They are young and look carefree, ringing the bell or shouting with joy, on their little yellow, blue or green bikes. On Friday, November 8, around midnight, tens of thousands of students drove from Zhengzhou, the capital of the central Chinese province of Henan, to Kaifeng, a historic city, located about fifty kilometers further east. The objective? Nothing special except a night walk, soup ravioli upon arrival – a Kaifeng specialty – and the excitement of sharing an experience with thousands of others.
That evening, more than 100,000 young people participated in the procession, according to estimates. Undoubtedly for the last time: faced with the scale of the phenomenon, the authorities of the two cities intervened the next day to ban this procession. They closed the road to “non-motorized two-wheelers”bike-sharing platforms created no-go zones, locking bikes remotely, while some universities in Zhengzhou restricted students' trips off campus.
The trend seems to have emerged in the summer, when four students shared on social networks their journey by bike to taste guan tang bao, the famous ravioli, in Kaifeng. Their spontaneity was emulated, pushing other young people to publish their journeys under keywords celebrating the freedom of youth.
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In China, the power of social media easily displaces hundreds of thousands of people. This is what happened on November 8: the day before, the very official People's Daily still celebrating “a symbol of youthful energy and the joy of shared experiences, bringing the streets of Henan to life.”
Abandoned bicycles and disrupted traffic
Delighted to receive so many visitors, many of whom were spending the weekend in the city, the Kaifeng authorities had also mobilized agents to secure certain roads, direct students and open tourist places earlier in the morning. Until being overwhelmed by the phenomenon: the thousands of bicycles abandoned in bulk, the blocked traffic and the garbage left by these tourists fueled the discontent of the residents, according to a publication from the municipality.
Beyond the ripple effect of social networks, the students' enthusiasm for this transhumance illustrates the enthusiasm of young Chinese for collective events. Barely two years after the end of confinements linked to the zero Covid strategy, they are showing particular interest in gatherings, relatively rare in recent years in China, where the authorities fear crowds. Festivals are few in number and their scale small, while censorship limits cultural offerings.
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