Digital Journalism Review | Chinese netizens' self-mocking humour in their darkest - and smoggiest - days

“What is the furthest distance in the world?” Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore once asked. Some mainland netizens say that if the late Mao Zedong stood on the Tiananmen rostrum these days, he would not be able to see his own mausoleum - all because of capital’s thick and hazardous smog.

Masks, air cleaners and more policies to save the city are what local people want the most, but before they can catch a glimpse of the blue sky again many of them are trying to cheer themselves up with humour.

“I think that the first group of volunteers for Dutch company’s Mars mission should be our Beijingers,” Beijing-based blogger and columnist Michael Anti posted on Twitter today. “Because the air on Mars fits us and we can still be talking and laughing there.”

“I did a calculation, which shows that on average every Beijinger breathes in three bricks every year,” Li Tie, a commentator of Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly said on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like social media platform.

People in other parts of China are also poking fun at Beijing’s pollution. A popular photo posted on renren.com, a Chinese Facebook-style social media site, shows the difference between Shanghai and Beijing this week: the upper photo with the stunning river view of Pudong refers to Shanghai and the lower one, which shows nothing but grey and black columns, refers to Beijing.

The cruelest comment so far on Sina Weibo was by a Beijing netizen who warned on Friday that “maybe it is easier to count those Beijingers who do not have lung cancer (than those who have) in the coming few years.”