Trending in BJ: Subway Face Scanning and an Imperial SUV Snafu
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.
Delivery drivers have somewhat become a part of our extended Beijing family and an essential element of the cityscape. It may not then come as too much of a surprise to hear that over 288,000 drivers crisscross the city every day, as noted in an infographic compiled by Beijing Youth Paper,
While nearly 40 percent of delivery drivers claim to have chosen to work in Beijing because of the potential to earn a higher income, the little brothers – 小哥 xiǎo gē as they are so affectionally dubbed – only actually earn around RMB 6,000 per month on average, or about RMB 1,800 less than the average Beijing salary. However, a very small fraction of respondents (0.24 percent) reported that they in fact earned over RMB 21,000 per month.
The capital city may attract youngsters with the promise of a better life but many who had lived here for several years reported that they did not envisage a long-term future in the city, with one Weibo user writing a phrase that will be familiar to most expats: "It's the last two years for me, I swear!"
You too can join in thanking our everyday heroes under #快递小哥收入到底如何# (How much do delivery drivers actually make).Last week, the Third Intermediate People's Court of Beijing issued a public verdict on a fraudulent mortgage loans gang that has been dubbed "the largest ever." Fifty-two members of the elaborate scheme were sentenced, and the leader of the operations, 36-year-old Lin Guobin (林国彬), has received imprisonment for life plus the confiscation of all his personal property. Lin and his partners reportedly swindled 68 owners out of 70 properties valued over RMB 178 million in total. Most of the victims were elderly citizens. One of the tactics adopted by the gang was to pressure citizens into borrowing money to invest in a fake health care company which the gang touted as being able to grant them free access to health care products as well as earn them 1 percent monthly return on their investment.At the notary's office, the victims would sign documents that they believed related to this contract, but which actually allowed the loan company to take full possession of the mortgaged property. The swindled houses were registered to a number of different companies but the police found all of them to ultimately lead back to Lin.
Netizens are shocked that the gang has been so successful, with one user exclaiming, "This is the capital of China! Imagine how bad is it in other cities!" Beijingers are venting their anger about the scheme under #北京最大涉黑套路贷# (Beijing's largest illegal loan).
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On Jan 16, Beijing Subway revealed its priorities for the coming year (think new year's resolutions but for a company) for the upcoming year. One of their goals is to reduce waiting times at the city's busiest stations to no longer than two minutes, a plan that will involve updating subway gates to allow facial recognition, thus alleviating one of the transport's biggest bottlenecks: security checks.
The anemic charade that constitutes a "security check" at most stations has been noted as the system's biggest flaw. In the report. a Beijing Subway representative says that it is their aim to establish security check fast lanes for the regular commuters with a white list for model citizens drawn up from credit information retrieved by the facial recognition cameras. Exactly how this fast lane would work has not been revealed but it seems like such commuters may be completely exempt from the notoriously irritating bag scanning procedure.
Lines 1, 2, 5, and 10 are currently already hitting the mark, with Beijing Subway promising specifically to improve Line 6, which is getting increasingly busier with passengers commuting into the city from Tongzhou and the east.
While it certainly sounds efficient, some commuters were not impressed. "So, are you checking people or things at the end of the day?" asked one netizen who took the news particularly personally. Read more under #北京地铁正在研究刷脸安检# (Beijing Subway is researching face scanning).
The infamous story of an SUV in the Forbidden City
Finally, Weibo lit up this past weekend after the Forbidden City embarked on a culturally-tone deaf public relations failure just in time for Chinese New Year. The incident occurred when photos of two women posing with their Mercedez-Benz in the Forbidden City surfaced online, with netizens unanimously condemning the tasteless behavior. Both the women and the Palace Museum were lambasted, with the latter releasing an apology for allowing the vehicle to enter the 600-year-old cultural heritage site.
Many believed the response from the Palace Museum was too soft. The top commenter wondered: "And? Is that it?" while others are simply trying to figure out who these two mystery women are given that not even presidents of foreign nations can enter the Forbidden City by car or air.
The original poster – who has since deleted all of her content, yet has now over 60,000 followers – has been the subject of much mockery since, with netizens having an absolute field day, creating plenty of original content including this humorous Mercedez-Benz 'advertisement', and a lighter take on the journey into the walled city.
As of yet, the person responsible for the gaffe has not been identified beyond "the Palace Museum" at large, but it is fair to say that this incident will not die down any time soon and remains the number one trending topic on Weibo. Join the furor at the hashtag #故宫回应开车进入故宫事件# (The Forbidden City responds to the incident of driving into the Forbidden City).
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Images: Sina, Sina, China Trial
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