A photograph of Odeleite’s dragon-shaped river in the Algarve has gone viral in China with thousands of Chinese sharing it on social media in hopes that it will bring them good fortune.
According to China Central Television (CCTV), the photo was taken by Reddit user @docious from the window of her plane while flying from Amsterdam to Marrakech, and was posted online on Monday (September 14).
“The dragon is considered an auspicious symbol in Chinese mythology. So when this photo of a river shaped a bit like the legendary creature showed up on the Internet, Chinese netizens became a little excitable,” CCTV wrote online on its Tumblr page.
It added that a “user on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo later posted the photo on her account, attracting over 30,000 reposts in less than 10 hours, with many believing the photo can bring them luck”.
According to the UK’s Daily Mail, numerous photographs of the river have emerged and been shared by fortune-seeking web users since this most recent image went viral, including one uploaded by Flickr user Steven Richards in 2010.
In Portugal, the river’s peculiar shape has earned it the nickname of Rio Dragão Azul (Blue Dragon River).
It is located in Castro Marim, near the border of Spain in the Algarve.
