Dear Reader,

This week, the Chinese internet exploded over a pair of earrings worn by a child actress.

In recent years, China’s netizens have been paying closer attention to so-called “nepo babies”—the children of the rich and powerful whose success often seems tied more to family connections than to talent.

Some, like Huawei’s heiress Yao Anna (姚安娜), have been criticized for using family ties to enter the entertainment industry. Others, like the infamous “Miss Dong” in the recent medical scandal, have sparked public outrage for abusing privilege to bend academic rules.

Facing economic difficulties and a tough job market, the public’s tolerance for nepotism and corruption is running increasingly thin. But when these issues touch on national trauma, including natural disasters and charity efforts, the public anger runs even deeper.

That’s why a Chinese teenage actress named Huang Yangdiantian (黄杨钿甜) recently found herself at the center of an online storm.

Earring Gate: Behind the Sparkle

Huang, born in 2007, started her career as a child actress in the 2017 historical drama Princess Agents (楚乔传).

She later gained more popularity by starring in other hit series, including Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace (如懿传), and also built an online following.

The recent scandal broke out after Huang shared a series of photos on Xiaohongshu, where she has around 328,000 followers. In the photos, meant to celebrate her 18th birthday, she’s seen proudly wearing a pair of sparkly emerald earrings. In the caption, she mentioned they belonged to her mom.

Sharp-eyed netizens quickly identified the earrings as a pair from the British luxury brand Graff—worth a jaw-dropping 2.3 million RMB (319,000 USD).

Digging deeper, online sleuths also found a Weibo post from 2018 showing Huang’s mother wearing a Cartier bracelet, which now retails for around 450,000 RMB (62,400 USD).

Considering Huang’s limited acting experience and modest earnings as a child actress, these luxury items raised eyebrows—and questions about where the family’s wealth was really coming from.

The “online detectives” didn’t stop there. They discovered that Huang’s father, Yang Wei (杨伟), was once a public official in Ya’an City (雅安市), Sichuan Province. After a major 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Yan’an in 2013 (the Lushan Earthquake), Yang was reportedly involved in post-earthquake reconstruction projects, including investment and tendering.

Interestingly, in 2014, just a year after the earthquake, Huang’s family registered a film and culture company in Shenzhen with 5 million RMB (694,000 USD) in capital. Initially, the company’s legal representative was Huang’s uncle, followed by her mother in 2016. But after Yang resigned from public service, he took over as the official legal representative.

During the pandemic in 2020, Yang also registered a biotech company, which was later rebranded as a beauty and cosmetics trading business. The timing—one company during post-quake reconstruction, then another during a global health crisis—raised suspicions about whether Yang was using national emergencies as business opportunities.

It was also discovered that the Yang family currently lives in a luxury villa in one of Shenzhen’s most upscale neighborhoods, valued at over 100 million RMB (approximately 13.8 million USD).

How did Yang get enough money to start such companies and purchase a multi-million yuan villa? Even if all his official work and business ventures were legitimate, netizens pointed out it still wasn’t enough to explain the family’s enormous wealth.

Huang’s Father Responds, Netizens Dig Deeper

As the controversy grew, Huang’s father responded on May 16 via Weibo, using an account simply named “Huang Yang’s Dad” (黄杨爸爸).

In his post, he claimed that the emerald earrings were fake and of little value. He acknowledged having worked for the Yan’an government but denied any involvement in post-earthquake work, saying the online accusations against him were a case of mistaken identity—“just someone with the same name.” He even added, “I’ve never been corrupt—feel free to report me.”

But the “same name” defense didn’t hold up for long.

In a second wave of ‘detective work’ by online sleuths, netizens found a phone number listed under the name “Yang Wei” on a government website related to post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Ya’an. Some tried sending a small transfer to this number via Alipay, revealing that the profile picture linked to that account was a photo of Huang and her mother when she was younger, immediately making his “same name” explanation completely implausible.

Soon after, the account could no longer be found on Alipay, but because the number was likely tied to many services and platforms, it wasn’t easy to erase entirely. People quickly traced the same phone number to Yang’s accounts on other platforms. Around the same time, the legal representatives of the family’s companies were abruptly changed, only further fueling public suspicion.

Huang’s talent agency issued a statement calling the online rumors false but didn’t offer any concrete evidence to back that up.

By now, a local investigation by the Ya’an Discipline Inspection Commission has confirmed that Yang engaged in illegal business activities and that the birth of his second child (Huang’s younger brother) violated the one-child policy still in effect during his time as a government official. However, the investigation also denied any misappropriation of post-earthquake reconstruction funds. (link).

Most netizens find that many key questions are still left unanswered, and continue to investigate and dissect every single detail relating to Yang, Huang, and the earrings.

More than Online Gossip: Privilege & Public Grief

Some argue that the online speculation surrounding this case has now gone too far.

But for many Chinese netizens, especially younger ones, this isn’t just another scandal passively consumed by the so-called “melon-eating masses” (吃瓜群众). It strikes a nerve because it brings together several sensitive issues all at once.

