What’s hot in China this week!
Check what’s trending on Chinese social media with us now!
- A little carnival of recalling messages on WeChat
If you are a WeChat user, you must know there is a function that lets you recall a message within two minutes after it is sent. If you recall a message, everybody will see a line that says “[your WeChat name] has recalled a message” by the app.
Yesterday, in a group chat I was in, a message appeared that said “Ruisen has recalled a message and threw a piece of sh*t to you.” Like this:
What the hell is this??
After a search on Weibo, it seemed everyone was playing with this bug or whatever new WeChat function it was. “xxx has recalled the message and kissed you in the face; or licked your tongue, or touched your boob.”
Interesting…
How did this happen? It’s a hidden code defined by Unicode that makes the characters show in an inverted order. What you have to do is first paste the words that have to be embedded with this code in the box for inputting your name, delete the words one by one (to keep the code), input the words that you want to show in the group chat in reverse order. Bingo!
A gentle reminder before you wanna try: some people reported a failure after trying. Guess WeChat may have fixed the bug already.
2. Pick up some slang from China’s post-95s generation
Follow me if you can read Chinese Pinyin. “Wo hao fang.” Literally it means “I am square”, but actually netizens, especially the post-95s generation, use this to mean “I panicked.”
Let me explain why. The term for “panic” is read as “huang”, while dialects in some Chinese provinces read it as “fang”.
But why did it get hot among netizens?
According to what I can find on the internet, it originates from a Wanghong singer who created an internet sensation in 2014 with his song “my skateboard shoes”. This song was SUPER popular back then. With one of the big reasons for its popularity being his strong accent of a regional dialect.
In a video of this singer singing a song on Bilibili, a platform that represents the trendiest culture created by the millennial generation, “huang” was read as “fang”. And then… something happened.
This week, a hot topic on Weibo was a pack of photoshopped pictures of popular TV and movie actors with captions using the term “I am square”.
3. He is praised by many for queuing up for a taxi. Why?
This 72-year-old man was in the spotlight this week. He was photographed lining up for a taxi alone at Shanghai Hongqiao airport. And many netizens gave him a thumbs-up for it.
You might be thinking:
Actually, he is not just anybody.
He is Ren Zhengfei!
Ren is the founder of Huawei!!
Huawei is now the No. 1 Chinese smartphone maker and also one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment!!! Huawei earned tens of billions of dollars last year!!!!
A celeb travels without a chauffeur, an assistant or a VIP pass? That’s rare in China. Some questioned whether he was doing some kind of publicity stunt. After digging, I found some clues that may explain his behavior.
Ren is one of the entrepreneurs that started their businesses in 1980s, with extreme patriotism for the country and austere entrepreneurship. Ren is reportedly a man that keeps a low profile, seldom doing interviews or appearing in public. His style has made austerity a culture of Huawei. Reportedly, no senior leaders at Huawei use chauffeurs. Ren is indeed a role model!
Another thing you may not know is that he only holds 1.42% of Huawei’s shares. The other 98% are held by more than 80,000 Huawei employees.
Check out his style of speech here.
4. An S.F. Express delivery man was slapped and his company President snapped
On Monday, a delivery man working for S.F. Express, one of China’s top express delivery companies known for its speed, was slapped by a local Beijinger who had his car scratched by the three-wheeled delivery bike of the delivery man. Someone filmed the whole process, during which the S.F. employee didn’t fight back.
Netizens posted in rage on Weibo backing the S.F. employee and demanding justice for him.
The president of S.F. Express, Wang Wei wrote a statement on his WeChat Moments claiming that if he can’t seek justice for this employee, he’d be embarrassing himself as the president of the company. Wang has won praise for having the employee’s back. And many have said it was a smart PR move for the the company.
This post is originally published on AllChinaTech.com.
