Wazzup Beijing

Submission 15,951

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About

Wazzup Beijing is a viral video of Chinese leader Xi Jinping saying "from Beijing" in Chinese, which sounds similar to "Wazzup Beijing" in English. After being uploaded to the internet in late 2020, the clip saw extensive use in Chinaposting memes online over the following years.

Origin

On December 31st, 2020, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping gave a New Year address to the nation of China. At the beginning of the address, Xi Jinping says, "From Beijing, I extend my New Year wishes to you all," with the words "from Beijing" (ch. 我在北京) sounding similar to "wazzup Beijing" in English.

The address (shown below) received over 440,000 views on YouTube^[1] in three years.

On June 2nd, 2021, YouTube^[2] user Holland posted a clip of Xi Jinping saying the phrase, titling the video "Wazzup Beijing." The upload (shown below) received over 15.8 million views in two years.

Wazzup Beijing.

Spread

On January 30th, 2022, YouTube^[3] user mizchief posted the clip captioned "wazzup beijing." The video accumulated over 601,000 views in three years.

On April 8th, 2022, Redditor Up_with_Miniskirts posted the clip to the /youtubehaiku^[4] subreddit, where it received over 960 upvotes in one year.

On April 10th, YouTube^[5] user mrTiKZ posted the earliest found edit of the video, adding in a clip of the United States President Joe Biden alongside several Windows error messages. The video (shown below) received over 152,000 views in one year.

Starting in April 2022, the video achieved popularity as a part of the Chinaposting trend, being used alongside Bing Chilling and similar memes, as well as independently.

For example, on April 12th, 2022, YouTube^[6] user Lapatata posted a meme titled "Wazzup Beijing in different languages" that garnered over 201,000 views in one year (shown below, left). On April 30th, YouTuber^[7] SquishyShibe uploaded a Chinapost using the clip that received over 102,000 views in four months (shown below, right).