China Memes & Viral
TikTok Is Watching: PetroChina Executive Hu Jiyong Fired after Extramarital Affair Exposed Online
After their romantic stroll in Chengdu was captured by street photographers, their illicit affair suddenly became the talk of the day.
Hu Jiyong (胡继勇), the former Chinese executive director and general manager of Beijing Huanqiu Construction Co, a subsidiary of PetroChina, is the talk of the week on Chinese social media after a video of him holding hands with a supposed mistress went viral.
Hu Jiyong, who is a Party secretary, was removed from his post after the incident. PetroChina Beijing Project Management Company issued a statement on Wednesday at 17:30 in which they stated that Hu Jiyong had been dismissed from his positions as Executive Director, Party Committee Secretary, and General Manager of Huanqiu Project Management Company, and that he will be further investigated by the company’s disciplinary committee.
The statement by PetroChina.
State media outlet Shanghai Daily writes: “Being a Communist Party of China member, Hu has moral obligations, which he transgressed by having an alleged extramarital affair.”
On Weibo, the hashtag “PetroChina’s Hu Jiyong Fired” (#中石油胡继勇被免职#) received nearly 1,2 billion views on Wednesday, making it the absolute top trending topic of the day. On Chinese TikTok, the topic was also in the top 10 trending lists.
See and Be Seen in Chengdu
The video went viral after a street fashion photographer captured the two strolling the street and holding hands in downtown Chengdu in a popular area some even refer to as “Douyin Street” (TikTok Street / 抖音街).
Street photography has been common in China for many years, as photographers have since long been gathering around trendy spots from Beijing’s Sanlitun to Chengdu’s Taikoo Li with their big lens cameras to capture people walking by.
Many of these people are older, amateur photographers, who are simply snapping photos of attractive, fashionable, and unique-looking people as their hobby, posting these videos on Douyin, China’s Tiktok, and other platforms. There are also those who are working for street fashion accounts or style magazines, and are doing street snaps to capture China’s latest fashion trends.
The places where these street photographers gather are usually spots where people go to see and be seen. In one of the shots posted online, it seems that Ms. Dong is very much aware that she is being filmed. There are also photographers standing behind her.
The topic attracted 1.2 billion views on Weibo. With street photographers & Tiktok vloggers everywhere nowadays, careless cheaters are bound to be caught. But they seemed particularly nonchalant: they were being filmed from multiple angles while visiting a see-and-be-seen spot. pic.twitter.com/60m2b8avbt
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) June 8, 2023
In 2019, Chengdu’s Taikooli already placed signs around the area prohibiting commercial street photography and warning about the unauthorized commercial use of an individual’s image (#成都太古里明确禁止未经允许街拍#).
In an interview with Netease, the photographer in question stated that multiple people were taking photos and videos at the time, and that the couple did not refuse to being filmed. As usual, he later posted the video on his TikTok channel.
A sign at Chengdu’s Taikooli warns photographers to take people’s portrait rights into account.
The video soon started circulating online and blew up once people, including co-workers, recognized the man as the married PetroChina executive and identified the woman as another PetroChina employee. The photographer soon received private messages in which he was asked to take the video down, and he did. But it was already too late as the story has already snowballed out of control.
Netizens digging deeper soon found photos proving that the woman holding hands with Hu was his colleague. Some pointed out that the handbag the woman carried in the video appears to be a limited edition Lady Dior bag, that is allegedly priced anywhere from 39,000 to 44,000 yuan ($5470 – $6170).
On June 8, it was reported that the female PetroChina employee Ms. Dong was also dismissed. A related hashtag received over 110 million views on Weibo (#董某某也已停职并接受调查#)
Online Responses
The incident has garnered significant attention on Chinese social media. While stories about top officials being exposed for immoral behavior or corruption often generate considerable interest, this particular incident stands out due to the crucial role played by Chinese social media and netizens in uncovering the extramarital affair.
During the May holiday of this year, a woman from Hunan was at home tending to her baby and casually browsing through TikTok, when she stumbled upon a video showcasing her husband enjoying a theme park ride alongside another woman. After the story of how this affair was exposed through TikTok went trending (#女子刷短视频刷到老公和小三约会#), one other popular TikTok video included a woman shouting out to give everyone in the video frame a heads up: “If you are not here with you’re wife, go away, because I’m filming!”
While a few individuals advocate for addressing privacy issues and condemn the actions of street photographers who share people’s photos and videos, the majority of people are simply “eating watermelon” (吃瓜), meaning they are passively observing the online spectacle without directly involving themselves.
Others are actively delving into the private lives of Hu and Dong, exposing their previous social media posts, personal photos, and private information. Even though Ms. Dong has now deleted all her social media information (#牵手门女当事人疑似清空社交账号#), netizens had previously saved some content that many consider to be posts where she flaunts her wealth.
