Old cremation videos that have nothing to do with the death of Taiwanese celebrities

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Old cremation videos that have nothing to do with the death of Taiwanese celebrities

After Taiwanese star Barbie Hsu died of pneumonia during one of his New Year holidays on vacation in Japan, social media users mistakenly claimed to have shared thousands of videos at a cremation ceremony in Japan. But the clip was taken in a Vietnamese crematorium in December 2024 and has nothing to do with HSU.

“I cremated the Barbie doll in Japan today, which made me cry for her orphans' children,” the Facebook video titled on February 4 is a mix of English and Tagalog.

The 59-second video shows the mourners – including the children – crying as they watch the brown coffin being sent to the crematorium.

The overlay text on the video says: “Heartbreaking, the Barbie doll's kid is still very young.”

It was shared 4,600 times before it was deleted and spread on Instagram, Threads, YouTube and Tiktok, and along with similar claims.

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Taiwanese star Barbie Hsu became popular in Asia for her leadership role in the 2001 TV series Meteor Garden and died on February 2 due to respiratory illness.

The young man of her two sisters was quoted as saying that she died after a trip to Japan during a family trip in Japan.

According to Singapore News Media Straits Age (Archive link).

But the circulating video has nothing to do with her death.

Take it away in Vietnam

Keyword search found the video surfaced on Tiktok on December 29, 2024 – months before HSU's death (archive link).

In the four-second mark of the Tiktok video, Vietnamese text can be seen on the TV screen above the metal door of the crematorium. The Vietnamese AFP bureau confirmed that the name of the deceased on the screen did not belong to HSU.

<span>Fake Video (L) and December 2024 Edit (R)</span>Comparison of screenshots of ” loading=”lazy” width=”960″ height=”552″ decoding=”async” data-nimg=”1″ class=”rounded-lg” style=”color:transparent” src=”https ://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/VdP0.zIGQ92SzyHAYKU4ow–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU1Mg–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/afp_factcheck_us_713/2b539c62888bdf84482ebd6aa56f9b64″/><button aria-label= — Comparison of screenshots of fake videos (L) and December 2024 clips (R)

The subsequent Google reverse image search resulted in a similar video posted on Tiktok on December 30, 2024, where the user identified himself as a worker at Pham Son Hai and Hoa Lac Vien Crematorium in Vietnam (archive link).

It contains several elements seen in the fake video, including the TV screen, crematorium number, coffin design and yellow figurines on the table.

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When displaying the circulating Facebook video, Pham told AFP on February 11: “The user posted the wrong content. This is Long Thanh, Dong Nai, Hoa Lac Vien Crematorium in Vietnam”.

The image of the crematorium on Google Maps also matches elements from the wrong video (archive link).