China Society

Mother of Eight Found Chained Up in Shed Next to Family Home in Xuzhou

“Do you even treat this woman as a human being?”

Published

4 years ago

January 29, 2022

A TikTok video showing a mother of eight living in a small hut with an iron chain around her neck has sent shockwaves across Chinese social media. According to local authorities, the woman is suffering from mental illness and is currently receiving care. But many netizens are still waiting for answers.

Video footage showing a woman from a village in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, being chained up and living in appalling conditions has shocked Chinese netizens this week.

The story went viral after a vlogger filmed the woman’s living conditions while visiting Huankou village in Feng County on Wednesday, the 26th of January. The man who visited the woman has an account on TikTok (Douyin) focused on showing the stories and circumstances of disadvantaged people.

The TikTok video first shows the vlogger talking to children inside the home; the woman is claimed to be the mother of eight children in total. They tell the man that their mother is brought food every day. The vlogger then walks up to an old doorless shed next to the house, where he finds the woman with an iron chain around her neck, wearing no coat in the middle of winter.

The man offers to bring the woman some warm clothes. He also finds that the food on the table is cold, as it is zero degrees outside. The woman does not really seem to understand what the man is saying and she has a glazed look in her eyes.

After getting a jacket for her, the man then returns to the shed and helps the woman put on the jacket. This time, it appears that another person is filming and the man turns to the camera and says: “What this woman is put through in this cold.. where did the compassion go?”

The video caused a storm on social media, where many were quick to draw comparisons to the 2007 movie Blind Mountain (盲山). That movie, directed by Li Yang, tells the story of a woman named Bai who is kidnapped and sold to a villager in the mountains, leaving Bai completely trapped.

Many netizens worried about the woman’s circumstances. Why was she chained up? Was she a victim of human trafficking? Was she being abused? Was she forced to have so many children? What happened to her teeth? While netizens were speculating about the case and venting their anger, Weibo shut down some of the hashtags dedicated to this topic.

On Friday, January 28, Feng County authorities responded to the controversy, claiming the woman and her husband named Dong were married in 1998 and that the woman developed a mental illness involving violent behavior. The woman, named Yang, previously would display sudden violent outbursts, beating children and older people. The family allegedly thought it was best to separate her from the family home, letting her stay in a small hut next to the house. The vlogger allegedly caught the woman as she had just woken up, suggesting this would explain her clothes and messy hair.

Authorities further stated that they could confirm that Yang is not a victim of human trafficking. They also said that Feng County and the Women’s Federation are now involved in helping the family. Yang is reportedly receiving care and the family is also provided additional assistance “to ensure they will have a warm Spring Festival.”

The hashtag “Official Announcement Regarding the Circumstances of the Xuzhou Woman with Eight Kids” (#官方通报徐州丰县生育八孩女子情况#) received over 150 million views by Saturday.

Popular WeChat blogging account NewsBro wrote about the story on Friday, saying that the officials who came up with the aforementioned statement must have just released what they had on file about the family without actually seeing for themselves how the woman was kept in the small hut. Even though it is probably true that Yang suffers from a mental illness, NewsBro says, it does not excuse her being mistreated like this and letting her live chained up in the cold.

Many netizens are also not satisfied with how authorities have responded to this issue, condemning the fact that their statements blatantly ignore how Yang was chained up and also questioning why a mentally ill woman was able to have eight children at all. “Do you even treat this woman as a human being?”, one top commenter wondered, with many others wondering how this situation apparently was not seen as a crime.

“Where are her parents?” others asked. “A ‘warm Spring Festival’?! Did you even see the iron chain around her neck?! This woman needs to be treated at a hospital instead of being imprisoned in her own home while having children,” another person wrote.

Manga artist Yaduo (@呀哆) shared a drawing focused on Yang’s story on Weibo, showing a chained up woman and a total of eight children. Outside the door you see the children’s father, wearing a mask while talking to a reporter.

Drawing by @呀哆.

This refers to another video in which Dong, Yang’s husband, is being interviewed and tells how he struggles to take care of their eight children, saying that he is basically taking care and cooking for “nine children,” including his wife.

Dong allegedly also opened up his own TikTok account, although at the time of writing, that account no longer seemed available.

