After she arrived in Guangzhou, following her deportation from Singapore, the jailed Chinese influencer apparently felt victorious, as seen in her first social media post

Screen shot of the Han Feizi post in Douyin as seen on TikTok

Hostess Han Feizi (韩菲紫) arrived in Guangzhou a free woman. In the wee hours this morning, she shared her first post on her Douyin (抖音) page, which showed an IP address of the southern port city of China. It was a 4-second reel of herself and her surroundings at the time. It is unknown if the video was, in fact, shot in her homeland (it appeared to be a golf course of sort) or if it was a reel selected from her phone’s video library. As indicated on the screen, the post was shared at 1.21 in the morning, nearly 24 hours after she was released from jail for the six charges she was handed, among them “using abusive language against a public worker” and “intentionally causing harassment”. As her post was a ‘闪现’ (shanxian) or ‘flash post’—similar to the Snapchat posts that auto-delete, what she availed on Douyin is no longer watchable on her page. However, a screen shot can still be seen online as some quick-to-act Netizens who have been following her post-incarceration moves, captured it and shared it online, closely followed by the Chinese media.

In that screen shot, she did not appear to be worn out by her time in jail (reportedly, a third of the five-week, five-day sentence was deducted as she was well behaved behind bars). It is possible that her face is Meitu (美图)-enhanced. She was dressed somewhat modestly in a black, zip-front athletic top with striped yoke—not her typical outfit seen on her Douyin posts. But, a look at her Douyin history revealed that the top did appear in a post from last September, accompanied by the strange comment, in English, “I am not sweet enough” and a soundtrack of a stranger still kiddy ditty, in Chinese: “What are you doing? Can you buy me a cup of milk tea. It’s not that I have no money.” It is possible that the latest post is not from that time, as her makeup was presently different and her hairstyle, too. Her eyebrows were now less groomed and she wore longer artificial lashes. Even after her ordeal, she was certain to look appealing for her followers.

A photo from nearly a year ago, showing Ms Han in the same black top. Screen grab: blue & grey/Douyin

Accompanying the now-deleted video, on the bottom left corner of the screen was a comment in Chinese: “历史是由胜利者撰写 (lishi shi shenglizhe zhuanxie)” or history is written by victors—an adage, we believe, attributed to Winston Churchill (although he was not, many experts have asserted, the first to say it). It is not certain if Ms Han considered herself a winner—literally—and, therefore, would write her (own) history. Looking at it another way, the saying could suggest that history may not be based on facts, but the victor’s interpretation of what he or she deems to be true—what Kellyann Conway, in 2017, famously called “alternative facts” during her tenure as counselor to the US president. It appears that Ms Han is indignant to the end, and desires to tell her side of the story, however misread it might be. There is speculation in China’s online community that the influencer will use her new-found notoriety (or fame, depending on who sees what) to go into livestream selling, or even write a tell-all-and-shame book.

Information on the Net-based flight tracker FlightRadar indicated that there were five flights at Changi Airport that was bound for Guangzhou yesterday. It is believed that Ms Han boarded China Southern Airlines, leaving our island at 1.30pm, with a scheduled arrival time in Guangzhou of 5.43pm (initial conjecture considered that she would be sent to the nearest airport, in Shenzhen). We are unable to independently verify if this was indeed the journey she made. Or, if Guangzhou is where she intended to remain, or if she was merely on transit to a city further north, such as Beijing, where speculation suggested that she is from. Or, why she did not rush home when she claimed in court that three of her relatives are cancer-stricken and she was afraid that, if jailed, she may not be able to see one of them who is terminally ill. Regardless of her final destination, the story of 网红 (wanghong) Internet star Han Feizi and her acrimonious nature will unlikely come to a quiet end. Her arrival on home turf won’t be the last we will hear of her. As the Chinese are wont to say, 好戏在后头—the best part of the show is at the end.