The fun, the strange, and the what-on-earth-is-this? Trending in Beijing is a wrap-up of top stories in Beijing as told by the trending hashtags, local press, and general power of the internet.
University ranks movie industry by its social responsibility
Beijing Normal University (BNU) has released a report ranking the most socially responsible cinema stars, movies, and TV shows. Now in its second edition, the research is said to analyze the goodwill of those involved in creating the entertainment and then assigns the individuals and productions a score out of 100. Unfortunately, we only get to see the high achievers and not those who were deemed to have been naughty this year.
How “socially responsible” someone is, depends on that person’s performance in several criteria, such as charity work, helping vulnerable social groups, transmitting positive energy, and “good” performance. Films and TV shows must possess “certain social influence and promote the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.” The highest-ranking movies were My People, My Country (我和我祖国) with 88.04 points, sci-fi flick Wandering Earth (流浪地球) with 86.96, and Captain (中国机长) with 87.87 points. This year’s approved TV dramas were similarly nationalistic, with Like a Flowing River (大江大河) taking the lead with a whopping 95.65 points, followed by Diplomatic Situation (外交风云) with 91.30, and the eschewer of traditional family values All is Good (都挺好) coming in third with 90.22.
Meanwhile, number one on the list of socially responsible actors is 19-year-old TFboys member Jackson Yee (易烊千玺, pictured above) with 87.96 points. As well as having accrued millions of fans for his part in the aforementioned saccharine-sweet pop trio, Yee also appeared in the heartbreaking and well-received school bullying drama Better Days (少年的你). Netizens quickly sang their own praises for the “little fresh meat” actor/singer and applauded his overall positive energy and influence.
The report notes that actors have a high influence on society, which is why, presumably, it was created in the first place, as a means to highlight good behavior as deemed by the government and encourage other celebrities to follow a similar path of good behavior and, in turn, influence the masses.
Beijingers’ health problems persist
On Dec 11, Beijing authorities released statistics on the sub-standard health condition of the city’s 22 million urbanites. Since 2013, the three most common health conditions have remained the same: cardiovascular disease, obesity, and having a fatty liver. The number of people defined as overweight or obese increased for both men and women under 60 years old, which the report claims is the result of high-fat diets, work pressure, and a lack of physical activity.
College and middle school students received special attention in the report. The largest concerns amongst youngsters are poor eyesight, insufficient height, and obesity, or the opposite, being underweight. As we have highlighted previously, Beijing schools are fighting skyrocketing cases of myopia, with this latest report claiming that 81.1 percent of middle school students and a whopping 89.5 percent of college students suffer from poor eyesight. Obesity rates among college students also increased from 13.1 percent in 2013 to 15.7 percent in 2018. Seems like it’s time to ditch all that fangbian mian and start doing more eye exercise!
Olympic Games receives 463,000 volunteer sign-ups
Ever had trouble recruiting volunteers for an event you’re organizing? Well, it seems that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games has the opposite problem. Since opening volunteer registration earlier this month, the organizers announced that they have been inundated with applications, quickly surpassing the required 27,000 volunteers by nearly 20 times. However, they added that the screening process for volunteers will be strict and thorough, so only the best of us shall make it through.
Given that registration remains open until the end of June 2021, and they’ve already received almost half a million applications in barely a week, we expect to see the final number sporting a few extra zeros by the time the deadline comes about. Several netizens joked that they will only apply after getting into postgraduate programs, in the hope of their strong educational performance securing them a place volunteering at the Olympics.
This is far from the first time that Beijing has received more applications than it can handle: following an initial barrage of sign-ups, the recent Beijing marathon saw illegal reselling of tickets to run online, while last year’s avalanche of applications for the Forbidden City Restoration Department meant that the hirers had to enforce a “master’s degree or higher” rule to whittle down applicants. Weibo users are watching the numbers grow under #北京冬奥志愿者超46万人报名# (Beijing Winter Olympic Games gets 460,000 volunteer sign-ups).
