A 40-year-old woman named Li Lili (黎莉莉) became news in China after she ran the Shanghai Marathon last Sunday while 32 weeks pregnant, completing the race in five hours and 17 minutes.
This was the third marathon Li has run during her pregnancy. She ran the first two during week eight (with a time of 3:54:43) and week 22 (with a time of 4:47:58) of her pregnancy.
Lily is an avid runner, having completed 62 marathons during her lifetime. Her story went viral on Weibo under the hashtag “8 Months Pregnant 40-Year-Old Woman Runs Marathon” (#40岁孕妇怀胎8月跑完全马#), which has received over 200 million reads at time of writing.
[Li has run three marathons during her pregnancy, one in each trimester.]
Her story has ignited debate across Weibo this week regarding the merits and dangers of vigorous exercise during pregnancy. In interviews with the press, however, Li remained defiant in the face of her critics.
“For many people, they are worried about this because they don’t understand it,” she told video news site Pear Video in an interview.
“Many people have told me it is dangerous. They criticize me, just like they criticized Chen Yihan,” she says, referring to Taiwanese actress Ivy Chen (陈意涵) who faced fierce online criticism after posting pictures of herself running while five months pregnant in 2018.
Actress Ivy Chen’s controversial Weibo post from 2018, showing her running 5 kilometers while five months pregnant.
“But most of these critics have never even been pregnant,” Li continued: “The fact is, I did this because I have a very deep understanding of my own body. I’ve run over 60 marathons, I am an extremely good runner. I’ve run a marathon in 3:28, which is considered an excellent time even for talented athletes, even for men. I have my own training methods, I’ve been training for a very long time, and have carefully prepared for these marathons.”
The reactions to Li’s story online have ranged from enthusiastic praise to outright condemnation.
“Wow! I admire how strong she is! It is said that each person knows what is right for them in their own heart. It’s none of your business what she does with this unborn hero!” gushes the most popular comment on Pear Video’s Weibo post about the story.
But another popular comment argues that marathon running is actually inappropriate for Chinese women in general: “Foreigners running marathons is fine, but this is not for Chinese women. Pregnant Chinese women running marathons is equivalent to them not caring for their children.”
The results from a poll put out by Chengdu Economic Daily so far show the majority of readers do not oppose Li’s decision to run a marathon, with 54,000 choosing the option “One case cannot represent the whole, it will vary from individual to individual” and 38,000 choosing “Support, if the mother’s body is strong enough.” Only 17,000 chose the option “Oppose, pregnant women should not engage in vigorous exercise.”
“What do you think of a 40-year-old woman running a marathon while 8 months pregnant?” asks a Weibo poll by Chengdu Economic Daily.
Some comments on the poll argued that Li was irresponsible to take part in a marathon, in case something did go wrong: “Problems come up when you least expect them. If it’s just you running on your own, that’s one thing. But this is a group race. I can’t say if it’s right or wrong, but it could bring a lot of trouble to other people.”
But the majority of popular comments expressed outright support and admiration, or at the very least opposition to Li’s critics, telling them to mind their own business.
The support for Li’s decision appears to fly in the face of Chinese traditional attitudes towards pregnant women. The list of dos and don’ts for Chinese mothers-to-be is long and complex, ranging from the bizarre (no eating/drinking dark foods so as not to affect the baby’s skin color) to the more common (avoiding shellfish).
The belief that pregnant mothers should avoid exertion is high on the list, extending even to the month after birth.
But despite these strong traditions, Li’s strength and determination have clearly inspired new support for expectant mothers who wish to continue an active lifestyle while pregnant.
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Jessica Colwell is a freelance writer currently living in Hong Kong. She is a former editor of Shanghaiist and has lived and worked in China since 2009. She has a love for everything Chinese internet and a soft spot for televised galas and Chinese pageantry.
Since August 24th, when Japan started the release of treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima power plant into the ocean, a myriad of related topics have surged across Chinese social media platforms.
The dissemination of news concerning the Fukushima wastewater discharge, amplified by Chinese media outlets, has sparked considerable unrest in various ways.
Among these is the phenomenon of salt hoarding. There have been dozens of posts on Weibo showing extreme examples of people stockpiling salt. In some places, people queued for up to an hour to buy salt while early-bird shoppers left stores with heavily laden shopping carts.
China also saw instances of salt hoarding in 2011, just after the tsunami and Fukushima disaster. Some people equate ‘salt’ to ‘sea salt’ and they are concerned that salt stocks could potentially become contaminated due to the Fukushima wastewater. But there is also a general belief that salt consumption could provide protection against exposure to radioactivity.
Nonetheless, regular table salt does not actually provide protection against radiation, and consuming excessive amounts of iodized salt could potentially pose health risks on its own.
While scientists and critics find the recent panic to be unfounded – emphasizing that Japan’s actions fall within the safety limits of the Atomic Energy Agency and that the environmental impact is minimal, – a prevailing skepticism toward Western powers combined with official media boosting news concerning the discharge of radioactive water, ensures that Fukushima-related fears and misconceptions remain pervasive.
