Book Bucket Challenge gaining popularity among Chinesen Netizens

Poet Liao Weitang published a post on Sina Weibo on September 7, 2014, giving a list of 10 books that have the greatest influence to his life. [Photo: screenshot from Sina Weibo]

After the Ice Bucket Challenge became popular in China, a similar activity that went viral overseas has also swept onto China's Twitter-like social platform Sina Weibo, Xinhuanet.com reports.

The challenge asks netizens to list 10 books that have influenced their lives most, and forward the challenge by tagging their friends.

The activity is called Book Bucket Challenge, a homage to the similarly popular Ice Bucket Challenge.

While the challenge has no direct charity links like the Ice Bucket Challenge, an Indian entrepreneur asked people to donate money to a fund for the purpose of building libraries in impoverished villages.

The topic Book Bucket Challenge has attracted more than 22 million readers on Weibo as of September 16.

Many Chinese netizens taking part in this challenge hope that its popularity would urge more people to read.

"Many of my classmates say they just realize how difficult it is to find 10 books influential to their lives after being tagged by their friends," said Zhao Qiang, a university student in east China's Anhui Province.

Another participant, Chinese poet Liao Weitang was surprised to find that many neizens who forwarded his Weibo post on the challenge could only give a list of several textbooks. Many even said that they didn't read any books except textbooks.

"I hope netizens can choose to read some good books listed by their friends. Therefore, they can understand both the books and their friends," Liao Weitang added.

Fan Hesheng, deputy dean of the School of Social and Political Studies of Anhui University, pointed out that reading abilities have generally regressed in the internet era.

"Being tagged by friends to participate in the activity may become a psychological pressure to urge people to read books," Fan said.

Fan also thought the book challenge was an effective way to improve people's consciousness in reading, and help them realize the necessity of in-depth reading while thinking of influential books.