Stella Yu and Toni Tang
AllChinaTech brings you the four most talked-about topics this week on Weibo, one of China’s largest social media networks.
4. National train ticket site’s impossible CAPTCHA riddles
(37.8 million views; 91,000 comments)
12306.cn is the official website of China’s Ministry of Railways, the only official train ticket booking website in China. As Spring Festival approaches, train tickets are selling out fast, and Weibo users are frustrated that the site’s CAPTCHAs are impossible to answer. Here are some examples: “Which one is Bai Baihe (a Chinese star)? Please select them all.” (left); “Which one is the Strait of Bosporus? Please select them all.” (right).
3. Air pollution red alert
(39.2 million views; 34,000 comments)
On Monday, Beijing issued its first ever air pollution red alert in history, indicating the severity of air pollution in the city. Several emergency measures were adopted, but Weibo users are more concerned about finding a permanent solution to the smog.
2. Pantone’s colors of the year 2016
(50.6 million views; 21,000 comments)
Pantone, an authority on color, has recently released two Colors of the Year 2016—Rose Quartz and Serenity, because of their calming properties. The two colors have already been applied in the 2016 spring and summer fashion week. Chinese Internet users are posting pictures in these colors online and saying that the colors really bring out the “shaonvxin”(“maiden’s heart”) in them!
1. I’ve got a boyfriend who’s good at photography
(51.7 million views; 11,000 comments)
Good-looking girls are lucky, but not as lucky as girls whose boyfriends know how to make them look good in pictures! This week, female Weibo users posted pictures of their boyfriends taking photos of them. These boys must be desperate to impress their girlfriends to get into such positions.
(Pageviews of the topics were counted on Sunday.)