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Photo Credit: Roman Kierst
SOCIETY

Barbe-Queue Forever: How Social Media Hype Changed Zibo

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An online craze for Zibo’s barbecue has brought a deluge of tourists to the previously unheralded city, but does it change locals’ lives for better or worse?

After waiting for an hour to eat at what is now probably China’s most coveted barbecue hot spot, Shi is disappointed. “This doesn’t taste that good to be honest, definitely not worth all the wait,” the 37-year-old accountant, who only gave his surname, says after a couple of bites, with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

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author Roman Kierst (小罗)

Roman Kierst is a staff writer and editor at The World of Chinese based in Beijing but much more at home in Chengdu, where his own China story first began as a high school exchange student in 2006. Likes to pick up a film camera occasionally to take pictures of (mostly) old places.

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