Sun Yue’s Car Shaking Gate

Sun Yue’s (孙悦) “Car Shaking Gate” (车震门) is the hottest piece of gossip on the Chinese internet right now.

Sun Yue, Chinese professional basketball player with the nick name of “Monkey King” because of his last name Sun (孙 -  the main character Sun Wukong from Journey to the West shares the same last name) and his exceptional vertical leaping ability, played in NBA last year for the Los Angeles Lakers. He became the first ethnic Chinese player to win a NBA championship, even though he was inactive, sat on the bench and dressed in suits every single game in the entire season and playoff.

“Car Shaking Gate”, a popular Chinese internet phrase used to describe when couples going out on a date, being intimate in a car in public causing the car to shake, hence the name “Car Shaking Gate”. The name first came about in March 2009 when paparazzi caught famous Chinese director Gu Changwei (顾长卫) parked his car in a dark alley with an unknown pretty girl “shaking the car” for nearly an hour.

The story was posted on Sina Entertainment on September 2^nd 2009. It was actually a very simple story. Reporter (Paparazzi) gained information from a friend that Sun Yue was seen eating dinner with a pretty young girl at a restaurant in Beijing. Following them out of the restaurant, the couple got into a shuttle. Reporter saw them being very intimate in the shuttle thinking there might be a good show coming up. The shuttle took them to a nearby parking lot where they got into Sun’s Mercedes SUV. Sun drove the girl to a hotel which was close to where Sun was staying at – the National athletes training dormitory. The girl got out of the car and went inside of the hotel while Sun was waiting in the car in front. Couple of minutes later the girl went back into the car and they drove away. Very soon, they stopped at another hotel right across street. The girl went in to the hotel again, reporter thought now they probably were going to stay. However couple of minutes later the girl went back into the car again, it looks like Beijing hotels have extremely good business, no vacancy anywhere.

After not being able to get into 2 hotels, Sun drove his car into the small woods at the south of the training facility. This area is next to a river and a dead end with very dim lights. There were almost no pedestrians, only a few cars were parked nearby. It was a perfect make-out spot. Sun Yue and the girl both got out of the car and went into the backseat, then the lights went off. Half an hour later they left the spot. After dropping the girl off near the training facility, she got into her BMW z and drove off. Sun returned back to the dormitory.

The entire process captured on camera

Later netizens found out who the girl was. Her name is Zhang Ruyi (张如意), a second tire singer was in a group called “Young Pretty Girls” (青春美少女) since 2003.

After the news broke out, many think this piece of gossip was definitely purposely created by the media to create some kind of hype. Though people have different opinions on the reason of the hype, some say the hype was created to divert Chinese basketball fans’ attention away from the horrible performance of Chinese national basketball team in the Asia Championships last month. Others say the hype was masterminded by the creator company of “Young Pretty Girls” – Beijing Dang Tong or even Zhang Ruyi herself to gain popularity.

Young Pretty Girls, Zhang: (left 2)

Young Pretty Girls, Zhang: (right 1)  

Young Pretty Girls, Zhang: (left 1)

However Beijing Tang Dong Culture Communication Company (北京唐通文化传播有限责任公司) spokesperson issued a statement on Sina Entertainment on September 4^th 2009 denying any involvement of creating the incident Zhang Ruyi’s “Car Shaking Gate”. At the same time company stated, Zhang Ruyi does not have official contract with the company anymore. The company is not aware of, if there are other people behind the scenes manipulating “Car Shaking Gate” incident.

The company said, “Zhang Ruyi was selected in the “Young Pretty Girl” competition in 2003 to sign the contact with the company. Now the 5 year contract has already ended. “Young Pretty Girl” is group of singers between the ages of 18 to 22. We do not renew the contract of any member who is exceeding this age limit.”

Beijing Tang Dong: “Just like many reporters, we are wondering also. Was it really coincidence? Can coincidence be able to take such clear pictures?”

Beijing Tang Dong: “If it is not a coincidence, who was behind it? Is it our company’s enemy? Zhang Ruyi’s enemy? Or Sun Yue’s enemy? Who was really benefiting from all these?”