On Saturday night, some Weibo bloggers claimed that Yang has now been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and that the children have currently been relocated by local authorities, but these claims were not confirmed by official sources at the time of writing.

Various tragic stories about Chinese people from disadvantaged backgrounds have recently led to online turmoil, such as the story about the migrant worker with Covid19 who spent all his money on the search for his missing son and the student who committed suicide after discovering his parents sold him as a child.

Just before Yang’s circumstances gained traction online, Chinese state media outlet China Daily focused on the recent public attention for stories featuring social problems.¹ According to Dr. Liu Leming, associate professor at East China University’s Political Science faculty, government agencies need to follow up and respond more quickly to social incidents like these in the internet era: “When public issues emerge, people who are involved in social problems or incidents want to know, more than anything, whether their requests have been seen and who will handle their concerns.”

For now, thousands of netizens are waiting for another update on Yang, wishing a better life for her in the near future.

Update Jan 30 2022: we will update this story if more official statements come out, meanwhile, you can also follow the latest updates on Twitter here:

Meanwhile, the husband is proudly talking about their 8 kids (7 boys, 1 girl), youngest still a baby. This is what the online anger is also about: how could she even have babies while suffering from mental illness? When did she become this way? Was she used as a breeding machine? pic.twitter.com/pE1x4RCjqo

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) January 30, 2022

February 2022: for updates, check here.

By Manya Koetse

Follow @whatsonweibo

¹ Cao Yin and Li Yang. 2022. “Policymakers, Lawmakers Respond to Opinion Voiced Online.” China Daily Hong Kong, January 28, Page 1-2.

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Manya is the founder and editor-in-chief of What's on Weibo, offering independent analysis of social trends, online media, and digital culture in China for over a decade. Subscribe to gain access to content, including the Weibo Watch newsletter, which provides deeper insights into the China trends that matter. More about Manya at manyakoetse.com or follow on X.

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China Memes & Viral

Nanchang Crowd Confuses Fan for Knife — Man Kicked Down and Taken Away

An unfortunate misunderstanding led to one innocent man being the only person injured in a crowd of thousands.

Published

1 week ago

October 5, 2025

Manya Koetse

On the evening of October 1st, National Day and the start of a week-long holiday, Nanchang was celebrating with a spectacular fireworks/drone show, drawing an enormous crowd of people (see video).

But the fireworks weren’t the only thing drawing attention. One man on Nanchang’s crowded Shimao Road caught bystanders’ eyes.

He was shirtless, strongly built with a visible tattoo, and was waving a pointed object while loudly shouting something that sounded like, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

At first, the people around him seemed unsure of what to do, keeping their distance and too afraid to approach. A large crowd formed but stayed back.

Then, a brave young man in red rushed forward and snatched the pointed object from his hand, while another young man leapt in with a flying kick that knocked him to the ground.

Several others then joined in, working together to restrain the man, as onlookers surrounded the scene and held him there until police arrived and took him to the station.

Soon, videos of the incident spread online (see video here), and rumors quickly surfaced that the man had been trying to attack people with a knife.

But that all turned out to be one major misunderstanding.

The next day, local police clarified what had actually happened, followed by an explanation from the man himself.

The man in question, a 31-year-old local second-hand car dealer named Li, had come to see the fireworks together with his family, including his sisters and three nephews.

Because of the very hot weather, he had taken off his shirt and was cooling himself with a 10-yuan folding fan he had just bought along the way.

After the show, while walking back, Li realized one of his nephews was missing and searched for him, calling out in his local dialect: “Where’s my kid? Where’s my kid?” (“我崽尼我崽尼” wǒ zǎi ní).

Bystanders misheard this as “我宰你我宰你” (wǒ zǎi nǐ, wǒ zǎi nǐ, “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you”) and mistook his folding fan for a machete.

Meanwhile, Li couldn’t understand why people around him were avoiding him and keeping their distance from him while he was searching for his nephew (see that moment here, also see more footage here). People were watching him, and recording the scene from a distance.

Before Li realized what was happening, the fan was snatched from his hands and he was violently kicked. A crowd swarmed him, beat him, and pushed him to the ground.

The police then detained him, and it wasn’t until the early hours of October 2, after thorough questioning, that he was finally released.

“I’m still confused about it,” Li said the next day. Holding the fan up to the camera, he asked: “Can a fan like this really scare people? I don’t understand — I just got beaten for nothing.”

