Trending: Subway Door Left Open, Icey Floor, and a Cat’s Laser
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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.
Earlier this week, a daring passenger took a brief video from a subway car on an unspecified, above-ground segment of Line 13 – but this was no ordinary commute. For whatever reason, the door on the subway had malfunctioned, leaving it wide open as the train sped forth on its route.
We can only imagine that most passengers, upon seeing the danger – not to mention the fact that it’s December, and the wind blowing in freely wouldn’t have helped the heating situation – would have quickly stepped into the next car over, but at least one individual saw the opportunity to create precious viral video content, and that’s something worth risking your life for.
Quipped one user, “I haven’t ridden the subway for a while, but maybe they are leaving it open to blow away the virus.”
An eight-year-old girl from Beijing’s Fengtai district got a less-than-ideal start to her 500-meter speed skating race this week when she fell flat on the ice fresh out of the starting line, leaving her a good half a track’s length behind the other young racers.
A nasty fall, but an amazing recovery!
Many would have been too disheartened to go on with any real vigor after a flop like that, but with shouts of "jiayou" from her parents in the stands, she not only found the will to continue the race but, perhaps with a little help from the adrenaline, managed to pass all three other racers. By the end, she was nearly half a track's length ahead of the second-place competitor! Watch the full vide below:
The girl (center) poses with second and third place after a surprise victory
Unfortunately, she's a bit too young to qualify for Beijing's 2022 Winter Games, but keep an eye out for her in 2026.
Any feline fan worth their catnip can tell you that a cat's favorite toy is a laser. Our furry friends will tire of a stuffed fish on a string after a few minutes of playtime, but the allure of that little light beam is so powerful that no cat can resist it for as long as the button is pressed.
But normally, the one pressing the button possesses the gift of opposable thumbs. That's not the case for a pair of kitties in the capital, who earlier this month were caught on camera after one of them discovered the dirty little trick that humans have been playing on them all along. The cat managed to activate the laser, leaving its fellow feline with no choice but to chase the dot. Watch the video clip below:
"So cute," wrote one commenter under the hashtag #猫咪用激光棒逗猫# (māomī yòng jīguāng bàng dòu māo, cat teases another cat with a laser). "But I heard that in the new China, you aren't allowed to anthropomorphize animals," joked the commenter, referencing a debunked rumor that film and TV productions would be banned from creating anthropomorphized animal characters.
READ: Trending in Beijing: Durex Hit With Fines, Coffee Shop Owners Whine
Images: YouTube, Weibo
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