Top Ten Search List (May 25)
1. 甘肃猪蹄厅长 Gānsù zhūtí tīngzhǎng – Liu Weizhong, director of the Gansu Province Department of Health, is known far and wide across the Chinese internet as "Director Pig Trotter" for a startling ignorant public service message earlier this year in which he suggested that terminally ill patients could cure themselves by eating pigs' hooves. Now, he is taking a new wave of online heat, since the posting of a new announcement on the official website of the Gansu Department of Health in which the department celebrates the success of a recent cultish nine-day training course for students of spinal studies at the Gansu provincial hospital. The post congratulates a whole "41 out of 47 students" on their successful "mastery" of a procedure designed to open up access to a system of legendary acupuncture points known as the "ren du liang mai" (任督二脉). The announcement proudly asserts that the students have "proven" the magic of the Jing Luo (经络) Theory of acupuncture and are now all converted "believers." (Also known as the "Channel Theory," Jing Luo is the school of thought which holds that there are channels running through the entire body connecting the internal organs to the limbs and joints. It probably takes longer than "nine days" to get it down.) Mr. Pig Trotter himself was the keynote speaker of the training course, and netizens are railing on him for, among other things, "thinking he is a character in a martial arts story," "putting followers of his 'teachings' in danger," and "obscuring the real, positive features of effective Chinese medicine" behind an enormous cloud of quackery. Here's the story in Chinese.
2. 高速节假日免费 gāosù jiéjiàrì miǎnfèi – China's Ministry of Transport has recently announced that it is drafting a new law under which citizens nationwide will be exempt from paying highway and bridge tolls during major national festivals. Traffic is formidable over the holidays, especially at the start of spring festival (the Chinese New Year) when the vast majority of city dwellers return to their hometowns to be with their families. In response to scores of netizen cries for free passage, it seems like the Ministry of Transport will be granting it. Here's the story in Chinese.
3. 香港收回捐款 Xiānggǎng shōuhuí juānkuǎn – "Hong Kong Takes Back Donations": Yesterday, Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong Stephen Lam Sui-lung announced that after leading a delegation to Sichuan to investigate potential misuses of donations made to the region by Hong Kong following the 2008 earthquake, the HKSAR government will be recalling a 2 million HKD donation it originally presented to the Mianyang city government for the purposes of rebuilding the Mianyang "Red Bud" school (or Mianyang Zijin Minzu High School), which has now been torn down, after only two years of operation, to make way for a commercial development. Reports have come out that the rebuilt school was demolished by developer Dalian Wanda Group, and Mianyang's local government is claiming that the developer went ahead with the project without any official approval. Wanda, meanwhile, is planning to issue an official statement which will likely refute this claim, and its CEO has already essentially said to reporters, "How would we ever be stupid enough to go ahead with a project like this without the permission of the local authorities?" While Wanda and Mianyang point fingers, netizens are criticizing both for blatantly disrespecting Hong Kong's initial magnanimity. Here's the story in Chinese.
4. 汤淼 Tāng Miǎo - Search volume is high for news of an amicable divorce between a beloved athlete couple: former Chinese men's volleyball player Tang Miao and women's volleyball player Zhou Suhong. Both parties have told reporters that while they still care about each other, the nature of their relationship has changed, largely due to an incident in June of 2007 when, in a friendly competition between the Shanghai team and the Russian national team, Tang Miao suffered a serious injury that left him paralyzed. Several news articles are calling this "divorce in the name of love," citing Tang's explanation that he "does not want to hold Zhou back any longer." Though some are taking sides, the overwhelming current of public opinion has been in support for the pair, with microblogger after microblogger wishing both of them well. Here's the story in Chinese.
5. 印度女婴喂狗 Yìndù nǚyīng wèi gǒu – Netizens are up in arms over the recent discovery that doctors in Beed, India have been feeding aborted female fetuses to dogs to hide evidence that they are engaged in the practice of sex-selective abortions; the news has sparked widespread discussion today about the importance of seeing girls and boys as equally worthy of love and life. Here's the story in Chinese.
6. 少壮派富豪榜 shàozhuàngpài fùháobǎng – The Hurun Research Institute yesterday released its 2012 "Richest Chinese Under Forty List." First place goes to the heiress of Guangdong-based development company Country Garden (碧桂园) Yang Huiyan, who is also considered the wealthiest person in mainland China (under 40 or not), but only 8 out of the 33 listed young billionaires are actually "second-generation rich" (富二代), while many of the rest are self-starters and entrepreneurs. Here's the story in Chinese.
7. 跨国电信诈骗 kuàguó diànxìn zhàpiàn – On Wednesday, a total of nearly 500 people suspected of involvement in an enormous transnational telecom scam were arrested by Chinese mainland and Taiwanese law enforcement officers as well as other police forces across Asia. The over-11.5 million USD scam was reportedly targeting people in China. Here's the story in Chinese.
8. 2011年度人权国别报告 2011 niándù rénquán guóbié bàogào – Upon the release yesterday of the U.S. State Department's annual human rights report, whose discussion of China focuses on the government's crack-downs on activists, use of internet censorship, and repression of minority groups, a host of reports in the Chinese news media range from firmly dissatisfied to completely incensed with the results, asserting that the U.S. has altogether overlooked strides China has made on the human rights front, in favor of seizing any opportunity to pick it apart. Here's the story in Chinese.
9. 倪妮 Ní Nī – More people are dating each other. Chinese actor William Feng and Chinese actress Ni Ni, best known for her role as "Yu Mo" in the 2011 Zhang Yimou film "Flowers of War," have now confirmed their romance through proclamations of love via Sina Weibo. Here's the story in Chinese.
10. 东莞理工命案追踪 Dōngguǎn Lǐgōng mìng'àn zhuīzōng – Yesterday at the hearing for the murder trial of Ao Xiang, the college senior from Dongguang, Guangdong province who in November 2011 brutally killed a female classmate after following her into a girls' bathoom and attempting to rape her, the Dongguan intermediate people's court declared Ao guilty of rape and murder but ruled that he pay a 508,799.50 RMB fine in compensation to the family of the deceased as his only punishment. The victim's family refuses to accept the light sentence, and is appealing the case. Here's the story in Chinese.
Pentagon worried by China's growing might
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