Love isn't blind

When the nation was gripped by the unsubstantiated story of a city woman fleeing her boyfriend's backwater of a hometown, it showed the stumbling blocks to upward mobility, which can be social, psychological or economic.

Facts and fiction tend to mingle, sometimes to such a seamless degree that you never know where one ends and the other starts. If an outrageous story breaks on April 1 or is reported in Onion, you'll interpret it as a satirical take on a real news event or some social phenomenon. But that is assuming one is familiar with the custom of All Fools Day and the all-satire format, an assumption that should not be taken for granted in this age of globalization.

The biggest piece of news that came out of the just past Spring Festival in the vast expanse of the Middle Kingdom is a story that has the strong aura of a hoax.