Mr Li in his video, showing the fan he bought for 10RMB/$1.4 at the Nanchang fireworks.

Some commenters remarked that out of the 1.2 million people who were out in Nanchang that night, he was the only one injured.

Li seems to be doing ok apart from a sore backside and a puzzled mind, and his nephew apparently is also safe and well.

The bizarre misunderstanding has sparked widespread banter online, with people now referring to Li as “Nanchang Brother Fan” (南昌扇子哥).

“I’m dying of laughter. It’s both tragic and hilarious,” one Douyin user wrote, while others simply called the situation “so drama” (抓马 zhuāmǎ): “I’m not supposed to laugh, but I can’t help it.”

Some also noted that they understood why people at the scene mistook Li for a criminal: “At night, a guy with tattoos, holding a long stick-like object, shouting loudly all the way, what would you think?”

All joking aside, the public’s response on such a crowded night — when so many people gathered together, potentially making a tempting target for those with bad intentions — shows a heightened sense of vigilance. Unlike the U.S., where gun violence is more common, shootings are rare in China. But random stabbings have increasingly made headlines.

For Nanchang in particular, a stabbing incident that shocked the nation had taken place only weeks earlier: a 19-year-old woman was attacked and stabbed more than ten times by a 23-year-old man she did not know, and later died from her injuries.

But there have also been other recent cases, from Wuhan to Leiyang. And in 2024 especially, a spate of stabbing incidents shocked the country. In Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, a mass stabbing left eight people dead and 17 others injured.

The positive takeaway from this entire mix-up is that the quick action of the crowd — despite their wrong assessment of the situation — shows that people weren’t afraid to step in for the sake of public safety.

But others claim the exact opposite is true. Illustrator and commentator ‘Wu Zhiru’ (吴之如), former editor at Zhenjiang Daily, saw the incident as an example of toxic herd mentality. He posted an illustration of a fan being held up with the characters 清风徐来 (qīng fēng xú lái, “a cool breeze slowly blows”), an idiom to describe a pleasant atmosphere. A finger from the right points at the fan-holder, saying “Look, he’s gonna commit violence!” (“哇，他要行凶啦!”)

Wu Zhiru warns against panic-driven mob mentality and wonders why the first man, who snatched the “knife” from Li’s hands, did not stop the crowd from attacking Li as soon as he discovered that he had snatched away a fan and not a blade. Drawing historical parallels to the Cultural Revolution, Wu argues that people are sometimes so set on doing the “heroic” thing that they hesitate to correct misunderstandings once better information is available — a mindset that can lead to serious, harmful consequences.

For Li himself, despite the unfortunate night he had, the situation has actually brought him some unexpected fame and extra attention for his second-hand car dealership, which undoubtedly makes his boss happy (in a very recent livestream, Li was praised for being kind and loyal).

Many netizens also argued that the real lesson to draw from this ordeal is the importance of speaking proper standard Chinese. Some even framed the incident as “The Importance of Mandarin” (论普通话的重要性), pointing out that the whole problem began because Li was misunderstood while speaking dialect.

Image posted on Weibo in support of the “fan-waving brother.” The character on the fan says “tolerate.”

Others joked that the misunderstanding was just a grave injustice to shirtless men everywhere, writing: “From now on, the world has one less sincere guy who goes shirtless in the streets. He’ll never be the same again.”

By Manya Koetse

(follow on X, LinkedIn, or Instagram)

China Memes & Viral

China’s National Day Holiday Hit: Jingdezhen’s “Chicken Chop Bro”

From viral street food vendors to China’s donkey crisis and new eldercare services, here’s this week’s Weibo highlights in What’s on Weibo’s China Trend Watch.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 30, 2025

Manya Koetse

🔥 What’s Trending in China This Week? Stay updated with China Trend Watch by What’s on Weibo — your quick overview of what’s trending on Weibo and across other Chinese social media, curated by Manya Koetse.

