SMS + SARS: cellphone cures from babies and beans in Beijing

By at 7:50 am Wednesday, May 21

A BoingBoing pal living in Beijing sends this surreal bit of local news involving rural SMS rumors, SARS, and talking babies.
The ideas stemmed from a rumor about a baby who purportedly spoke immediately after birth and said firecrackers and "green bean soup" could prevent infection, said an official at Anhui Provincial Public Security Bureau.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the province, including the capital, Hefei, received the rumor via text messages on their cell phones, the official said.

Different variations of the story, told in areas as far-flung as Guangdong and the northern region of Inner Mongolia, say the baby said the soup had to be consumed by midnight on May 7 and that he died after delivering the message, according to newspapers.

The rumor caused sales of mung beans and firecrackers to skyrocket in Guangdong, Fujian and Guizhou.

Update: Link to Beijing-based AP correspondent Audra Ang's story. Discuss (Thanks, John)

Xeni Jardin

Boing Boing partner, Boing Boing Video host and executive producer. Xeni.net, Twitter, Google+. Email: xeni@xeni.net.

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