In our Viral China series, Eliot Evans gives you his run-down of the best viral stories, memes and netizen reactions from across China’s social media every fortnight.
1. Guns, Gulls and Xenophobia
From China’s festive period, we bring you love, death and… hair (long hair). Earlier this month, Xiao Ni, a Chinese exchange student at the University of Iowa posted a picture of himself with a hunting rifle and the words: “I’ve worked really hard this term; if the school still fails me, my professor will experience the terror of Lu Gan,” which were construed, somewhat unsurprisingly, as a threat to kill his teacher. The result? Xiao Ni received a visit from police, had his visa cancelled and was sent back home to China.
Ni’s post spread rapidly on the Chinese web, where many seemed to feel that American authorities had missed the joke. “Americans don’t understand Chinese humor,” said one Weibo user. That may be: the biggest problem, though, is that the Lu Gan referred to in Xiao Ni’s post is the same Lu Gan, a Chinese student, who in 1991 shot dead 5 people at the University of Iowa, before himself committing suicide; ostensibly because he’d failed to win an academic prize.
In a spooky parallel development, foreigners in Kunming’s busy Green Lake Park were also photographed with guns; threatening the birds above the lake in this case rather than their teachers. In response, some netizens sailed straight through puzzlement to righteous indignation, leaving reason in their wake. “In China foreigners are the daddy” said one. Others predicted that those in question would get off lightly for this apparent crime (gull killing?) because of their “identity.” One Weibo user argued that “these sorts of people are condemned, fined (and even imprisoned) in their own country for this kind of thing; but, not feeling satisfied, they rush to someone else’s country and happily continue.”
Yes, China may well be overrun by “these sorts of people”—those who back home gun down gulls in city parks while screeching crazily and foaming at the mouth; though as it turned out, the foreigners in Kunming were simply posing for a photo-shoot with plastic props.
2. Campaigning for a Care-Free Youth
Alas, misunderstandings do arise between those of different cultures, and, equally, of different generations. So true is this in China that a group of Chinese youngsters have united to fund an advert for their elders; a bid to stave off the customary pressure placed on them to find a wife or husband. This pressure is especially intense during the New Year holiday, when all the family is at home. The words, which will appear for a month in Bejing’s Dongzhimen subway station, read: “Dear mom and dad, please don’t worry about me. It’s a big world, and life is diverse – I can be happy being single.”
Yet, some on Weibo remained frustrated: “This is still too polite: It should just say, meddle less in other people’s business.” Emoticons of ire and desperation littered Weibo feeds, as users scared each other speculating on the age at which one officially becomes a shengnu, or “left-over woman” (those often educated, “older” women who are left without a husband): as young as 25 according to one estimate from netizens. Parental pressure makes “our hair turn white,” quipped a sardonic user. “Blind loyalty to your parents: the dregs of traditions” added another.
3. A Hairy Holiday
It’s true that breaking from convention can be difficult in more traditional societies. In the past, even the wrong hair style could lead to execution (How many pointless victims has [hair] claimed over the millennia?” laments the protagonist of Lu Xun’s short story, “Hair”). Luckily, things are now a little more relaxed: hence the question, which appeared on the question-answer platform, Zhihu: “What kinds of men have long hair?” The user is also keen to know how longhaired men hold their nerve when criticized by others, “especially older family members?”
For many who respond, it wasn’t bourgeois western decadence that provoked them to rebel, but home-grown Chinese culture. Though one man, for example, spent time in California-- home of the hippie-- it was kungfu that inspired him to move beyond his buzz-cut: “When I was little I really liked kungfu, so I thought all heroes should have long hair.”
Another went to school in Inner Mongolia, where he found the longhaired Mongolian men handsome cool and “ethnic,” “like the wild horses of the grasslands, haha.” However, not everyone has come around: “I absolutely hate long hair on men’’ says another user; “only long nails are more disgusting. When I see a man with long hair I walk the other way.” Charming.
4. Marrying 'an Idiot'
If more straight-talking’s what you’re after, join us now on a trip to Tianya’s feelings section, where conventions and indeed, political correctness, are cast aside. One lively thread begins with the title, “my parents want me to marry a very rich “idiot,” or shazi, which, disturbingly, remains the term of choice in China for people with an intellectual disability. It turns out that this “shazi,” as he’s continuously called, has the mental-age of a child; but his brother, a hot-shot businessman, has promised the would-be couple assets worth RMB600,000 (around USD92,000) if the user consents to wed his sibling, the…ehem, “shazi.” The user’s parents are more than keen for her to marry him, with the father insisting that she “would be ”sha,” or stupid, to decline.
At one extreme of user views is the reassurance that “your parents want what’s best you.” On the other is the accusation, which is repeatedly expressed, and with which it’s hard to argue, that “your dad is a “shazi!” A recent commentator has even taken to lambasting the initial poster with literary references: “Have you not read Zhang Ailing’s “Golden Cangue?” (the story of a woman who marries into money, but is mistreated by her husband); before explaining that the posters life would be sure to turn out like the female character’s. Sadly, few if any comments make reference to the agency or feelings of her would-be husband, the, ehem, ”shazi.”
5. Roses with a Bawdy Twist
Keeping with the contrasting themes of love and superficiality, Valentine’s Day arrived this week, and one florist sought to capitalize on the occasion with a “shocking” slogan, hung above their shop: “if you want to sleep with a goddess, don’t moan about expensive roses.”
Many Netziens deemed this “vulgar” or “tasteless.” Some approved. Yet, perhaps more shocking than the slogan, was the expert opinion given to the media by a psychologist at Neijiang Normal University: The slogan, they argued, captured the feckless mentality of modern youth.
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