The concerns surrounding Fukushima have already had negative consequences for many business owners in China, especially for some Japanese-style restaurant owners who felt the need to change their theme, change their name, or explicitly state that their ingredients are not actually coming from Japan.
Meanwhile, there are also some who are trying to capitalize on the situation for profit.
One Japanese-style restaurant in Shanghai’s Hongqiao recently starting offering a so-called “anti radiation” set meal (“防辐射”套餐). The set meal, which was first introduced on online platform Dianping, included ingredients such as tomatoes, edamame, tofu, and spinach.
The Japanese restaurant introduced the menu on the 25th, a day after Japan started discharging the first batch of wastewater into the ocean. While various Chinese media write that there is no scientific basis for the radiation-blocking effects of these foods, the restaurant stated they no longer use any products from Japan and that ingredients used are all sourced locally.
According to various news posts, the restaurant compiled the menu through research and seeking advice from a nutritionist. The restaurant also associated each dish with particular benefits, including claims of “reducing skin damage” or “stimulating cell growth.”
But soon after the restaurant had put their anti-radiation menu online, it became a big topic of discussion, with one related hashtag on Weibo getting over 140 million views (#上海一日料店上架防辐射套餐#).
“Of course, the next step is to make a quick buck by pushing anti-radiation products,” one popular comment said (using the phrase gē jiǔcài 割韭菜, ‘harvesting chives,’ also explained in our latest newsletter).
Other people wondered why one would order such a menu if you might as well cook the exact same things at home. “Why would I pay 28 yuan for tomato with seasoning?”
Meanwhile, Chinese media outlets, citing legal experts, focused more on the legal problems surrounding the menu, suggesting that making false claims is against the law.
Following the controversy, the restaurant has now pulled its menu offline.
Nonetheless, the restaurant won’t be the first or the last business owner to profit from Fukushima fear and anger. While some are selling anti-radiation tablets, others are selling t-shirts with slogans opposing Japan’s decision to discharge the wastewater.
T-shirt sold on Taobao opposing the “ocean dumping” of Fukushima wastewater (screenshot via Whatsonweibo).
On Weibo, local authorities and media accounts are cautioning consumers against purchasing ineffective products that offer no protection against radiation exposure, reiterating that buying loads of salt will not help either.
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A suspected case of Mpox (monkeypox) reported in Shenyang, Liaoning, has become a top trending topic on Chinese social media this week.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the results of local lab tests, giving a positive result for the monkeypox virus.
The case was first reported on June 29th and official diagnosis with the monkeypox virus was confirmed on July 3rd.
The patient is currently undergoing isolation treatment in a designated medical institution, and their condition is stable.
Monkeypox (Mpox) is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus. It is characterized by symptoms such as a skin rash or ulcers, accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes. Mpox can be transmitted to humans through physical contact with infected individuals, contaminated materials, or infected animals.
On Chinese social media, there is a significant concern expressed by many individuals regarding a possible outbreak of Mpox. People are seeking information on preventive measures to avoid contracting the virus and expressing their strong desire for the virus to remain distant from them. After experiencing the impact of the Covid pandemic for years, another virus outbreak is the last thing people want to encounter or hear about.
“Retreat! Fetreat! Retreat!” meme posted on Weibo in response to the monkeypox case in Liaoning.
“Do not come over” meme.
“This is still an issue that needs to be taken seriously because once the first case emerges, there may be subsequent cases,” one commenters says: “It requires the collective efforts of various local departments to thoroughly control and contain it from spreading any further.”
“When I see this kind of news, I silently pick up my face mask, take my Vitamine C, and take out my dusty disinfectant again,” another person writes.
During May 2022, an outbreak of monkeypox was identified in the United Kingdom. Two months later, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the outbreak as a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” As of March of the current year, over 113 countries had reported a cumulative total of 86,516 confirmed cases. However, in May, the WHO declared the global health emergency to be concluded.
At the time of this global outbreak, there was some controversy when a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention warned locals against touching foreigners to avoid getting infected. This happened a day after the first case in China was detected in September of 2022.
Update July 8: Another case of mpox went trending on Chinese social media on Saturday, this time it concerns a case detected in Tianjin.
On July 6th,the suspected case of monkeypox was reported. The Chinese Center for disease Control and Prevention later confirmed the case through testing. The patient is undergoing isolation treatment in a designated medical institution, and their condition is stable.
On Weibo, the hashtag “Case of Monkeypox Detected in Tianjin” (#天津发现一例猴痘#) attracted over 150 million views on Saturday. On Friday, three new cases of monkeypox in Changsha also attracted attention on social media (#长沙发现3例猴痘病例#).
“Why do I feel like this is 2019?” some people write, seemingly concerned about another major outbreak. Nevertheless, the way of contracting monkeypox is vastly different and not comparable to Covid, as it mostly spreads through close, personal, often skin-to-skin contact (or mouth-to-skin, mouth-to-mouth). People who have contact with clothing, bedding, towels, objects, electronics, and other surfaces that have been touched by someone with monkeypox are also at risk.
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