What’s inside:

1. Jingdezhen’s “Chicken Chop Bro” Becomes Nationwide Meme
2. China’s 2025 Golden Week Travel Trends
3. China Faces Donkey Shortage Crisis
4. Word of the Week: “Ride-hailing for Relatives” 亲属打车 Qīnshǔ Dǎchē
5. What’s Inside at a Glance

TOP TREND

1. Jingdezhen’s “Chicken Chop Bro” Becomes Nationwide Meme

[#鸡排哥1分钟视频报价仅10元#] [#鸡排哥#] [#鸡排哥回应走红#]

From Beijing to Zibo, every now and then, food stall vendors go viral — for their charm, their uniqueness, and most of all, their tasty food. The star of this moment is 48-year-old Li Junyong (李俊永), who runs a small fried chicken stall in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, with tight rules on who he serves, when, and how.

Li has suddenly become one of the most trending people on Chinese social media under the nickname “Chicken Chop Brother” (鸡排哥 jīpáigē).

Li initially gained popularity among customers for his frantic, multitasking energy — he doesn’t mess around when it comes to his chicken chop business, with superspeed and a clear order of serving customers (“I’ll first do you, then finish yours, then I’ll serve you 做完你的做你的”) and rules such as: no individual customers after 4:30 PM; students pay 1 yuan (about $0.15) less than regular passersby (after 12:00 PM, however, it costs 1 yuan more as punishment for being indecisive); and customers must open the plastic bag themselves before he puts the hot chicken cutlet inside.

The serious way he goes about dealing with his chicken chops almost makes you think he was making big business deals instead of selling to middle school students. In the end, it’s that attitude that gained him social media fame, as students started referring to him as “Head of Chicken Cutlet Operations” (free translation for 鸡排主理人 Jīpái gē Zhǔlǐrén).

Head of Chicken Chop Operations: “Please open your plastic bag”, “No individual customers after 4:30 PM”, etc.

In light of Li’s explosive popularity, his chicken chop stall now sees extremely long queues, and local authorities and city management have had to intervene in order to control the crowds and keep the location safe.

There are definite downsides to such sudden fame, and Li is not the first street vendor this has happened to.

In 2023, for example, Beijing’s ‘Auntie Goose Legs’ (鹅腿阿姨) went viral, and the food stall owner became so overwhelmed that she temporarily had to take a break from her food stall, emotionally sharing how she said she felt too much pressure because of how the situation was unfolding, and that she just wanted to sell her goose legs in peace (“只想平平安安做烧烤”).

Long lines for Auntie’s goose legs.

It seems that “Brother Chicken Chops”, in line with his reputation as the chicken chop CEO, is trying to turn his viral moment into a sustainable business. According to Sina News, Li has drawn in relatives to help him. He reportedly has taught them how to make and sell his tasty fried chicken chops, and now his Chicken Chop Family (“鸡排家族”) has grown to a total of nine stalls.

Over the past week, Li has also joined several social media platforms, including Xiaohongshu, to build a social following that will last after the hype calms down.

Meanwhile, Li is the meme of the moment. As many Chinese workers experience working stress before the National Day holiday, they’ve used his superspeed working style videos to express the pressure they feel to finish all their deadlines. See videos here.

— What Else Is Trending —

WHAT’S POPULAR

2. China’s 2025 Golden Week Travel Trends

[#黄金周#] [#国庆节#] [#中秋节#]

China’s longest holiday of 2025 is coming up, combining National Day (国庆节) and Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) into an eight-day Golden Week from October 1–8. If you’re traveling in China this week, good luck — the country’s transportation infrastructure is being pushed to its operational limits.

On September 30, the first “smart people” who opted to leave early to avoid traffic jams already found themselves stuck in them. China’s Ministry of Transport estimates a staggering 2.36 billion trips will be made during this period, with October 1 expected to see over 340 million travelers — surpassing the historical peak of 339 million recorded during Spring Festival earlier this year.

🔸 This week is going to see a lot of events. According to the Ministry of Culture & Tourism, more than 12,000 cultural activities will be held across China during the eight-day holiday period, including over 300 large-scale light shows.

🔸 Chinese local tourism offices are going all in on city marketing and are finding new strategies to make themselves more appealing to young travelers. Chengdu, for example, as Tencent’s gaming hub, is integrating the 10th anniversary of the super popular mobile game Honor of Kings (王者荣耀, Wángzhě Róngyào) into its cultural tourism strategy this year, organizing game-themed city walks, exhibitions, and more.

