China Trend Watch: From a Hospital in Crisis to Chaotic Pig Feasts
From 5,000 people crashing a rural pig feast in Chongqing to a collective effort to save Beijing's Yanran Angel hospital, these are this week's talking points on Chinese social media.
š„ China Trend Watch | Part of Eye on Digital China by Manya Koetse, China Trend Watch is an overview of whatās trending and being discussed on Chinese social media. The previous newsletter was a deep dive into the Dead Yet? app phenomenon.
Welcome to another edition of Eye on Digital China. Not a day goes by these days when Trump isnāt trending. Whether itās about Venezuela and Greenland, ICE, or his recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, his name keeps popping up in the top hot lists.
However, there are dozens of other topics being discussed on Chinese social media that actually arenāt about the US or the shifting geopolitical landscape. From football to pig-slaughter feasts, from a Henan grandpa in Paris to the latest birth rates, there is an entire world of topics out there thatās blissfully unconnected to anything happening in Washington or Davos ā with many of these discussions signaling bigger social stories unfolding in China today. Letās dive in.
Quick Scroll
š¶ āEat more dog meat,ā a local Community Health Service Center in Yaāan advised in a seasonal health text, suggesting it would help people stay healthy & warm during cold weather. The message sparked controversy among dog lovers online. The center later apologized and issued a corrected version, replacing dog meat with lamb, beef, and chestnuts.
ā½ Chinese goalkeeper Li Hao (ęę) is the man of the moment after Chinaās under-23 national football team beat Vietnam (0-3) and advanced to the final of the AFC U23 Asian Cup. It marks the first time since 2004 that any Chinese menās national team (at any level) has reached the final of a continental tournament. In the final, China will face Japan.
š¶ Chinaās latest birth data for 2025 are in, showing yet another record low. The birth rate fell to 5.63 per 1,000 people, with 7.92 million babies born last year ā a 17% year-on-year decline.
šø An āundergroundā private tutoring operation in Beijing has been hit with a staggering fine of more than 67 million yuan (US$9.6 million) for offering after-school classes without official approval. Itās the highest fine so far under Chinaās āDouble Reductionā policy, introduced in 2021 to curb private tutoring and ease academic pressure on students.
šÆļø He Jiaolong (č“ŗåØé¾), a Xinjiang local official who was at the forefront of Chinese officials livestreaming & promoting their regions in creative online ways, died this week after a fatal fall from a horse during work-related filming. She was 47 years old.
š Another death that trended this week was that of renowned Chinese comedian Yang Zhenhua (ęØęÆå, b. 1936), a crosstalk (ēø声) artist remembered for his classic performances and widely regarded as a cultural icon.
šļø A child abuse case that has haunted Chinese netizens for the past two years has come to a close. Xu Jinhua (č®øéč±), the stepmother who tortured and starved her 12-year-old stepdaughter, known as āQiqi,ā to death, was executed on January 20. Xu was sentenced to death in April 2025, and her appeal was rejected last November.
What Really Stood Out This Week
1. Mass Shutdowns of Local Chinese Pig-Slaughter Feasts
Annual pig feasts are traditionally meant to be a source of community bonding and ritual exchange. But for many towns and districts, pĆ”ozhÅ«yĆ n (åØēŖ宓), traditional pig-slaughter feasts, have now become a source of concern, leading to shutdowns of local events across multiple provinces.
The story begins on January 9, when a farmerās daughter nicknamed Daidai (åå) from Hezhou in Chongqing posted a lighthearted message on Douyin asking whether people could help with her familyās pig slaughter, saying her old dad would not be able to hold down the two pigs. In return, she promised to treat helpers to āpork soup and rice,ā adding: āTo be honest, I just want the road in front of my house to be packed with cars, even more than at a wedding. I want to finally prove myself in the village!ā
Two days later, on January 11, when the pig feast took place, Daidai got more than she had asked for. Not only was the road in front of her home packed with cars ā the entire village was completely blocked as over 1,000 cars and some 5,000 visitors arrived. With two pigs nowhere near enough, five pigs ended up being slaughtered. Livestreamers flooded the scene, Daidaiās name was quickly trademarked, and before she knew it, she had entered internet history ā including her own Baidu page ā as the girl who turned a local gathering into a national feast.
By now, the incident has spiraled into a much bigger issue, as others in the SichuanāChongqing region want to replicate the viral success of Hechuan, creating chaos and sometimes unsafe situations by turning neighborhood moments into tourist activities. This has led to a series of events being canceled or shut down.
