Trending in Beijing: Auntie Chews Out a Scammer, First 5G-Powered Surgery, and Dwindling In-Flight Meals

The fun, the strange, and the what-on-earth-is-this? Trending in Beijing is a wrap-up of top stories in Beijing as told by the trending hashtags, local press, and general power of the internet.

Beijing auntie lectures a phone scammer

Scamming grandmas is not as easy as it may seem. Especially if your target happens to be this no-chill Beijing dama. One phone swindler recently learned just as much the hard way when he came ear-to-ear with an auntie (audio in Chinese) from the capital and forced to rethink his life choices.

The call starts out innocuous enough, with the scammer calling to say that auntie's phone credit had run out on account of spam messages sent from her phone. She's then told she will be transferred to the (fake) Security Bureau. But auntie is not in the mood for long conversations and calls out the fraudster on his tactics. Here's just a snippet of how the conversation went:

Man: "How did you know I am a scammer?"
Dama: "How do I know? How do I know? I knew from the very beginning! Your talking skills are very poor. Whatever training they are giving you, it is not enough – you are stuttering, your story is not logical." 

Badass auntie then goes on to shame the swindler further, suggesting that since he is still young, he should do something else instead of trying to scam the elderly. She even offered to train the wrong-doer since he was so unprepared. The lecture didn't end there, however. She then goes on to call out the "security bureau officer" she is transferred to.

Netizens are loving the no-chill Beijing auntie, with some reckoning she must be one of Chaoyang's formidable, take-no-prisoners dama elite. "This auntie must have been a saleswoman earlier on," guessed one netizen, noting how confident auntie was on the phone and how critical of the scammer's storytelling skills she is. Weibo follows the story under #北京大妈接到诈骗电话# (Beijing aunt receives a fraudulent phone call). 

Three 5G-powered simultaneous surgeries performed for the first time

On Aug 28, a surgeon at Beijing Jishuitan Hospital performed three simultaneous surgeries facilitated by 5G robots. The respective surgeries took place in Zhangjiakou in Hebei, Karamay in Xinjiang, and Tianjin. This is the first operation of its kind, with three patients in different locations being attended to at one time. 

The head of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital and team leader, Tian Wei, issued a command to start the procedures at 9.30am and all three were finished around 1pm. Live images from operating rooms were transmitted to the team in Beijing throughout the surgery. While the 5G-powered machinery was designed and preprogrammed to perform the tasks necessary for these procedures, human guidance was still required for others, such as implanting devices within bones.

Doctors are claiming that the implementation of the 5G network will help improve the care of patients in remote areas and solve ongoing issues with regard to the unequal distribution of qualified specialists. Netizens are praising this specific use of the 5G network, which, as we have previously reported, can at times be a divisive issue. "Those people who said 5G is useless, come out and apologize," wrote one user. Netizens are following the surgery under #北京医生用5G同时开展三台手术# (Beijing hospital uses 5G to perform three simultaneous surgeries), which already has over 6.6 million readers. 

Chinese airlines called out for smaller in-flight food portions

Truth be told, it's likely for the better that airplane food portions are dwindling given that in-flight meals are usually worse than sub-par and produce an absurd amount of waste. Collated reports from China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, and Air China have shown that food cost against total cost has been in decline for two years (video in Chinese). 

Experts are guessing that amid the struggle to reduce costs, spending on in-flight meals is one of the commodities being slashed. Surprisingly, Weibo users don't seem too bothered and are happy to use the news to poke fun at other perceived weaknesses in mainland airlines. For example, one netizen wrote, "Sichuan Airlines has the best food! The dinner was delicious, with spicy sauce and a cake for dessert. They didn't explain the 13-hour delay, but I forgave them because the dinner was so good."

Other users are stressing that meals are not as important as safety, which is the first priority when flying. Follow the airplane meal discussion under #四大航司集体压缩餐食成本# (Four large airlines collectively reduce meal costs).

READ: Air China Plane Catches Fire at Beijing Capital International Airport

Images: Weibo, Unsplash, Baidu