In the meantime, the incident has not only inspired a wave of memes but has also provided e-commerce platforms with an opportunity to capitalize on the situation by selling clothing items similar to those worn by the couple in the TikTok video.
The PetroChina logo is changed to fit the couple’s outfits.
The Lego version.
The manga AI version.
As the incident keeps fermenting online, Beijing Daily has published an opinion piece in which it is argued that too many of the discussions surrounding the story are driven by sensationalism and are crossing the line. Ms. Dong in specific has become a target of online bullying, harassment, and vulgar comments.
The author also suggests that the incident has become some source of entertainment, while actually involving serious issues related to the moral conduct of state-owned enterprise officials (#舆论反腐不能沦为网暴羞辱#).
Whether serious or not, it seems that one burning question on many people’s mind is where Ms. Dong got her dress from. With similar dresses popping up all over the Chinese internet, it has unexpectedly become the hottest summer dress trend of 2023.
Good news for anyone who loves the dress worn by Ms Dong in the controversial video: it's now sold all over the Chinese internet. pic.twitter.com/Osa745s9MW
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) June 8, 2023
By Manya Koetse
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Enjoying the ‘Sea’ in Beijing’s Ditan Park
This “seaview” spot in Beijing’s Ditan Park has become a new ‘check-in spot’ among Chinese Xiaohongshu users and influencers.
“‘The sea in Ditan Park’ is a perfect example of how Xiaohongshu netizens use their imagination to change the world,” a recent viral post on Weibo said (“地坛的海”完全可以入选《红薯人用想象力颠覆世界》的案例合集了”).
The post included screenshots of the Xiaohongshu app where users share their snaps of the supposed seaview in Beijing’s Ditan Park (地坛公园).
Ditan, the Temple of Earth Park, is one of the city’s biggest public parks with tree-lined paths and green gardens in Beijing, not too far from the Lama Temple in Dongcheng District, within the Second Ring Road.
On lifestyle and social media platform Xiaohongshu, users have recently been sharing tips on where and how to get the best seaview in the park, finding a moment of tranquility in the hustle and bustle of Beijing city life.
Post on Xiaohongshu to get the seaview in Ditan Park.
But there is something peculiar about this trend. There is no sea in Ditan Park, nor anywhere else in Beijing, for that matter, as the city is located inland.
The ‘seaview’ trend comes from the view of one of the park’s stone walls. In the late afternoon, somewhere around 16pm, when the sun is not too bright, the light creates an optical illusion from a certain viewpoint in the park, making the wall behind the bench look like water.
You do have to capture the right light at the right moment, or else the effect is non-existent.
Some photos taken at other times of the day clearly show the brick wall, which actually doesn’t look like a sea at all.
Although the ‘seaview in Ditan’ trend is popular among many Xiaohongshu users and influencers who flock to the spot to get that perfect picture, there are also some social media commenters who criticize the trend of netizens always looking for the next “check-in spot” (打卡点).
There are also other spots popular on social media that look like impressive areas but are actually just optical illusions. Here are some examples:
One Weibo user suggested that this trend is actually not about people appreciating the beauty around them, but more about chasing the next social media hype.
The Ditan seaview trend is not entirely new. In May of this year, Beijing government already published a post about the “sea” in Ditan becoming more popular among social media users who especially came to the park for the special spot.
The Beijing Tourism Bureau previously referred to the spot as “the sea at Ditan Park that even Shi Tiesheng didn’t discover” (#在地坛拍到了史铁生都没发现的海#).
Shi Tiesheng (1951–2010) is a famous Chinese author from Beijing whose most well-known work, “Me and Ditan,” reflects on his experiences and contemplations in Ditan Park. At the age of 21, Shi Tiesheng suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Ditan Park became a place for him to ponder life, time, and nature. Despite the author’s deep connection with the park, he never described seeing a “sea” in the walls.
Shi Tiesheng in Ditan Park.
If you are visiting Ditan Park and would like to check out the ‘sea’ yourself in the late afternoon, there are guides on Xiaohongshu explaining the route to the viewpoint. But it should not be too difficult to find this summer—just follow the crowds.
By Manya Koetse and Ruixin Zhang
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mario linor
June 12, 2023 at 3:53 am
The problem is not the morals, the problem is that we live in a world of spies, CC cameras, and envious people with a phone becomes too easily avengers of who knows what. How can a man, even if a top manager of a corporation, and his girl-friend or what, be thrown to the crowds to feed with anger and resentment? The lack of strict laws for the privacy of people are the issue of this century. Anyone, me, you, we, can be put in this situation by a rival or just by idiots with a phone. A family is destroyed, I am sure the wife would have wanted to face this issue in another way; now he lost the job and for the family is a huge loss for which the one who cowardly took these picture is the only responsible. Shame!