Innovation helps conquer boredom at home

A sports instructor gives an online course at home in Changchun, Jilin province. ZHANG YANSHI/FOR CHINA DAILY

In her video, Gao said people can "gain strength from sports to overcome the pandemic".

To combat boredom at home, people nationwide are becoming increasingly creative, with videos posted on social media ranging from footage of fishing in an indoor tank to playing ping pong on a dining table.

Cao Qian, a librarian in Yantai, Shandong, used water bottles as quoits to play with her 7-year-old daughter.

"The game had all the family laughing, which I will long remember after all we have gone through," Cao said.

A video on Weibo showed patients with mild symptoms of the virus dancing at a temporary hospital in Wuhan on Feb 10.

Yan Hao, a doctor at the hospital, who is encouraging patients to take part in dancing to relieve their anxiety, said: "Confidence is our 'sunshine'. It is important to help the patients to build their confidence and defeat the disease."

On Tuesday evening, many thousands of people nationwide discovered a novel form of entertainment when the Broom Challenge went viral on Chinese social media platforms. Netizens posted pictures and video footage of brooms standing upright, unaided.

The participants were responding to a rumor that NASA had said that Feb 11 was the only day the standing broom trick would work, because the Earth was at a perfect tilt. They spent many hours making brooms stand up unaided.

Gu Yanfeng, 41, a mother of two in Beijing who posted pictures on WeChat Moments of a broom standing up, said, "I didn't believe it at first, but it really did happen."

NASA later took to social media, stating, "There's no 'special gravity' that only affects brooms, but the moon's gravity creates tides on Earth."