News of Shanghai Illegal Garbage Dumping Leads to Online ‘Shanghai Bashing’
Chinese netizens have responded with anger to recent news reports that tons of construction waste from Shanghai is being dumped outside the city. The news led to an online ‘Shanghai bashing’ galore, with some netizens defending the city’s reputation.
Chinese netizens have responded with anger to recent news reports that tons of construction waste from Shanghai is being dumped outside the city. The news led to an online ‘Shanghai bashing’ galore – with some netizens defending the city’s reputation.
On Friday, July 1, eight vessels from Shanghai carrying around 4000 tons of construction waste were caught while secretly trying to dump it in the Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Zone (苏州太湖西山岛).
Authorities were able to intervene before the garbage was illegally dumped, but they later reported that over 20,000 tons of waste, mostly construction materials, were also found across 2400 square meters of the bank, Shanghai Daily writes.
On Sina Weibo, various Chinese media reported about the event, saying the owners of the vessels and those involved have been detained. The related construction company is currently under investigation.
For many angry netizens, the news was a reason to bash Shanghai: “This is typical for Shanghai people,” some netizens say. “Aren’t their morals high?”, another Weibo user sarcastically responds with smileys.
Others are not happy that the waste scandal is connected to Shanghai local culture: “Oh, here’s a chance again to bash Shanghai people,” one netizen responds. One female netizen responds to the Shanghai bashing with a long post: “4000 tons of garbage from Shanghai has illegally been dumped near Lake Taihu, which was reported by state media and then led to many reactions bashing Shanghainese. But this is typically Chinese. They don’t even know how other cities or backward regions handle their garbage.”
She also defended Shanghai by saying those responsible for the waste scandal originally are not from Shanghai.
Others agree with the girl, saying: “It is no use to bash the people of Shanghai for this – they were not the ones who all smuggled this waste to Suzhou.”
But there are many who say that the reason they bash Shanghai people is because “it is Shanghai people who always bash people from outside their city” and that “people producing so much trash deserve to be scolded.”
Earlier this year, another Weibo trending topic also led to ‘Shanghai bashing’ when a girl who called herself “a pure Shanghainese” broke up with her boyfriend from outside Shanghai after his parents served her a ‘disappointing’ countryside Chinese new year’s dinner.
Shanghai’s reputation recently also became a topic of discussion on the online forum Reddit, where netizens connected the city’s reputation to an ongoing rivalry between Beijing and Shanghai. “Half of China things Shanghai is full of stuck up twats. The other half think Beijing is full of stuck up twats,” one Reddit user wrote.
Other netizens say the supposed Shanghai-Beijing rivalry is comparable to that of other big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, or Tokyo and Osaka.
Besides the Shanghai bashers, there are also some netizens who do not link the recent Shanghai waste scandal to the city but to China’s way of dealing with garbage: “China does not have a good recycling system. If the government does not solve this problem, the pollution created by waste will become an increasingly serious issue.”
Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.
WEIBO SHORT | Weibo Shorts are concise articles on topics that are trending. This article was first published
Dozens of homeowners in Guangzhou, Guangdong, were angered to find out the locks of their apartment doors were broken during their mandatory hotel quarantine.
The residents had gone to a quarantine location after a positive Covid case in their building. Afterward, anti-epidemic staff had entered their homes for disinfection and to check if any residents were still inside.
The incident happened earlier this month in an apartment complex in the Liwan district of the city.
The incident first gained attention on July 10 when various videos showing the broken door locks were posted online. During the morning, the property management had conducted an ’emergency inspection’ of 84 households. The doors were later sealed.
The case went trending again on July 18 when the residential district apologized to all homeowners for the break-ins and promised to compensate them.
“What’s the use of apologizing?” some Weibo commenters wondered. “Where is the law? If this even happens in Guangzhou now and people in Guangdong put up with this, what else will they dare to do in the future?”
On Chinese social media, most comments on the Guangzhou incident were about the break-ins allegedly being unlawful.
Media reporter and Toutiao author Kai Lei (@凯雷), who has over two million followers on Weibo, said the incident showed that those breaking in “had no regard for the law.”
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WEIBO SHORT | Weibo Shorts are concise articles on topics that are currently trending. This article was first published
On Saturday July 9, a stabbing incident that occurred at Shanghai’s renowned Ruijin Hospital (上海瑞金医院) shocked Chinese netizens as videos showing the panic and chaos at the scene circulated in Wechat groups and on Weibo.
At around 11:30 AM the police department started receiving calls that there was someone stabbing people at the hospital, which is located in the city’s Huangpu district. At the scene of the incident, at the 7th floor of the outpatient clinic, they found a knife-wielding man holding a group of people hostage.
According to police reports, the police opened fire and subdued the suspect. Four people who were injured during the knife attack are now being treated, none of them are in a life-threatening situation.
People fled the scene at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai's Huangpu District this morning, where at least four people were injured after a stabbing incident. pic.twitter.com/AFn0ZlWIIr
According to The Paper, Ruijin Hospital resumed its outpatient services at 14:08 this afternoon.
This is the second stabbing incident in Shanghai this week. On Monday, a man was arrested after going on a random stabbing spree in Shanghai’s Jing’an District.
While some Shanghai residents say the recent incidents made them feel less safe, others praise the fast police response to the incident.
One doctor from Shanghai posted on Weibo that hospitals should have proper security checks in place in order to prevent these kinds of incidents from happening again in the future.
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