Trending in Beijing: Heart Warming Taxi Drivers, TF Boys Mischief, and Rich Kids
The fun, the strange, and the what-on-earth-is-this: a wrap-up of top stories in Beijing as told by the trending hashtags, local press, and general power of the internet.
1) Taxi Driver Takes His Wife on Board
On Dec 4, People's Daily shared a touching story via Weibo of a Beijing taxi driver who drives around town with his wife in the front seat. According to the original post, which now has almost 14,000 likes, the shifu's wife has Alzheimer's disease. The netizen who started the discussion also shared a screenshot of the driver's Didi account, where he has a relatively low score of only 56 points, and at the same time urged future customers to leave good reviews and a high score for the driver. "This is a driver that you can be at ease with, the journey will be very safe, for everything he has is in that car," said one user.
2) Members of TF Boys Monkeying Around
Fence climbing is common in Beijing, however, if you are a member of a band whose every individual member has approximately 67 million fans on Weibo, you should probably think twice before you do it.
Pictures of Wang Yuan and Wei Daxun of TF Boys climbing a fence in Sanlitun recently surfaced, forcing both of the members to (as is customary lately) issue an apology via their Weibo accounts. The contrite members said that as prominent celebrities they should be an example to the public and promised to not do unlawful deeds in the future.
Netizens are discussing the issue under the hashtag #王源翻栏杆被卡住# ("Wang Yuan climbs over the railing"), with many blaming the paparazzi photographers for harassing the pair into a dead end, which forced them to chose this escape route.
3) RMB 8,000: Monthly Pocket Money for a Middle Schooler
Weibo users are also discussing their middle school money allowances under the hashtag #中学生一个月8000零花钱# ("Middle school student's monthly allowance is RMB 8,000"). There are two visible camps in this story: those who are satirizing the good life that many middle schoolers enjoy these days, and those who are sharing their own money allowance memories.
While most of the posts are ironic, plenty of well-off users aren't shying away from revealing their actual allowances as middle-schoolers, with some as high as RMB 2,000-6,000. The vast majority of users, however, are using the occasion to recall their own school days, sharing how much (or how little) money they would receive as students. "I had RMB 5 for a week and would only buy meat on the weekends," said one user. Another added, "I had 5 mao a day. Really."
4) A Woman Helps Collapsed Passerby
One woman has received a lot of praise online after a video posted on Weibo showed her giving first aid to a man collapsed in the street. This contrasts to the usual problem of passersby often turning a blind eye to accidents and misbehavior in public, often only going as far as to take a picture or a video rather than taking action.
The video has also elicited other comments from netizens, with some saying that the woman's CPR skills were lacking and that she should have waited for the ambulance, while others wondered whether they themselves should learn CPR.
Despite some criticism, most users praised the woman for her selfless act, which can feel like a rare sight in Chinese cities. "Girl in black, you are the most beautiful one," said one lustful netizen.
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Images: Weibo
