Latin America on Weibo: What’s Trending?
Latin America isn’t mentioned with much frequency on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-Facebook hybrid. Most Latin America-related posts reference the region’s food and culture or bloggers’ recent vacations. The following news stories from Latin America received considerable attention from Chinese Weibo users over the past two weeks, however.
Gabriel García Márquez
Weibo users have been commenting on a recent statement by Gabriel García Márquez’s brother that the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author is suffering from dementia. Most posts by Weibo users expressed great sadness upon hearing the news. Many others mentioned Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is one of the more popular novels in China by a Latin American author. 生活乐趣多_zhangwx from Qingdao, Shandong Province wrote: “You wrote down thousands of words to record a hundred years of history, but you are starting to forget about the world.” Another Weibo user from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province wrote: “One masterpiece is enough to make him a true master who would shine for another one hundred years.”
Brazilian Diplomats on Strike
Weibo users commented extensively on a strike by Brazilian diplomats prior to the Rio +20 Conference on June 20, as reported in the following news article: https://www.jb.com.br/pais/noticias/2012/06/18/funcionarios-do-itamaraty-declaram-greve-por-tempo-indeterminado/. Comments included references to Brazilian diplomats’ perceived unprofessional behavior and their interest in obtaining higher wages. Others mentioned that behavior of this sort is “quite typical” of Brazilians and other South Americans, suggesting that Chinese have quite a bit more professional discipline.
The Dialogue joins the Embassy of Brazil in Beijing, the Embassy of Mexico in Beijing, the Argentine Consulate in Shanghai, the Ecuadorian Consulate in Shanghai, China Radio International – Español, Latincomercio, the US Embassy in Beijing, and other Americas-affiliated organizations on Weibo. Click HERE to visit the Inter-American Dialogue’s Weibo page.