China Local News
Holiday Chaos: China’s Scenic Areas Overcrowded and Dangerous
As millions of people are flocking to China’s most scenic areas during the national holiday, some spots are so chaotic and packed that they form a potential safety hazard to visitors.
As people across China are celebrating the Golden Week holiday, the country’s scenic spots are packed with tourists.
Huge crowds formed a potential safety hazard at the Seven Small Arches (Xiaoqikong) scenic area in Libo County, Guizhou (image via Weibo).
This year, many people on Weibo are especially complaining about the situation at the Seven Small Arches (Xiaoqikong) scenic area in Libo County, Guizhou.
On Sunday, Pear Video reported on Weibo that the roads leading to the sightseeing spot were so jammed that some foreign tourists decided to get out their car to play a game of frisbee on the expressway.
On Monday, the situation seemed even worse, as some Weibo netizens posted that the extreme crowds in the area led to people being stuck for over three hours in the heat, with no available food or water, and no people to manage the situation.
Not just the roads to the area were jammed, people were also stuck within the area waiting for buses – sometimes for two to three hours, according to visitors’ reports.
“Such a chaos!” some visitors wrote online: “And no staff members to maintain order, no mechanisms to respond to emergency situations.”
One netizen (@小蜗牛牛儿) posted a that a SWAT team eventually came to the scene to check on the situation.
“First I drive 3 hours to Libo, then it still takes me 3 hours to actually reach the scenic spot, then I catch a glimpse of the Seven Small Arches and the day was gone like this. You really don’t control this well, you shouldn’t let in so many people,” one person complained on Weibo.
“Of all the scenic attractions I’ve ever visited, the Seven Small Arches left the worst impression on me,” netizen (@飞骑引雕弓2016) said: “We waited for two hours on the rocks in the heat before we could get on the bus, people are getting heatstroke this way!”
“This is the first time I experienced a traffic jam within a scenic spot!” another commenter, who also visited the area on Monday, wrote on Weibo.
“The Seven Small Arches area is receiving too many visitors, creating huge congestion. People are currently fighting to get on the bus,” another visitor wrote, warning local authorities about the potentially hazardous situation.
China’s scenic spots yearly attract attention for becoming too crowded during the national holiday. During these days, places such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and many other tourist attractions are so crowded that people can hardly move.
The Seven Small Arches Xiaoqikong scenic spot covers an area of 10 square kilometers, and is known for its karst forest, beautiful scenery, and numerous waterfalls.
A young woman from Sichuan posted on social media: “I understand that there are a lot of people here. But it’s past six o’clock and we’ve been waiting for over an hour for the tour bus to pick us up and it hasn’t come. So many people here and it’s soon getting dark, we’re over ten kilometers away from the exit and cannot walk so far. We don’t have food and it’s hot. Nobody is answering on the complaint line, and still, the entrance ticket to the park is so expensive!”
On Monday night, other visitors posted that they had been waiting for over four hours in the dark for a bus to pick them up from the scene.
“I will never come back here,” they wrote.
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us.
©2017 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Tsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
The pee incident, that occurred at a subsidiary Tsingtao Beer factory, has caused concerns among consumers.
China Local News
Streamed Without Realizing: Chinese Village Cadres Suspended after Sex Scene Video Leaks Online
“Village cadres are so hard-working. Besides conducting conferences, they also do live-streaming!”
Two cadres working in Weicheng District in Shandong Province were suspended this week after an “inappropriate video” that showed them engaging in sexual acts started circulating on Chinese social media.
The two got a bit too cozy together in a meeting room, and the moment allegedly was unknowingly caught on camera after a secretary did not turn the camera off after a video conference.
On October 6, Phoenix News (@凤凰网) reported that the subdistrict office in question denied that such an incident took place in their jurisdiction.
The local Discipline Inspection Commission, however, confirmed that the incident did take place and that the case was under investigation, although they would not confirm which positions the two cadres held. Online, it was claimed that they are a thirty-something male secretary in and a fifty-something female director.
Two officials working at a local subdistrict office are suspended after a leaked video showed them engaging in sexual acts. The secretary allegedly forgot to turn camera off after a team meeting. News says it's not clear what their positions were, but I think it's pretty clear 🫢 pic.twitter.com/eRCX3owLDo
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) October 6, 2023
Some Chinese media sources noted that the video in question seems to have been recorded from a security camera system screen, raising questions about whether the two had forgotten about the security cameras, or if they actually forgot to turn off a conference call camera, or if the incident was captured by both the security cameras and the webcam.
