Chicken ribs turn COVID talk to Shenyang

Two new COVID-19 cases were reported in Shenyang, Liaoning province, on Sunday. While a new outbreak is disconcerting, it kicked off an unlikely trending topic related to Shenyang's popular snack — chicken ribs.

The hashtag "#jijia" (chicken ribs) appeared on Weibo after epidemiological investigations showed that a senior man in Shenyang infected with the coronavirus had visited chicken rib restaurants three times in a few days.

The post soon kicked off a discussion about the city's specialty on social media. Currently there are 23 topics related to Shenyang chicken ribs on Weibo, three of which have been viewed more than 100 million times.

Shen Guohua, a communications professor at Liaoning University, said the hot search for "Shenyang chicken ribs" showed the optimism of the public under the epidemic situation.

"Although the information about Shenyang chicken ribs comes from the serious epidemic prevention and control work, the hot discussion shows a more optimistic and positive attitude. This reflects people's firm confidence in epidemic prevention and control," Shen said.

Many residents in Shenyang strongly recommend the snack to netizens elsewhere by sharing their own experiences and listing their favorite chicken rib practices and brands online.

Netizens from other places have also actively participated in the discussion and suggested that they would travel to Shenyang after the epidemic just to taste the chicken ribs in person.

The Shenyang municipal bureau of culture, tourism, radio and television also took the opportunity to launch a city branding and marking campaign inviting netizens to eat chicken ribs.

Universal vaccination is the best guarantee of health, according to experts. More than 400 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered on the Chinese mainland as of Sunday as the country steps up its inoculation drive.

Zhang Yiduo contributed to this story.