It has been a few days that a parking lot fight is occupying Chinese social media. True, young people are still puzzled about Li Jiaqi, but older people were much more obsessed with a fight between a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce.
Southern China Morning Post has an article on it, “China’s real-life Bling Empire: Bentley and Rolls-Royce owners’ petty feud over car space ends in violent brawl caught on video “. The story is simple, a woman who drives a Bentley claimed that a Rolls-Royce has occupied her parking space for month and she wants the Rolls-Royce out. It seems some people took the video during the fight and put it on social media. Two things made it viral:
First, in this short video, her driver tried to ask the other driver to move the car and she was shouting at the top of her lung that she will use her Bentley to block the car if it is not moved and in the end she said she had 50 Bentley at home. Who has 50 Bentleys? How wealthy is she and how did she get this wealth? As described in the SCMP article, she is related to a high level executive of a state owned enterprise, and even though in the article it is stated that she was just a girlfriend, some netizen found her wedding photos. Although they denied that this is a wedding and claimed that her Bentley has nothing to do with him, people are not believing it. They also want to know about the background of the Rolls-Royce.
Another short video showed her getting physical. And when she hit the driver of the Rolls-Royce, the driver swift laid himself on the floor, and she quickly laid herself down next him. This is a very typical street fight scene in China, you can see it in this video of a normal street fight. Many people are shocked at the Bentley owners fighting skill, because they did not know ultra rich people fought just like ordinary people. In case you wonder what the lying down on the ground is about, in Chinese, there is a terminology “Peng Ci”. Literally it means to hit a porcelain. It is about pretending to be harmed during a fight to incur a large fine on the opponent. Does it ever work? I guess so, otherwise why they do it?
Ex-chief editor of Global Times, our old friend, Mr. Hu Xijin chimed in on the event: “If you work in the government with high responsibility, tell your family members to stay low, ditto if you are rich. Internet is ruled by the mob, they don’t care about whether you have right to park your car there, but where your 50 Bentleys come from. Stay low, don’t bring trouble to your husband, or the owner of the Rolls-Royce.”
This is perhaps the most influential event for some people in their lifetime. If you are good at learning and taking exam, this is when you put out your best to try to go to the best university in China and then off to have a brilliant future. If you want to know the system better than I am willing to explain, you can look up the Wikipedia page Gaokao.
It started yesterday, and Internet is full of photos of the parents, see them below.
You might wonder why they dress like that. Supposedly the pronunciation of the dress the women wear (Qi-pao) sounds close to “Success” (Qi-kai-de-sheng). Some men even wear that women dress to show support for their children.
Normally there are massive amount of discussions on the procedures of the exam and even the content of the exam. The topic of the essay for Chinese test is normally very popular. A few days later “Top Essays” will be circulated on social media.
This year, you can see the essay topic from Beijing exam (every province has their own set of exams): Beijing has held two Olympic games by now, below are the facts on how China has achieved impressive results on the medal counts, popularization of sports, technology innovation, transportation support and GDP in 2008 and 2022. Please write about your thoughts and feelings.
Shanghai never had lockdown. Still, now, the government wants everyone to go back to work.
According to social media, 70% of companies in Shanghai simply closed down for good. Why? Because they have accrued debt and cost over the 3 months long non-existent-lockdown, re-opening means that they have to pay massive amount of money. In addition, after three months of zero production, many companies have lost their customers and orders. One more point that holds companies back: if COVID spread again among their workers, they would have to shut down again and bear the responsibilities.
Meanwhile, some areas are put back under non-existent-lockdown, young people had some confrontation with the police. The atmosphere is defiant and rebellious. It is a bit refreshing, a bit like HK in 2019, or even a bit like 1989.
Li Jiaqi is very popular among young people. Some say that is because his products are good and cheap. Nonetheless, he is gone for sure. Even when his fans posted on Weibo how much they love China, the hashtag of Li Jiaqi invited censorship.
For weeks Chinese social media is active with rumours that Li Keqiang (prime minister) will ebb out our Dear Supreme Leader and take his position. Normally I paid no attention to such rumour, but the Financial Times just joined the chorus, “Rumours that Xi Jinping is losing his grip on power are greatly exaggerated”. I found it amusing. What is happening?