Although China’s “nepotism babies” frequently spark backlash, they’re also everywhere, from business and entertainment to political and academic circles. For years, the fù èr dài (富二代), or “second-generation rich”—children of those who built fortunes after China’s economic reforms in 1978—have drawn criticism for flaunting wealth and behaving irresponsibly.

Through the years, new terms have been added to China’s nepotism lexicon: there’s xīng èr dài (星二代), referring to the children of celebrities; guān èr dài (官二代), a negative label for the children of government officials or bureaucrats; and hóng èr dài (红二代) and jūn èr dài (军二代), used to describe the children of political elites and military families.

Nepotism is closely tied to corruption—another painful issue in society that surfaces time and again. It’s particularly sensitive because it undermines more than just trust in (local) leadership; it erodes faith in meritocracy and leads the public to question the fairness of the entire system.

When these kinds of issues become entwined with national disasters and charity work—where the already privileged are seen to illegally profit from public grief for private gain—it becomes more than just a breach of public trust. It crosses a moral red line in the most extreme way.

For many young Chinese today, earthquake disasters are not distant history – they’re part of a shared collective memory that still strikes a nerve. In the comment sections of related news posts these days, many netizens recall donating money and supplies to earthquake relief efforts, now wondering whether their goodwill ever truly reached those in need.

The timing has only added fuel to the fire. The controversy erupted around the 17th anniversary of the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (5.12). Though that disaster is different from the 2013 earthquake, both struck Ya’an City, and public discussions has started to lump them together, bringing back old memories and concerns about disaster relief and public trust.

Back in 2009, Professor Deng Guosheng (邓国胜) from Tsinghua University studied where the 76.7 billion RMB (about 10.5 billion USD) in Wenchuan relief donations had gone. He found that nearly 80% of the money was controlled by the government or groups linked to it, like the Red Cross, with little transparency on how it was spent. People basically have no idea how the money they donated was spent.

In light of the recent controversy, Deng’s study and its numbers are being brought up again in many threads across Chinese social media. Today, as much as 15 years ago, the call for transparancy on how the public’s money is being used in the post-disaster time period is just as relevant.

One Weibo commenter wrote: “For context, in all of 2024, Ya’an City’s general public budget revenue was 8.4 billion RMB in total. This means that the total amount of donations and supplies after the 2008 earthquake was equivalent to 25 years of Ya’an’s current public budget revenue!” He later added: “It’s really not unreasonable at all for the public to ask questions about the authenticity of a pair of 2.3 million RMB earrings.”

Others agree: “It’s absolutely valid for everyone to focus on whether Huang Yangdiantian’s father was involved in embezzlement or bribery (..) When it comes to a tragic event like the Wenchuan earthquake, claims should especially be backed by solid evidence.”

The speculation about Huang’s family wealth goes well beyond celebrity gossip or a “nepo baby” narrative; it reflects a deeper call for clean governance and stricter oversight of how public and charitable funds are managed and spent.

As for Huang, the consequences of her glamorous photoshoot and the controversy it sparked are already unfolding. While her father has now become the target of further formal investigation by disciplinary authorities, it’s rumored that Huang has been removed as the female lead for the historical drama Peacock Bone (雀骨), as well as casting uncertainty over the viability of some of her upcoming projects.

At least we almost certainly know one thing: she won’t be wearing those earrings again any time soon.

Best,

Ruixin Zhang & Manya Koetse

FROM THE WEIBO WATCH PREMIUM NEWSLETTER

The death of Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has sent shockwaves across Chinese social media. Her unexpected passing, along with the circumstances surrounding it, quickly became the most talked-about topic on Chinese social media in early February.

Barbie Hsu (1976) is generally known as “Big S” (大S) in China. The Taiwanese actress, singer, and TV host is one of those people who just always seemed to be around. She wasn’t just frequently a trending topic on Chinese social media but was also a household name, together with her sister, in the world of China’s pop culture and entertainment.

Most people will know Hsu because of the famous 2001 Taiwanese series Meteor Garden (流星花园), in which she played the award-winning role of female protagonist Shan Cai (杉菜). That role also made her famous outside of China, as the series became popular in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and beyond.

But her career had taken off years before that success. Together with her sister Dee Hsu (徐熙娣, “Little S” 小S), she formed the pop duo SOS (later “ASOS”) in the 1990s. The name stood for Sisters Of Shu (alternative spelling of Hsu), and was the source of their “Big S” and “Little S” nicknames.

She later made a switch to movies and was a TV host and a singer. While her sister Dee Shu gained recognition as the humorous host of the long-running talk show Kangxi Coming (康熙來了), Barbie Hsu also served as a stand-in host or guest on that show, as well as many others.

Besides her professional life, it was often Hsu’s private life that brought her to the top of Weibo’s trending charts. Her marriage to mainland Chinese businessman Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲)—with whom she had a daughter and a son in 2014 and 2016—frequently made headlines. The couple even participated in a reality show, and Hsu’s private life began to take on Kardashian-like proportions. The two were rumored to bicker over money issues after Wang opened S Hotel, a boutique hotel in Taipei designed by Philippe Starck and named after his wife.

