A Chinese billionaire has upped the ante for offensive modern breakups.
Forget that emoticon-riddled email, delete the "it's not you, it's me" text message and don't even think about busting out those Post-its.
For Wang Gongquan, it ain't over till it goes viral.
When the 49-year-old venture capitalist decided to leave his wife for his mistress he decided to break the news over a Twitter-like blogging site called Sina Weibo. His emotional admission was available to family, friends and thousands of other strangers.
"I am giving up everything and eloping with Wang Qin," he wrote according to the Wall Street Journal. "I feel ashamed and so am leaving without saying goodbye. I kneel down and beg forgiveness!"
It didn't take long for the May 16 confession to swirl around the web. According to the WSJ, it was republished by other bloggers around 60,000 times in 24 hours.
The post even compelled some of Gongquan's high-rolling friends to reach out to him over the Chinese social media site.
"Your family is incredibly anxious…Please contact them," Pan Shiyi, the billionaire chairman of one of Beijing's biggest real-estate developers wrote to Gongquan, according to The Globe and Mail.
Instead Gongquan continued to post online messages about his romantic entanglement.
In one melodramatic video post on Youku, a site similar to YouTube, a softly-lit Gongquan stands in front of a body of water and sings about his romantic entanglement.
New York Magazine translated the lyrics as:
Always facing the whispers of the wind with a heart longing for love/
I loathe nothing more than labouring for profane achievements/
Who has ever seen mountains of gold and silver/
last through 10,000 generations?/
Throughout the ages,/
the only precious thing is this feeling.
Sina Weibo is a Chinese social media site akin to Facebook and Twitter, both of which are blocked in China.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the site had plans to launch an English version of their blogging portal by the end of 2011.
