Trending: A Special Flute, a Bathroom Dispute, and a Ruined Suit
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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.
Armed with nothing but a rolling chair, long scrolls of sheet music, and his cane, one old man brought music to the Temple of Heaven this past weekend, but it wasn’t with his voice. Instead, he took a seat, unrolled his scrolls, and began blowing into the end of his aluminum cane, which he had converted into a flute by drilling holes into it.
The octagenarian says he takes refuge on the campus of Peking University during the winter where he can toot away on the crutch in the warmth of campus buildings, but in the summer he likes to stroll out to the parks and find a nice shady spot to play.Following the hashtag ‘Man in his eighties plays customized cane as a flute’ #八旬大爷自制可以吹的拐杖#, most commenters were thoroughly impressed by the man’s talent and tenacity, although some offered quips such as, "I’m afraid I’ll never achieve such a thing laying on my bed at home," and, "This old man has retired and he still leaves home to do this. He must be trying to avoid his wife."
One Beijing man says that the McDonald's restroom just won't do anymore
Meanwhile, another Beijinger was busy publicly expressing his deep dissatisfaction with being denied access to the bathroom at the city’s Bureau of Public Affairs.
After being told that, during the epidemic period, the bathroom was for "internal use only," the man declared that, "This is a public facility, completely funded by taxpayer money, yet we taxpayers can’t use the bathroom!"
The incident sparked much discussion among Weibo’s toilet users, but unlike with the infamous over-under toilet paper roll question, the crowd was united behind the man in the war over the washroom, as you can see for yourself by checking out the hashtag ‘Man denied use of the Bureau of Public Affairs Restroom’ #男子借用民政局厕所被拒绝#.
“I can understand if offices don’t let people just walk around,” wrote one user. “But ... How can the civil affairs department, a place that purports to serve the people, be so bureaucratic?”
Another wrote, “I like this kind of taxpayer. There are some issues that the masses must be serious about, otherwise, government services will never improve the situation.”
The man's protest wasn't in vain however and the bureau later apologized, saying that anyone can use the bathroom after passing a temperature test.Phone-gazer falls into sewage well
Night-vision footage captured a man who had the misfortune of falling into a sewage well in Beijing’s Daxing District last Wednesday. His story serves as a cautionary tale for the phone-obsessed, as the fall was a result of him staring at his screen instead of at the path ahead of him.
There's no word on whether his phone made it out alive
As the local fire department came to bail him out, the man could be heard cursing and complaining of the cold and the stench, as if the whole ordeal weren’t his own fault.
Weibo users had even less sympathy for the man. As one commenter put it, “I’m so annoyed by people who look at their phone as they walk. They don’t care about the safety of people around them. He got what he deserved.”
The fire department was eventually able to retrieve the man using a ladder. See how the whole thing unfolded under the hashtag 'Daxing man falls into a sewer' #大兴男子掉进污水井#.
Images: Weibo, Regional Obala
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