South China Morning Post - Society

A man from southeastern China, dubbed the “Wind-Breaking Rider,” has mastered his wheelchair and stunned the internet with his skateboarding skills. Xie Junwu, 55, lives in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. At 19, he fell from a tree, injuring his thoracic spinal cord and leaving him paralysed from the waist down. For the first eight years after his injury, Xie depended entirely on hi...

Lu Yong, who has a slow-growing blood and bone marrow cancer and inspired the 2018 blockbuster Dying to Survive, has begun reducing his medication and hopes to stop taking it completely within three months. The acclaimed film is based on Lu’s experience. He has chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and helped patients across China obtain affordable, life-saving generic drugs from Indi...

Tesla’s “flying” Roadster stunt has set social media alight worldwide, turning a car launch into a debate about technological innovation and China-US rivalry. At an event in Texas on October 15, Tesla unveiled its redesigned sports car, the Roadster, with stunts including a takeoff from a steep, curved ramp and a leap over parked cars. Pre-orders are open in China with a deposit...

A Chinese influencer has sparked heated online discussions after posting about her remarkable recovery from a fall from the 35th floor nearly a year ago. On October 12, the influencer, who uses the handle @wananan, returned to her account after an almost 17-month hiatus, saying she “had been reborn through adversity”. The 27-year-old woman from Hunan province in central China sa...

Beijing-based smartphone and electric vehicle giant Xiaomi announced in mid-October that it would promote 31-year-old Luo Fuli to its highest-level position, once again putting the “AI prodigy” at the centre of heated discussion. The move came 10 months after Luo joined the company as head of its large language model (LLM) unit. Luo attracted significant public attention in late...