On January 14, a planned pĆ”ozhÅ«yĆ n, initiated by local influencer Jia Laolian (åčē») in Longquanyi District in Chengdu, had to be canceled at the last minute after thousands of people registered to attend. On January 17, an online influencer in Caijiagang Subdistrict, Chongqing, also held a free pig-slaughter feast that quickly led to potentially dangerous overcrowding. Police shut it down. Another event took place in Ziyang, where 8,000 people had registered to attend while there were only 200 parking spaces available. There were more.
The current hype surrounding these pig-slaughter events reflects a sense of urbanārural nostalgia for local traditions and human connections, but probably says more about how viral tourism in China has worked since the frenzy surrounding Zibo: at lightning speed, influencers and local tourism bureaus jump onto fast-moving trends, hoping to get their own viral moment and, quite literally, piggyback on it.
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While these moments can create a moment of hype, the downsides are clear: a lack of oversight, weak crowd management, intrusion to local communities, and lives being suddenly disrupted. For now, āDaidaiā has gained about two million users on her social media account. She says she hopes to do āsomething meaningfulā with her online influence and has become an organic ambassador for Hechuan. At the same time, she also wants some calm after the storm, saying:āThe Zhaozhu Yan in Heichuan has concluded successfully. I hope everyone can return to their normal lives. I also hope my parents can go back to their previous lifeāI donāt want them dragged into the internet world.ā
2. How a Hospital Crisis Won Chinaās Trust
Usually, when news emerges about Chinese celebrities facing debts or court papers, it signals a serious blow to their reputation. But in a case that trended over the past week involving Chinese actor/businessman Li Yapeng (ęäŗé¹) and singer/pop icon Faye Wong (Wang Fei ēč²), the opposite is true.
Li and Wong were previously married and are parents to a daughter born with a cleft lip and palate. Their experiences in getting treatment and surgery for their daughter led them to become deeply involved with the efforts to help other children. In 2006, they founded the Yanran Angel Foundation (å«£ē¶å¤©ä½æåŗé). A few years later, they established the Yanran Angel Children's Hospital (å«£ē¶å¤©ä½æåæē«„å»é¢), China's first privately-operated non-profit children's hospital, providing surgeries, orthodontics, speech therapy, and other support to thousands of childrenāmany of them at no cost for underprivileged families.
For the first ten years that Li and his team leased the hospital location, the landlord provided them with heavily discounted rent as a sign of his goodwill. In 2019, that agreement ended, and the rent doubled to market value at 11 million yuan per year (over US$1.5 million). But then Covid hit, and while the hospital still had all of its staffing and lease costs, surgeries were postponed.
On January 14 this year, Li Yapeng posted a lengthy video on his Douyin account titled āThe Final Confrontationā (ęåēé¢åƹ), in which he explains how they fell behind on their rent since 2022, now finding themselves in a debt of 26 million yuan (over US$1.5 million) and facing a court judgement that leaves them with little choice but to vacate the premises and shut the hospital down.
Something that struck a chord with netizens is how Li, who bears joint liability for the unpaid rent, made no excuses and openly acknowledged his legal obligations, while at the same time emphasizing his personal sense of responsibility to ensure that children waiting for surgery would still receive the help that had been promised to them.
Public perception of Li Yapeng, who was previously seen as a failed businessman, transformed overnight. He was suddenly hailed as a hero who had quietly devoted himself to charity all this time, while accumulating personal debts.
Donations started flooding in. Within two days, over 180,000 people had donated a total of 9 million yuan (US$1.3 million), and by January 19 this had grown to more than 310,000 people supporting the hospital with nearly 20 million yuan (US$2.8 million). Beyond direct donations, netizens also supported Li Yapeng by tuning into his e-commerce livestreams. One businessman from Jiangsu even offered 30,000 square meters of free space for the hospital to relocate.
Meanwhile, netizens began wondering why Faye Wong, Liās ex-wife with whom he had founded the foundation and hospital, was staying quiet. Just as some started to label her a diva who no longer cared about the cause, a 2023 audit report revealed that since divorcing Li Yapeng in 2013, she had been anonymously donating to the fund every year for a decade, totaling more than 32.6 million yuan (US$4.6 million) to cover rent and staff salaries.
There are many aspects to this story that have caused it to go viral, and that make it particularly noteworthy. It is not just the turnaround in public sentiment regarding Li and Faye Wong, but also the fact that people are more willing to donate to a cause they genuinely believe in. Although Li and Wongās foundation technically falls under the Red Cross system, that organization has faced significant criticism and public distrust in China over the years.
What also helps are the personal stories shared on social media by those who have had direct experience with the hospital, or who know people working there. These include deeply moving accounts from families who saw all their savings depleted while trying to get proper care for their three-year-old child born with a cleft lip, then traveling for days from Gansu to Beijing with little more than a sliver of hopeāonly to learn that their child would not only receive surgery for free, but that the hospital would also help cover temporary lodging and travel costs. Many feel that causes like this are rare, and deserve to continue.
