Viral Week is our weekly round-up of the weekend’s trending memes, humor, rumor, gossip, and everything else Chinese netizens are chatting about.

This week, a traffic cop is pulled over for dangerous driving, a tornado hits Inner Mongolia, an ancient city wall collapses, and dancing police go viral:

Walls crumble

Part of Xi’an’s Ming dynasty city walls collapsed under heavy rainfall last week, injuring four and damaging passing cars. The government plans to rebuild the damaged section.

Last stand

A “nail house” belonging to a family of five has attracted onlookers its unlikely location—between two lanes of the recently opened Haizhuyong Bridge in Guangzhou. The family refused to move out because they couldn’t reach an agreement with the highway developer regarding the location of their new home. Since the news emerged, however, the family has been harassed by curious tourists and media, with some even calling on the house unnanounced to talk to the family.

Policing the police

A civilian biker in Henan pulled over a police officer for driving dangerously, and scolded him for being on the phone while driving recklessly, not wearing a seatbelt, and having a broken tail light. The officer has since been penalized and transferred to a new post.

Self scam

A Mr. Lin in Xiamen, Fujian province, was scammed out of over 3,000 RMB by an online lending service that demanded the money as deposit for a non-existent loan. On discovering he had been duped, however, Mr. Lin transferred an additional 2,500 RMB to the scammer, as he’d read online that the police only accept fraud cases involving over 5,000 RMB. It is unclear if the police were able to help Mr. Lin get his money back.

Old news, new fans

Jiang Minci, an 89-year-old woman from Guangzhou, has become a celebrity on video platform Bilibili. In her videos and livestreams, the grandmother talks about her own life and societal changes over the last 90 years and encourages women to pursue careers, striking a chord with netizens and earning over 285,000 followers .

Dancing guards

A police officer on Covid-19 monitoring duty in Xinjiang performed an impromptu dance to keep his colleague awake when they swapped shifts. The colleague responded and a dance-off ensued, much to the amusement of their fellow officers watching behind CCTV montiors.

Lucky geese

Traffic police helped a farmer in Wei’an, Jiangsu province, by buying his geese for the police station canteen. The traffic cops had stopped the man for riding an electric tricycle in a prohibited area of the city, but when they heard that the farmer was transporting his geese to sell, that he had left his home at 3 a.m., and that he lived alone and needed the money to survive, the officers agreed to help (rather than issue him a fine).

Wind on the prairie
 
A tornado damaged over 100 yurts in Shilamuren town, Inner Mongolia, injuring 33 and placing three in critical care.

Human chameleon

A livestreamer named Wang Liang in Jinan, Shandong province, has painted his body into over 30 landscapes, disappearing into ponds of lotus flowers and summer gardens. His mission: “Using the natural landscape as the background and the human as the canvas, we turn humans and nature into one, calling for people to love and protect our natural environment.”

Cover image from VCG