An online essay titled “Beijing Has 20 Million People Pretending to Have a Life Here” by Chinese writer and blogger Zhang Wumao became a viral hit on WeChat and Weibo after it was published on the author’s WeChat account on July 23. The author's account has subsequently been blocked and posts deleted.The essay is a witty yet powerful critique of Beijing and its residents. According to Zhang Wumao, over the last decade, and especially over the past few years, Beijing has undergone enormous changes. The city’s rapid transformation has turned it into a place with no identity, a place that nobody can call home. The essay argues that Beijing has been overrun by migrant workers or waidiren (“people from outside the city”), and that these “outsiders” have turned China’s capital into a place with staggering house prices and heavy traffic that lacks soul. He says the city no longer really belongs to native Beijingers, as they cannot even recognize their old neighborhoods anymore.The result of Beijing’s transformation, according to the post, is that its residents, both locals and immigrants, just “pretend to live there,” leading “fake lives.”