don't even mention North America) the ability to plan next year's holidays in advance acted as a little cherry on top to our daily commute struggles and chuan'r-induced food poisoning.

December: Beijing's Coldest Day of Winter So Far, Marks Beginning of "Frozen Week"
Reads: 1,606, and counting
Which brings us to the present day, knee-deep in Beijing's coldest week of 2017's winter so far. It's been a weird year, so let's take comfort in the weather, which we can always rely on to ground us and bring us back to what we know. Saying that, this year's pollution has been significantly less than years past, which may mean that we skip the worst week of smog in living memory pt. ii, which certainly would be a great start to 2018.

Thanks for following us this year – we hope for many more happy blogging memories to come.

Images: New York Times, A Better Way to Health, Twitter, Sensible Chinese, Daniel Zhang, Beijing HHH, Everything PR, YouTube, Luo Yang, Daily Mail, the Beijinger, Olympic