Chinese fans in mourning: Kobe Bryant's death draws an outpouring of shock and grief
The death of basketball great Kobe Bryant was felt as far away as China, where fans mourned his passing along with millions of others across Asia.
Within hours of his death, Bryant's death became one of the most-searched topics on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, where he had nine million followers, compared with 15 million worldwide on Twitter.
The pinned post on his Weibo account was a short video uploaded on Friday of Bryant wishing his "dear friends in China" a happy Lunar New Year and thanking them for their support for the past year. Underneath that post, tens of thousands of fans have left tributes and messages of mourning.
"Please, don't you pass away," read the most liked comment, posted at 3:38 a.m. Beijing time, shortly after news of Bryant's death first broke.
The former Los Angeles Lakers star remained the most popular NBA star in China, even three years after his retirement in 2016, according to a 2019 report by the Mailman Group, a digital sports marketing company.
Bryant said recently that China was like his "second home."
A whole generation of Chinese basketball fans grew up watching Bryant, as he made his way through the league and into the annals of sporting greats. Along with Michael Jordan, he was one of the first real NBA superstars to win a following in China, which embraced the American sport as the country opened up to the world.
He enjoyed unparallelled popularity as an icon of their youth, when basketball surged in popularity in China.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/asia/asia-mourns-kobe-bryant-intl-hnk/index.html