Trending in Beijing: Drone and Space Station Spotted Over Beijing Skies

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.

Get that drone off the road!

This week in local crime, a photographer flew a drone within the city limits and landed himself in the interrogation chair. The man was apparently flying it on a road in front of the Water Cube. With the 2022 Winter Olympics rounding the 100-day countdown, he could hardly have picked a more sensitive spot!

The incident, first reported to the public yesterday, apparently occurred in early October when local police were alerted to a device  zooming back and forth across the Yayuncun neighborhood. The police soon located the man red-handed with his setup under an overpass. He made a full confession and explained to police that, as a freelance photographer, he was attempting to obtain a few sellable shots of the city.

Netizens reading the news yesterday immediately lampooned the good people of Chaoyang district as overly cautious. For example, one top comment, making good use of the doge emoji, proclaimed that “Chaoyang people are keeping a close eye on the land and the sky.”

High, high above the pagodas

Earlier this week, tourists visiting the ancient Liangxiang Pagoda (also known as the Haotian pagoda) in Beijing got more than they bargained for as they caught a glimpse of the Chinese Space Station hurdling through the outer bounds of the atmosphere up above.

Liangxiang Pagoda was originally constructed during the Sui dynasty, but the current version that now stands was built in the year 1068. With this in mind, one netizen put it succinctly why the image of the station flying over this ancient landmark is so powerful. “Here we see two objects that span a millennium, brought together into one frame,“ wrote the user.

Would you get married for a car?

It’s a topic we’ve seen trending before: Beijingers tie the knot, not for love, but so that they can obtain a Beijing license plate, skirting the city’s vehicle quota. But now, we have the number of offenders for this year (so far!) A total of 67 people have been caught by police for the practice.   

One netizen commented, “So, is no one going to talk about changing the policy? If people are willing to get married for this...”

Wrote another, “It reminds me of the people who got divorced so that they could buy a house,” referring to cases Beijing addressed earlier this year in which couples split up on paper so that they could legally purchase another home on top of the maximum two properties they were allowed as a married couple. In response, the city changed the rules of home buying so that divorcees cannot purchase an additional property if they already owned two homes as a couple.

READ: Trending in Beijing: Beijing's Poop Bank, Fake Officer Facetimes the Real Police

Images: Unslplash, Weibo