Trending in China: Parody Offers Outlet for Pandemic Angst

What’s trending?

Chinese netizens are looking to world literary classics and popular cultural works to offer some respite from the frustrations of tough Covid-19 restrictions amid the country’s worst outbreak in two years.

Described online as a “pandemic literary renaissance,” an outpouring of creativity was in full swing over the weekend on Douban, a popular Chinese review site and a gathering place for millions of literature and cinema lovers, after a Douban user posted a message rewording the opening sentence of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” to seemingly describe his experience of being suddenly caught in a lockdown.