Jiayun (Jenny) Feng is the Society and Culture Editor at The China Project. Born and raised in Shanghai, she is a bilingual journalist committed to reporting on China-related issues with a global perspective.
Yew-Kwang Ng ้ปๆๅ , a Malaysian economist who currently serves as a professor of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, has attracted a great deal of ire on Chinese social media after publishing an article in which he suggested China legalize and promote polyandry โ allowing women to marry multiple men โ in a bid to solve the countryโs surplus of bachelors.
In many parts of the world, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police has prompted mass protests and global calls for an end to police brutality and racial injustice. The worldwide movement also took off in China โ in the form of critical editorials published by state media, scathing tweets from Chinese officials, and an enormous number of comments on social media.
Chinese lawmakers on Thursday, the final day of this yearโs Two Sessions political meetings, passed the countryโs first civil code โ a legislative package aimed at governing almost every aspect of Chinese peopleโs lives, including marriage, property, and personal rights.
During this year's Two Sessions meetings, while many suggestions โ such as improving laws protecting animals and legalizing egg freezing for single women โ have received positive feedback from the public, some delegates dug themselves into unpopular positions by suggesting things that were greeted with wide criticism on the Chinese internet.
In addition to the five popular proposals we highlighted last week, we explain three more subjects that had the Chinese internet buzzing in the past few days: Prohibiting single women from egg freezing, removing paywall of Chinaโs largest database of academic papers, and curbing the rise of superfan culture.
A new commercial airing in China for Libresse, a Swedish brand of feminine hygiene products, has generated a shower of praise on social media for breaking new ground in menstrual products advertising in China.
Given that Luo Yonghao has a tendency to make outlandish claims and bail on plans and promises, the flower backlash is probably indicative of the publicโs quickly thinning patience with him.
The five proposals that seem to have sparked the most discussion on the Chinese internet this year are: Legalizing egg freezing for single women, improving laws to protect animals from cruelty and abuse, abandoning cool-off periods for divorces, building a database of people who commit sexual offenses against minors, and banning Chinese family style communal eating.
On May 19, Girlโs Protection, a Beijing-based nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating child sexual abuse by raising public awareness, released three reports (in Chinese) on sexual offenses against minors. By analyzing a total of 301 adult-to-minor sexual assault cases that made news in 2019, the organization found that more than 70% of the offenders in these cases were people the victims knew: family members, teachers, and neighbors.