This Is The Chinese Documentary That Got Over 30 Million Views In One Day
While the citizenry of America remains transfixed by the ever-changing color of some Scottish wedding dress; this weekend saw an even more massively viral social media phenomenon as tens of millions of Chinese watched, gripped and outraged, a 104-minute video entitled “Under The Dome” exposing the ugly truth about Chinese air pollution. What is perhaps most stunning – aside from the fact that something so ‘important’ can go viral without Kim Kardashian’s ass all over it – is that the Chinese government, so far, has not shut off the documentary, and recently appointed minister of environmental protection, Chen Jining, even praised the video; suggesting a growing conflict between Beijing and the Chinese industrial complex.
As The NY Times reports, the documentary, funded and narrated by a former Chinese TV reporter, recounts her journey of discovery, hunting for the sources of China’s bad air and inquiring why repeated government promises have done so little to clear it up, while coping with a daughter born with a tumor…
[In 2013], she did not pay much attention to the smog engulfing much of China and affecting 600 million people, even as she traveled for work from place to place where the air was acrid with fumes and dust.“But,” Ms. Chai says with a pause, “when I returned to Beijing, I learned that I was pregnant.”
Since its online debut on Saturday, Ms. Chai’s documentary, “Under the Dome,” has inspired an unusually passionate eruption of public and mass media discussion. Many messages were from Chinese parents identifying with Ms. Chai’s fears that pollution has imperiled their children’s health.
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