Following their separation in 2021, much of the messy divorce drama between the two played out on Weibo and became the biggest celebrity topic of 2022. The ongoing drama started when Hsu accused her ex-husband of failing to pay alimony, with the accumulated amount allegedly exceeding NT$5 million (US$160,000). Wang Xiaofei then publicly and angrily responded to Hsu’s accusations with multiple emotional posts on his Weibo account, where he had over seven million followers. Everyone and everything got dragged into the drama, from Wang’s mother Zhang Lan (张兰) to Hsu’s new partner, South Korean musician DJ Koo Jun-Yup.

Hsu’s health and frail body also made headlines at times. In 2018, she was hospitalized after a epileptic fit brought on by a cold. Besides epilepsy, Hsu suffered from a chronic heart condition (mitral valve prolapse). In late January of this year, she traveled to Japan for the Chinese New Year and caught influenza during her trip. Her health deteriorated rapidly within just five days, and she passed away on February 2nd from influenza-induced pneumonia. She was only 48 years old.

The news of her death has had a massive impact on Chinese social media. On Weibo, the hashtag ‘Big S has Passed Away’ (#大S去世#) has garnered over 3.3 billion views within six days.

While the initial reaction was one of shock over her sudden passing, various other aspects of her life, legacy, and the circumstances surrounding her death have sparked broader discussions, turning it into a widely debated topic—one that many find particularly heartbreaking for various reasons.

➡️ As Barbie Hsu has been in the public eye for decades, many grew up watching her and following her for over 25 years. Even those who were not particularly fans of Hsu are now coming forward to express collective grief and nostalgia over her passing—like losing a piece of their younger self.

Similarly, the passing of the beloved pop star Coco Lee in 2023 also made people collectively reflect on a bygone era of Chinese pop culture that defined the youth of millions. Like Lee, Barbie Hsu was a big part of early 2000s Chinese pop culture. Some people admit that Hsu’s passing has left them crying for days.

Many netizens expressed grief not just for her death but also for the fading of a time when Taiwanese idol dramas and their own carefree youth were at their peak.

“I was in fifth grade when Meteor Garden aired, and I remember running home after school to watch it. I saved up 60 kuai ($8.6) to buy the DVD,” one Weibo user shared. “Such a lively and bold woman has suddenly disappeared, an entire generation’s youth and memories,” another person wrote.

➡️ The death of Barbie Hsu and the sudden, rapid progression of her illness—from influenza to fatal pneumonia—has raised awareness this week about the potential dangers of the flu. It has also triggered some public anxiety about the latest outbreak in Japan, which is experiencing its largest flu surge in 25 years, and how influenza is treated in the country.

Many are questioning why such a wealthy, well-known celebrity couldn’t receive effective treatment in Japan, a country generally perceived to have an advanced healthcare system. While it remains unclear how her condition deteriorated so quickly—especially since she allegedly appeared well and energetic at a January 25 banquet—it may not have helped that Hsu was in Hakone, an area without major hospitals like those in Kyoto or Tokyo. According to various media reports, Hsu sought medical assistance in the days leading up to her death but was not admitted to any hospital during that time.

In light of this incident, others also share their struggles with healthcare in Japan, claiming that costs and language barriers previously prevented them from receiving proper care while traveling there and falling ill.

➡️ Perhaps the strongest online response to Barbie Hsu’s death is related to gender dynamics, touching on topics such as feminism, misogyny, and patriarchy.

Many netizens argue that, despite always sacrificing herself for others, Hsu did not receive the love and care she deserved. The aftermath of her divorce from Wang Xiaofei left permanent scars on the superstar. Throughout her long career, Hsu consistently supported her family and became a family pillar and breadwinner. While navigating the harsh environment of the entertainment industry, she pushed herself and her body to the limits. Despite her efforts, she was always judged for her looks and body weight, and was later bullied and humiliated by her ex-husband.

A recurring sentiment among commenters, especially on Xiaohongshu, is that women, both in public and private life, are often overburdened while receiving little in return. Many pointed out that if someone as beautiful and successful as “Big S” could suffer under the burden of caregiving and the toxicity of the men around her, what hope is there for ordinary women?

At the same time, Hsu is also praised as an example of self-empowerment for all she accomplished, and as a reminder that taking good care of yourself is more important than seeking the validation of others.

➡️ On Weibo, the people expressing their grief over Hsu’s passing are also reflecting on the fragility of life. Notably, Hsu’s WeChat tag at the time of her death read, “Death is inevitable” (“死亡是必然的”).

In a past interview, she said: “Death is not scary. What’s scary is not being able to die. Aging is not scary. What’s scary is living forever.” (“死不可怕。可怕的是死不了。老不可怕。可怕的是长生不老。”)

By Manya Koetse

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