On Weibo and other Chinese social media, the incident has caused some banter among netizens.
“At least our Party comrades are now addressing their needs internally without causing harm to society – that could be considered a form of progress,” one popular comment said.
“It’s not bad, it’s just bad that they forgot to turn the webcam off,” others replied.
“Ah, so this is officially what officials do?” others wondered.
“Village cadres are so hard-working. Besides conducting conferences, they also do livestreaming!”
By now, it’s been confirmed by a staff member at the Wangliu St. Office in Weifang that the two individuals involved, both village cadres, have been suspended. They are currently under investigation by the Disciplinary Inspection Committee. By early Saturday, a related hashtag had garnered over 200 million views on Weibo (#两干部流出不雅视频被停职#).
By Manya Koetse
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
‘Sister Blood Points’ Controversy: Shanghai Woman’s Tibet Blood Donations Ignite Privilege Debate
Weibo Watch: Doing Homework at the Hospital
‘Auntie Goose Legs’ Goes Viral after Becoming Sensation in Beijing’s Student Scene
The Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Wilders’ Win on Weibo: Hu Xijin and Others Discuss the “Dutch Trump”
Tsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
Too Sexy for Weibo? Online Discussions on the Concept of ‘Cābiān’
Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
The Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Chinese Social Media Reactions to Israel-Hamas War: Pro-Palestinian Sentiments and Anti-Semitic Discourse
China’s National Holiday Crowds: Even the Desert’s Camels Are Stuck in Traffic
Wang Huidi: Stop Referring to Singapore as a Chinese ‘County’ (坡县)
“Elderlies” in Their Thirties: The Growing Interest of Chinese Youth in Nursing Homes
Fashion that Hurts? Online Debates on China’s Draft Law Regarding ‘Harmful’ Clothes
“Oppenheimer” in China: Highlighting the Story of Qian Xuesen
-
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers2 months agoTsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
-
China Digital2 months agoToo Sexy for Weibo? Online Discussions on the Concept of ‘Cābiān’
-
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers3 months agoBad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
-
China Insight2 weeks agoThe Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Richard Smith
November 19, 2017 at 12:24 am
I’ve just returned from researching tourism in some of China’s best known tourist sites — Hua Shan, Jiangjiashie, Guilin, the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Suzhou, Hangzhou and others. China has many beautiful natural features that have not yet been destroyed by overdevelopment, many beautiful parks and gardens, and a still a few old villages and cities. But they’re all being overwhelmed by way too many people and incessant overdevelopment. A couple of weeks ago a Chinese friend and I visited Yu Garden in Shanghai. He grew up in Shanghai and used to go there on Saturday mornings as a child in the 1950s and 60s with his grandfather. They would spend a couple of hours in near solitude, contemplating the beauty of the rocks, lakes and nature. The garden was ideal for meditation and in those days one could do that. But today even on a regular week day, not a holiday, the place is mobbed with masses of Chinese tourists posing for selfies every ten steps. Meditation or even just enjoying nature is the last thing one can do there. The same can be said with nearly every other tourist site i visited. A visit to tourist sites really brings home the fact that China is massively overpopulated. Moreover, what with “market reform” every site charges admission. Not cheap either. Even to visit a dirty public beach in Guilin you have to buy a ticket. So everywhere you go there are “cattle pens” to regulate long queues of people buying tickets, getting on buses or cable cars up the mountains and so on. Then there is all the trashy commercialism, the KFC junk food, etc. etc. Of course these problems are not limited to China. I live in the middle of New York City. This place is nothing if not massively overpopulated. Go the the Eiffel Tower or Venice or any tourist site in Europe and many in the U.S. The world doesn’t need a one-child policy. It needs a NO-child policy for a few generations to get the human population back down so some reasonable sustainable level so that we don’t completely destroy the last of the natural world. I certainly don’t support compulsory population reduction but I see no reason why, with adequate social security arrangements, we can’t provide economic and other incentives to people to have just one or even forego having children so future generations can live in a sustainable, harmonious, beautiful world instead of an overpopulated, market-driven world verging on ecological collapse.