After years of stories about celebrities evading taxes, good causes misspending money, and corruption getting mixed up with charity, this is a story that restores trust ā showing that some celebrities truly care, that some charities do turn every penny into help for those in need, and that netizens can genuinely make a difference. āThis is the most heartwarming news at the start of the year,ā one Weibo commenter wrote.
For now, it remains unclear whether the hospital can remain at its current location, but operations continue, and negotiations are ongoing. Fundraising has been paused for the time being, as annual donation targets have already been exceeded.
3. The Sudden Death of a 32-Year-Old Programmer and the Renewed Debate Over Chinaās Tech Overtime Culture
The sudden death of a 32-year-old programmer who worked at a tech company in Guangzhou is sparking discussion these days, as his death is being linked to the extreme overtime work culture in Chinaās tech sector.
The story is attracting online attention mainly because his wife, using the nickname āWidowā (éå), has been documenting her grieving journey on social media, sharing stories about how she misses her late husband and the things she wishes had gone differently. He was always working late, and she often asked him to come home when he still hadnāt returned by 10:00, 11:00 p.m., or even midnight.
Gao Guanghui (é«å¹æč¾) worked as a software engineer and department manager. Despite his āseriously overloadedā working schedule, his now-widowed wife describes their life together as āvery happy.ā
On Saturday, November 29, 2025, the day of his passing, Gao mentioned that although he was feeling unwell, he still had work matters with approaching deadlines to handle. Browser records show that he accessed the companyās internal system at least five times that morning before fainting and experiencing sudden urinary incontinence.
While preparing to go to the hospital, Gao reportedly urged his wife to bring his laptop with them so that he could finish his tasks. However, he collapsed before the two had even gotten into the car. Despite an ambulance arriving at 9:14 a.m. and efforts to save him, he passed away two hours later. He died of cardiac arrest, and hospital records note his high-pressure, long-hour work schedule.
Even in the final moments of his life, work continued to intrude. Gao was added to a work WeChat group at 10:48 a.m., while hospital staff were still attempting to resuscitate him. Hours after his death was declared, colleagues continued to send him work messages, including one at 9:09 p.m. asking him to urgently fix an issue.
Making matters worse, Gaoās widow says that in the second week after his death, his company had already processed his resignation and disposed of his belongings. The items that were sent to her were crushed and poorly packed. To this day, she says she has received no apology, no compensation, no replacement items, and none of her husbandās missing belongings.
On social media, people are angry. Reading about Gaoās life story ā and how he was always a hard worker, sometimes working two jobs at a time ā many comments indicate that it is often the most dedicated ones who get pressured the most. They see him as a victim of tech companies like CVTE that go against official guidelines and perpetuate a work culture where working overtime becomes the norm, only leading to more workload.
This is not the first time such a story has gone viral. In 2021, the death of an employee who worked at Pinduoduo triggered similar discussions about strenuous ā996ā schedules (working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days per week).
Similar deaths include the 2011 case of 25-year-old PwC auditor Pan Jie, whose story went viral on Sina Weibo after doctors concluded that overwork may have played a crucial role in her death. Likewise, the at-desk death of a 24-year-old Ogilvy employee in Beijing and the 2016 death of Jin Bo, deputy editor-in-chief of one of Chinaās leading online forums, also prompted calls for greater public awareness of the risks of overwork ā especially among young professionals.
On the Feed
āParis Without the Filterā
āFilter-Free Paris,ā or āParis without a filterā (ē“ é¢å·“é»), unexpectedly went viral after a grandpa from Chinaās Henan province, traveling with a senior tour group, shared his unfiltered and casual photos of rainy Paris. In an age when European travel photos are often heavily filtered and glamorized on Chinese social media, many found the grandpaās grey, plain images of the āCity of Romanceā not only amusing but also refreshingly honest.
Seen Elsewhere
ā¢ A Chinese state media editorial framed the Greenland dispute as a āwake-up callā for Europe to reduce its reliance on the US. (CHINA DAILY)
ā¢ Why Western āChinamaxxingā and āvery Chinese timeā memes say more about a ādecay of the American dreamā than about China itself. (WIRED)
ā¢ WIRED seems to be at a āvery Chinese timeā itself, and also launched its China issue, introducing 23 ways youāre already living in the āChinese Century.ā (WIRED)
ā¢ As Trump sows division, China says itās the calm, dependable leader the world needs. (CNN)
ā¢ Nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution has become one of the few legally viable means of resistance, according to Shijie Wang. (CHINATALK)
Thatās a wrap! Thanks for reading.
See you next edition!
ā Manya
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