A young woman from Sichuan recently became trending on Sina Weibo for her beautiful picture in ‘The Atlas of Beauty’.
Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc has started a project titled ‘The Atlas of Beauty’, for which she travels to capture faces from around the world and to“show that beauty is everywhere.”
As she says on her website: “Beauty means diversity and I travel the world to discover it. From Western Europe to African Tribes, and from Rio de Janeiro to China, I try to capture, in my photos, natural and diverse faces.”
One of those faces is the 27-year-old Zhang Ran (张冉) from Leshan, Sichuan Province. The young woman’s beauty was noticed by netizens who had seen her ‘Atlas of Beauty’ picture. A reporter from Chengdu Business News then got in touch with her to get to know more about her.
Photo by Mihaela Noroc.
“It was just fate that I ran into this photographer,” Zhang Ran says. She runs a clothing shop in Leshan, and was out in Chengdu to buy goods the day she ran into the Romanian photographer.
Noroc posted the picture on her website, just saying: “Bright night in Chengdu, China, a few days ago.”
Other works from Noroc’s project includeportraits of women from Colombia (top picture below), Brazil (second picture), Ethiopia (third), the Amazon Rainforest (fourth), and many other places.
Photo by Mihaela Noroc.
Photo by Mihaela Noroc.
Photo by Mihaela Noroc.
Photo by Mihaela Noroc.
Although Zhang Ran became a trending topic on Sina Weibo, not all netizens seem to agree on her beauty. “Am I the only one who thinks she is average?” one netizen comments. “Stunning?! Are people blind?” another Weibo user responds. “I think I am prettier than she is,” one girl writes.
Sichuan Province is known for its beautiful women. According to a 2013 survey, Chinese men think women from Sichuan are the most beautiful. With her round face, big eyes and thick eyebrows, Zhang Ran is a typical southern beauty, according to National Business Daily.
“She is indeed very pretty,” one netizen says: “she should open up a Weibo account, I’m sure her fans will flood in.”
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.
The gruesome murder of the 28-year-old Hong Kong socialite and model Cai Tianfeng (蔡天鳳), better known as Abby Choi, has been all the talk on Chinese social media this week.
The Hong Kong influencer went missing on Tuesday. Just a week ago, Choi was featured on the cover of the magazine L’Officiel Monaco.
On Saturday, South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Free Pressreported that Choi’s partial remains, including her dismembered legs, were found cooked and stored inside the freezer at a village house and that four people had been arrested for murder.
The village house at Lung Mei Tsuen in Tai Po was allegedly set up as a “butchery site” equipped with a choppers, hammer, an electric saw and a meat grinder that had been used to mince human flesh.
Choi was entangled in a financial dispute with her ex-husband’s family over luxury property in Hong Kong’s Kadoori Hill. The persons arrested in relation to her murder are her ex-husband named Alex Kwong, his elder brother, his mother and his father, who reportedly is a retired police officer.
Abby Choi and Alex Kwong had two children together, a daughter and a son.
Cho was last seen in Fo Chun Road in Tai Po on Tuesday afternoon. CCTV footage captured her before she went missing. Choi was supposed to pick her daughter up on Tuesday together with Kwong’s elder brother, who drove her. She was reported missing after she did not show up to collect her daughter.
While earlier media articles reported that some of Choi’s remains had still not been found, news came out on Sunday that the decapitated head had been found in a soup pot. Seeing over 300 million views, the topic went trending on Weibo (#蔡天凤头颅在一大汤煲中找到#), where many people have closely been following the latest developments in the case. Later on Sunday night, the topic hashtag was taken offline.
Local police disclosed that the head remained “intact” although it is believed that someone tried to “smash” it. Some of Choi’s ribs were also found.
“Reality is more gruelsome than fiction,” some top comments said. “What a terrifying family,” others wrote, calling them “inhuman” and “devilish.”
Another topic related to the case also went trending on Sunday, namely that Choi’s ex-husband and his family allegedly had been planning the murder for a month (#蔡天凤前夫家1个月前开始布局#, 180 million views).
Some Weibo bloggers said the case reminded them of another well-known and gruesome Hong Kong murder case, namely the 2013 murder of Glory Chau and Moon Siu. At age 63, the couple was murdered by their own 28-year-old son Henry Chau Hoi-leung and his friend. After killing them, the two chopped up Chau’s and Siu’s bodies and cooked their remains and stored them inside the refrigerator. The 2022 crime film The Sparring Partner (正義迴廊) was based on this story.
About the Kwong family, some Weibo users write: “Too bad that Hong Kong law does not have the death penalty.” Capital punishment in Hong Kong was formally abolished in 1993.
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The South Korean actor Yoo Ah-in (刘亚仁) has become a trending topic on Chinese social media for getting caught up in a drugs scandal in his home country.
Yoo Ah-in (1986) is an award-winning actor who is known for starring in various well-known dramas and renowned movies, such as Voice of Silence, Burning, and Hellbound.
Yoo is currently being investigated for alleged illegal, habitual use of the anesthetic drug propofol and has been banned from overseas travel.
On Thursday, the hashtag “Yoo Ah-in Admits to Using Drugs” (#刘亚仁确认吸毒#) received over 310 million views on Weibo, where several accounts reported that Yoo allegedly started using propofol in 2021.
Yoo issued a statement via his management, saying he is cooperating with the police in the investigation. He also apologized for causing concern among his fans and followers.
The drug scandal also has consequences for the actor’s activities in China. Liu was the brand ambassador for the Chinese men’s clothing brand Croquis (速写), but Croquis immediately removed him as their representative after the scandal.
Croquis issued a statement saying the company has been closely following the latest developments regarding the investigation into the actor’s alleged drugs use, and stated that they have “zero tolerance” when it comes to drug use and therefore would temporarily take all content offline in which Yoo represents their brand.
South Korean media reported on Feb. 9 that Yoo is among a group of 51 people that is part of an illegal drug use investigation initiated by the Food and Drug Administration, which found that Yoo went doctor hopping and “hospital shopping” to obtain multiple prescriptions.
Propofol is a sedative that is widely used by anesthetists for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia and for long-term sedation. Over recent years, the abuse of propofol in South Korea has been getting more media attention.
Although propofol is classified as a controlled substance in South Korea since 2011, the recreational use of the drugs has been a problem and various celebrities have previously been charged for illegally using the drugs.
On Weibo, some people say that there indeed should be “zero tolerance” for drug abuse among celebrities and artists, but there are also those who think Yoo Ah-in’s drug abuse is a result of his alleged (mental) health problems, and that he needs help instead of punishment.
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