Trending in Beijing: A Creepy Police Video, Struggles of Learning Chinese, and CGTN vs. Fox Aftermath
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.
5G-powered promotional video confuses Chinese netizens
A promotional video depicting a scenario where a policeman wearing 5G glasses detects a terrorist using facial recognition technology has been doing the rounds on the internet of late. The video follows the dastardly terrorist as he tries to evade the police, yet his every attempt (including the moment that he disguises himself in fake mustache and hair), is thwarted largely thanks to the technology that the police are using.
Netizens are mostly worried about the invasion of privacy that the video represents, and that the development of technology will be used against society by an omnipotent and omnipresent centralized power. However, not everybody has a problem with this. The most popular comment reads "plenty of people actually support this idea and believe that good people have nothing to hide. There is no need for privacy".
While most Weibo and WeChat users are either confused or spooked out by this vision of the future, the smart glasses are already used in Mainland China, albeit without 5G for now.
Foreigners struggle through Chinese listening drills
Foreigners are once again entertaining Weibo crowds with their adorable attempts to learn Chinese. This compilation of a few short videos has been posted online, where shots from Chinese language classes are mixed with silly animated replicas which illustrate the struggles that foreigners experience when attending Chinese classes.
The hashtag #中文听力逼疯外国同学# (Chinese listening drives foreign students crazy) now has more than 430 million readers, and on the whole Weibo users have been quite supportive. One netizen commiserated, sharing his own experience on language learning "with Japanese, the more I study, the harder it becomes. Other languages usually become easier the more you learn."
Highly anticipated Fox and CGTN debate ends up being a yawn-fest
Spurred on for days by posts from CGTN, Chinese netizens were excited about what was supposed to be a "clash-of-giants" debate on US-China trade between Fox's anchor Trish Regan and CGTN's Liu Xin. Weibo currently has at least two hashtags dedicated to the debate that reached over 100 million followers, as well as many less popular ones.
Yet despite all the hype, the big debate ended up being a yawn-fest. Satellite delays, which led to the anchors talking over one another, was pretty much the only conflict in what was otherwise a reserved and strangely polite exchange. It even seems unfair to call it a debate, since Liu Xin was mostly just answering Regan's questions.
Despite the lack of fireworks, and even though Chinese users could not watch the live stream or the scheduled live comments due to "copyright issues", netizens nevertheless voiced their patriotic support for Liu Xin. Many commenters also praised the newly emerged heroine's manners, grace, and a polite tone.
Netizens throw virtual flowers under Liu Xin's feet under #CGTN主播刘欣与FOX主播约辩# (CGTN anchor Liu Cin and FOX anchor debate).
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Images: Weibo
