Hawking lights up China’s Weibo universe
Print Edition
RENOWNED cosmologist Stephen Hawking entered the universe of Chinese social media with a big bang yesterday, his first post on Weibo garnering him more than a million followers the same day.
In under five hours Hawking flew past Apple chief Tim Cook, who has around 820,000 fans after nearly a year online.
“In my physical travels, I have only been able to touch the surface of your fascinating history and culture,” the Cambridge scientist said in his initial post, writing in both English and Chinese. “But now I can communicate with you through social media — and I hope to tell you more about my life and work through this page and also to learn from you in reply.”
He said he first visited China in 1985, traversing the country by train, and was in Beijing in 2006 for a physics conference.
The hashtag #Hawking Opens a Weibo# was one of the top three topics, viewed more than 13 million times by the afternoon.
Hawking’s arrival got a warm welcome. One wrote: “This is a historical moment. I feel I’m connected with the universe.”
Another exclaimed: “My god, I’m communicating with Hawking, even if it’s just one-sided! This will be the conversation of the century.”
But the most popular comment was an exhortation for users not to make China lose face in the presence of a man lauded as a hero: “Please keep your comments classy, as every sentence will influence other people’s impressions of China.”
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