You may have seen a news article on Friday which reports that Taiwanese baseball player Wang Chien-ming has been traded to the Miami Marlins. Have no fear. It’s just an April Fool’s Day joke. Wang is staying with the Kansas City Royals.
Links to what appears to be the New York Yankee’s official web site show an article with the headline: Yanks get A.J. Ramos in a blockbuster 3-way deal with Marlins and Royals. If you read the story, you’ll discover news of a fantastical trade that involves nine different players. However, if you look carefully at the web address, or click on any of the links, you’ll discover it’s a fake page made using a third-party site called Clone Zone. The site allows you to create fake news stories on what appear to be real sites.
Although the story is in English and appears on what looks like the New York Yankee’s official site, if you scroll down to the bottom you’ll discover something that will make sense to Chinese speakers. At the very bottom, it has the words “Yurenjie Kuaile”, spelled with what looks like the English alphabet, and a smiley face. It’s actually Chinese for “Happy April Fool’s Day!”