A controversy over a waterfall has cascaded into a social media storm in China, even prompting an explanation from the water body itself.
A hiker posted a video that showed the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face.
The clip has been liked more than 70,000 times since it was first posted on Monday. Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the “small enhancement” during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile.
“The one about how I went through all the hardship to the source of Yuntai Waterfall only to see a pipe,” the caption of the video posted by user “Farisvov” reads.
The video was posted on Weibo by a hiker, which suggests the hiker is Chinese. So blame the Chinese for making this known since they then viewed and shared it thousands of times.
You say “thousands” as if that’s a lot. If some Chinese people want to talk about a park’s water management, I don’t mind. But when Westerners take some random trivial thing like this and use it to fuel a narrative that “China is a country full of lies,” or whatever, that’s an entirely different animal. This is a local issue, not an excuse for chauvanists to be chauvanist.
Yes, I do call 70,000 shares a lot. That’s shares, not views. I’m not sure why you don’t.
And it’s still the Chinese people making a big deal about this.
Really? Because what I’m seeing is an article from the British Broadcasting Channel and a thread full of people using this story to make sweeping generalizations about China, in English. I suppose it’s possible, but I gotta say I find it a little hard to believe that this thread is full of Chinese nationals, as you’re claiming.