🔸 China’s travel platform Trip.com reported that interprovincial travel bookings have surged 45% year-on-year, with particularly strong interest in remote destinations like Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. Searches for hotels in these regions jumped 60% compared to last year. This reflects a shift among middle-class Chinese tourists toward experiential travel and natural landscapes rather than crowded urban attractions.

🔸 The holidays are a time for relaxation, reunions, and eating mooncakes, but it’s also a stressful time for Chinese employers who must comply with labor regulations while managing workforce availability and overtime obligations. Under China’s Labor Law, employees working on statutory public holidays—October 1–3 and October 6 (the official Mid-Autumn Festival date)—must receive at least 300% of their normal daily wage. For adjusted rest days (October 4–5 and October 7–8), employers must provide either 200% overtime pay or compensatory time off. The State Council designated September 28 (Sunday) and October 11 (Saturday) as make-up workdays, but private companies have flexibility to adjust their own schedules.

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY

3. China Faces Unprecedented Donkey Shortage Crisis

[#我国正面临缺驴危机#] [#中国当前不缺牛马只缺驴#]

China is facing a serious donkey shortage. China’s donkey population is far below market demand, and the prices of donkey-related products continue to rise. The Donkey Branch of China’s Livestock Association (中国畜牧业协会驴业分会) addressed this issue in Chinese media earlier last week, telling China News Weekly (中国新闻周刊): “We have plenty of cattle and horses in China now — just not enough donkeys” (“目前我国牛马都不缺，就缺驴”).

Read this entire story here.

WORD OF THE WEEK

4. “Ride-hailing for Relatives” 亲属打车 Qīnshǔ Dǎchē

[#微信上线亲属打车小程序#] [#微信亲属打车#]

Tencent has rolled out a new function via WeChat Mini Programs on September 26, aimed at helping seniors who struggle with app-based ride-hailing. Thanks to the new function, now live nationwide, users can order rides on behalf of older relatives directly in WeChat.

Adult children who want to help out their less tech-savvy (grand)parents or other senior relatives can now bind their account to their own, remotely pre-set pickup and drop-off locations, as well as payment methods, and track their journey for safety.

What makes this different from the possibility of just ordering a ride for someone else is that the seniors stay in control to some extent and can see their own journeys on their own phones. Children can configure settings on their side, while the interface for the elderly users is simplified. This allows seniors to ride independently, with a little help from their family.

The move is part of a broader effort in China to make it easier for seniors to stay involved in the digitalization of society.

The word to know is 亲属打车 qīnshǔ dǎchē, consisting of “亲属” qīnshǔ (relatives) and ride-hailing 打车 dǎchē.

5. What’s Trending at a Glance

✈️ The 27-year-old Sichuan creator “Tang Feiji” (唐飞机) died in a plane crash while livestreaming on Sept 27. The ultralight aircraft, piloted and purchased by Tang himself, went out of control and crashed before catching fire. Over 1,000 viewers were watching live, with the chat flooded by messages pleading for someone to rescue him. Local village officials confirmed his death. The tragedy is fueling debate over amateur aviation and extreme content creation.
🟢 Weibo has rolled out a visible “online status” feature on personal pages, showing when users are online, and not everyone is happy with it. The new feature is met with criticism from concerned users who don’t want others to see they’re online. It brings back memories of China’s legendary IM app QQ, which, like MSN, showed the online status of users.
🥿 A Chinese Marriott hotel location in Changzhou has come under scrutiny adn triggered hygiene concerns after guests found out that the in-room hotel slippers were being reused. The hotel has admitted to disinfected the disposable slippers and reusing them 2–3 times, without disclosing this to guests in advance.
⚖️ China’s cyberspace authorities issued stern warnings and announced penalties on various Chinese social platforms recently, including Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Kuaishou, which are blamed for not keeping celebrity gossip and low-quality content in check and for influencing their hot search rankings. This is all about algorithm governance and the tightrope platforms walk in serving readers, attracting attention, and satisfying regulators.
👵 “Outsourced Children” services for Chinese seniors went trending recently. In Dalian, an initiative offering companionship and mediation services for seniors charges 500–2,500 yuan ($70–$350) per visit and has apparently been quite a success, underscoring strong market demand of eldercare-related services and new opportunities for Chinese students.

By Manya Koetse

(follow on X, LinkedIn, or Instagram)