Chinese boy leaves in a huff after pointing out factual errors in planetarium’s educational video



Rebecca Moon
Thu, July 21, 2022 

While exploring a planetarium in China, an 8-year-old boy was outraged to discover that an educational video about the Long March rockets contained numerous inaccuracies.

On Saturday, Yan Hongsen and his father visited a planetarium in Lhasa, Tibet, an autonomous region of China. When approaching an educational film that was being played for visitors, Yan noticed that it contained numerous factual errors.

In a video that has gone viral on Weibo, Yan is seen angrily pointing out that the educational film had misidentified the Long March 3 rocket as the Long March 5.

“What are they showing here! How can they caption this as Long March 5? This is Long March 3!” the boy angrily said.

The video clip has garnered over 4.3 million views and 48,000 likes since being uploaded on Monday.

Yan’s father explained that the 8-year-old has been a space enthusiast since he was 4 years old after watching “the launch of the Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite-2 at the Jiuquan satellite launch center.” He often makes cardboard rocket models and purportedly teaches online classes for other space enthusiasts.

“He became interested in space science as a result of the rocket launch. And because of space science, he fell in love with astronomy and military affairs,” Yan’s father told South China Morning Post. “It’s a strength of his that he can study in his spare time, even while eating, going to the bathroom, in the car or on the bus.”

After the video went viral across Chinese social media, the planetarium explained that they had received the feedback and would take the advice “seriously.” They also thanked Yan for his corrections and stated that the mistakes would be revised immediately.