For the month of June, we’ll be looking at culinary storytelling as a map of identity, migration, and innovation. We’ll delve into how taste connects the local to the global, the past to the future, and juicy stories to mouthwatering insights.
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The biggest World Cup ever kicks off tomorrow, and the cleverest World Cup ad in China has zero football in it.
It`s a french fry kicking a blob of ketchup in the Guangzhou metro, under the line "fries that want to win dip Heinz", because Heinz isn`t a sponsor and doesn`t need to be. The brand that`s spent decades as advertising`s quiet favorite just built a repeatable grammar: "anything that wants to win is in Heinz", and is running it across China`s whole sports calendar.
34 Tomatoes for the National Games last year. Fries for the World Cup now. Heinz did it again, using a creative "hypejacking" campaign to tie itself to the World Cup.
#radii #radiimedia #heinz #guangzhou #WorldCup
The biggest World Cup ever kicks off tomorrow, and the cleverest World Cup ad in China has zero football in it.
It`s a french fry kicking a blob of ketchup in the Guangzhou metro, under the line "fries that want to win dip Heinz", because Heinz isn`t a sponsor and doesn`t need to be. The brand that`s spent decades as advertising`s quiet favorite just built a repeatable grammar: "anything that wants to win is in Heinz", and is running it across China`s whole sports calendar.
34 Tomatoes for the National Games last year. Fries for the World Cup now. Heinz did it again, using a creative "hypejacking" campaign to tie itself to the World Cup.
#radii #radiimedia #heinz #guangzhou #WorldCup
...
Luckin and Mixue are so everywhere they`ve broken into the one place that`s supposed to be empty: the Backrooms.
The Backrooms: that 2019 internet horror about endless yellow-lit corridors and liminal space just got an A24 film, and the whole aesthetic got imported into China. So Chinese creators did what they do best: fired up Photoshop and AI image generators and localized it. Out went the green-yellow office carpet, in came the food court, and plus the two chains you cannot physically escape in this country: Mixue (蜜雪冰城) and Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡).
They`re everywhere in China because of the brutal pricing: Mixue sells ice cream and tea for under a dollar, and Luckin runs on a bottomless stream of app coupons. Together they undercut everyone else and let a franchise machine carpet every street corner and mall. And now, apparently, people joke about spotting them in every liminal hallway, too.
Wonder if we can still use Alipay and WeChat Pay on Level 0 for the daily americano with one bag of sugar.
Comment ”RADII” below to join our newsletter and never miss content like this again.
#radii #radiimedia #backroom #A24 #xiaohongshu #后室 #中式后室 #Backrooms #Mixue #蜜雪冰城 #Luckin #瑞幸 #阈限空间 #ChineseInternet #liminalspace
Luckin and Mixue are so everywhere they`ve broken into the one place that`s supposed to be empty: the Backrooms.
The Backrooms: that 2019 internet horror about endless yellow-lit corridors and liminal space just got an A24 film, and the whole aesthetic got imported into China. So Chinese creators did what they do best: fired up Photoshop and AI image generators and localized it. Out went the green-yellow office carpet, in came the food court, and plus the two chains you cannot physically escape in this country: Mixue (蜜雪冰城) and Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡).
They`re everywhere in China because of the brutal pricing: Mixue sells ice cream and tea for under a dollar, and Luckin runs on a bottomless stream of app coupons. Together they undercut everyone else and let a franchise machine carpet every street corner and mall. And now, apparently, people joke about spotting them in every liminal hallway, too.
Wonder if we can still use Alipay and WeChat Pay on Level 0 for the daily americano with one bag of sugar.
Comment ”RADII” below to join our newsletter and never miss content like this again.
#radii #radiimedia #backroom #A24 #xiaohongshu #后室 #中式后室 #Backrooms #Mixue #蜜雪冰城 #Luckin #瑞幸 #阈限空间 #ChineseInternet #liminalspace
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The Cheapest Meal in the Country Quietly Became a Diet Plan.
Shaxian Delicacies (or Shaxian Snacks, 沙县小吃) has been reborn as fitness food under a new slogan: the laborer`s weight-loss cafeteria. Shops now offer high-protein sets, low-fat labels, a "hold the chicken skin" option, and even a low-GI meal plan...all at the same old prices.
