There will be updates at the end of today’s newsletter, but I am devoting today’s space to the trans woman’s cry for help on Weibo.
She first showed up on Twitter, and her tweets showed that she was very idealistic, patriotic, anti-capitalist and pro-working class. This is quite common for her generation, but on November 22nd, she started talking about her safety and the death threats she was recieving from her family. However, she did not get enough attention because she kept saying she believed in the party and that the government will save her.
She turned to Weibo, where she started randomly giving people who reposted her story 50-100 yuan (8 to 16 USD). So she got 82,000 followers and millions of clicks on Weibo.
Tonight she managed to put her father’s name on the top-list of Weibo.
She said before 2018, her name was Shan Ting. After, she changed her name to Shan Chunqing. Her name and sex on the id-card changed accordingly.
As Shan Ting, she was a famous IT genius, winning an international super computing competition in 2015, as a junior student in university and team leader.
In 2018, she went to Thailand to have the surgeries to transform herself to be a woman. She used her own money.
She is now working in Shanghai, on brain and computer connections, where she makes more money than her parents legal income combined.
Her father’s name is Shan Lie. According to Shan Chunqing posts, Shan Lie used to be a shady defense lawyer, and knows how to have her murdered in a way that looks like a suicide.
Shan Lie is a local party leader. His Baidu Baike entry is consistent to the description his daughter gave - he is Deputy Director General, Deputy Party Secretary and First Class Inspector of the Zhejiang Provincial Radio and Television Bureau.
Zhejiang is one of the richest provinces, with Hangzhou (the city that fined Viya) as it’s capital.
The Radio and Television Bureau is the agency in the government that administrates and supervises state-owned enterprises engaged in the television and radio industries.
First Class Inspector is the highest level official that is in charge of internal monitoring and inspections within the organisation.
According to Shan Chunqing, her dad hates trans people. He once swore to drive Jin Xing (the most famous trans woman in China) out of Zhejiang province.
Five years ago when Shan Lie learned that his only child wanted to change her gender, he cut her off completely. Shan Lie even made his side of the relatives believe that Shan Chunqing was dead already.
Two years ago, Shan Lie spent 5 million yuan to hire college students to give birth to a girl and a boy with his sperm.
Shan Chunqing thinks that since her father is already 57 years old, he is scared that his daughter might become the legal guardian of his new kids: so he wants his daughter dead.
Shan Chunqing said that her father has very cozy relationship with people in power in Zhejiang and Shanghai governments, including those in the police department. Her dad also claimed that he has support up in the central government. That is why she’d rather go on social media for help.
She believes the more people talk about her, the safer she could be. She kept publishing personal photos and detailed information on Weibo.
She thinks, because of her talents in computers, the country will not let her dad have her killed.
Many of her peers rose to defend her. However, they could not understand why the government did not respond to her cry for help.
They kept asking:
Is society sick, or we are the ones that are sick? Why don't they let us speak? Why are they shutting us up? Why don't they even look at us? Why did we only made it to the hot topic search list at night, only to be taken off during the day? Don't we deserve the country to do something for us? Have they abandoned us?
That’s all we know so far.
Now for the other news/melon updates, as promised.
According to Chinese state media, at midnight December 22nd, Xi’an went into a full lock-down.
No one is allowed to leave the city of 13 million, all non-essential businesses are closed, all residents in the city have to stay home, only one trip for every two days to the shop is allowed for one family.
Supermarkets are crowded with people buying food.
There is a melon that has been hinted for days but the names are not allowed on Weibo. So it becomes very juicy.
It involves an actress from Xinjiang area, Tong Liya and Shen Haixiong, the director general of CCTV and deputy minister of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CCP.
The story goes: Tong’s husband, a movie director Chen Sicheng introduced his wife to his boss, Shen. Shen had just lost his child, and his wife is too old to have kids for him.
A few months ago, Shen divorced his wife, and Chen divorced Tong. Now rumours say that Tong and Shen got married.
But Weibo would not let anyone say it. If you mentioned Tong’s name, you would be silenced right away.
Could it be the biggest melon so far?