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Chinese heartthrob celebrates the world's most high-profile 18th birthday

By Jiang Jie (People's Daily Online)    16:01, September 25, 2017

Turning 18 is an important life event, usually celebrated with family and friends. For singer Wang Junkai of Chinese boy band TFBOYS, the celebration went beyond borders.

Wang, whose 18th birthday fell on Sept. 21, saw fans across the globe organize his entry into adulthood in a stunningly luxurious way.

In Los Angeles, fans from 37 fans organizations used skywriting to spell out Wang’s name in Chinese pinyin above the Hollywood sky. Each letter was about the size of the Empire State Building, and lasted for about five to seven minutes in the air. A total of five aircraft spelled out his name 18 times in total. This is reportedly the first case of fans using skywriting to show support for a celebrity. It also made Wang the first Chinese star whose name got spelled out over Hollywood, Jiemian.com reported.

Wang’s fans also rented out all the LED screens at the L.A. Live entertainment complex, which is home to many famous events in Los Angeles. Wang’s portraits and fans’ birthday wishes for him were shown on the screen for a whole day.

Beyond many people’s imagination, fans even prepared a gift in the universe, as Wang wrote earlier on his Weibo that he wondered what the universe actually looks like. An organization of Wang’s fans planned to raise enough money to send a satellite with Wang’s picture on it to space, while another organization allegedly bought the naming rights of 18 stars, which, once linked all together, would form the three initials of his name, according to Tech.sina.com.cn.

In China, a total of 5,000 LED screens at 63 cinemas were rented for the countdown of Wang’s birthday.

The fans even set up a scholarship foundation in Wang’s name and reportedly donated enough money to help raise 18 orphan elephants in Africa and another 18 kinds of endangered oceanic species, according to Btime.com.

This is not the first time for die-hard fans to give all they could to show support for a celebrity. The three young singers from TFBOYS especially all had a scene of grandeur in the past years during birthday celebrations, with fans spending loads of money on making their names and pictures seen across the world.

In addition, as the three boy singers have different fans organizations, there seems to be an ongoing competition among fans, with each trying to throw an even more marvelous birthday ceremony for their idols.

Yet to many others, it showed irrationality and the fan frenzy went overboard.

Such an eye-opening coming-of-age celebration stunned many, again. It also marked one of the most luxurious birthday gifts to any Chinese celebrity. As the other two members of TFBOYS, Yiyang Qianxi and Wang Yuan, are about to turn 18, it remains to be seen whether their fans organizations will try to break the record. 

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Web editor: Jiang Jie, Bianji)

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