In a way, it quietly exposes the whole wellness-consumerism con: you don`t need to spend big to eat clean. Forget the whole-food, kale, and chia-seed bowls. That overpriced fitness bowl you were eyeing? Your ¥12 noodles, with a little less oil, do the exact same thing.
#radii #radiimedia #沙县小吃 #shaxiansnacks沙县小吃 #streetfood
The Cheapest Meal in the Country Quietly Became a Diet Plan.
Shaxian Delicacies (or Shaxian Snacks, 沙县小吃) has been reborn as fitness food under a new slogan: the laborer`s weight-loss cafeteria. Shops now offer high-protein sets, low-fat labels, a "hold the chicken skin" option, and even a low-GI meal plan...all at the same old prices.
In a way, it quietly exposes the whole wellness-consumerism con: you don`t need to spend big to eat clean. Forget the whole-food, kale, and chia-seed bowls. That overpriced fitness bowl you were eyeing? Your ¥12 noodles, with a little less oil, do the exact same thing.
#radii #radiimedia #沙县小吃 #shaxiansnacks沙县小吃 #streetfood
...
The internet jokes that the phone eats first. In China, some restaurant was built for it.
A wave of Pretty Meal (漂亮饭) has taken over the B1 floors of Chinese malls, led by chains like NEED and O`eat. The pitch is the plating, the lighting, the setting. Taste barely enters it, because Gen Z isn`t paying for dinner. They`re paying for a thumbnail, a vibe, a few seconds of aesthetic.
But after the same dry-ice plating, camping chairs, and punch-the-clock photo walls started showing up in every city, diners coined their own verdict for the genre: 次抛型, "single-use," restaurants nobody returns to. The pretty-food boom now past a billion views across Xiaohongshu and Douyin, quietly turned into the thing collapsing it: photogenic enough to post once, never enough to come back for.
#radii #radiimedia #漂亮饭 #genzchina #foodaesthetics
The internet jokes that the phone eats first. In China, some restaurant was built for it.
A wave of Pretty Meal (漂亮饭) has taken over the B1 floors of Chinese malls, led by chains like NEED and O`eat. The pitch is the plating, the lighting, the setting. Taste barely enters it, because Gen Z isn`t paying for dinner. They`re paying for a thumbnail, a vibe, a few seconds of aesthetic.
But after the same dry-ice plating, camping chairs, and punch-the-clock photo walls started showing up in every city, diners coined their own verdict for the genre: 次抛型, "single-use," restaurants nobody returns to. The pretty-food boom now past a billion views across Xiaohongshu and Douyin, quietly turned into the thing collapsing it: photogenic enough to post once, never enough to come back for.
#radii #radiimedia #漂亮饭 #genzchina #foodaesthetics
...
There`s something that promises to save you from a messy night. Or maybe it just feels like help.
Picture herbs in your cocktail, or a pulse diagnosis before you order. A wave of TCM bars, led by Niang Qing, has hit Chinese cities.
"Punk wellness" has been thriving among Chinese Gen Z for years: wolfberries in your club beer, overtime plus Vitamin B pills. We know we`re wrecking ourselves, but we`ll save ourselves while we do it.
Chinese youth call themselves 脆皮 (crispy): a self-mocking slang term meaning easily broken and fragile, to reframe the sub-healthy state brought on by pressure, turning it into a joke and a shared identity among peers. So, between health and alcohol? Gen Z chooses getting healthy while getting drunk.
That herbal cocktail won`t save you, but it can make you feel like you`re trying. Cheers.
#radii #radiimedia #chinesefood #TCM #genz
There`s something that promises to save you from a messy night. Or maybe it just feels like help.
Picture herbs in your cocktail, or a pulse diagnosis before you order. A wave of TCM bars, led by Niang Qing, has hit Chinese cities.
"Punk wellness" has been thriving among Chinese Gen Z for years: wolfberries in your club beer, overtime plus Vitamin B pills. We know we`re wrecking ourselves, but we`ll save ourselves while we do it.
Chinese youth call themselves 脆皮 (crispy): a self-mocking slang term meaning easily broken and fragile, to reframe the sub-healthy state brought on by pressure, turning it into a joke and a shared identity among peers. So, between health and alcohol? Gen Z chooses getting healthy while getting drunk.
That herbal cocktail won`t save you, but it can make you feel like you`re trying. Cheers.
#radii #radiimedia #chinesefood #TCM #genz
...
NEWSLETTER
Get weekly top picks and exclusive, newsletter only content delivered straight to you inbox.
