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“A Painful Read”: New Report on the Dangers Facing China’s Delivery Drivers Goes Viral

One of the most shared articles today on Chinese messaging app WeChat is “Delivery Drivers, Stuck in the System” (link in Chinese), which has sparked a heated discussion among Chinese netizens regarding the worsening conditions that the country’s network of 7 million delivery drivers are facing.

Published by People magazine — one of the most influential human-interest story publications in the Chinese mainland — the article looks at the personal side of the country’s ubiquitous, life-changing delivery apps, weaving a tale of immense pressure and serious risk of accident courtesy of the apps’ competing algorithms and targets. Employing traffic data from a slew of police reports, using first-hand comprehensive narratives from a mixed group of delivery drivers, workers involved in the delivery distribution network and academic scholars, the article takes a deep dive and concludes that delivery driver has become one of the most high-risk occupations in modern-day China.

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The report quickly went viral on mega-app WeChat (hitting over 100,000 views within a few hours) and sparked a corresponding hashtag on microblogging platform Weibo that also rapidly attracted tens of thousands of views. The story puts a renewed spotlight on both Meituan and Eleme — the two major players that dominate China’s food delivery landscape and who have long attracted both praise (for such efficient services) and criticism (in particular for their environmental impact).

The article highlights that Chinese delivery apps have significantly reduced the maximum time allowed for each order in the last few years. This is a result of intense competition and improved algorithms for optimizing profit for the company, but naturally places the drivers in increasingly risky scenarios as they drive against the flow of traffic, speed and skip red lights to deliver on time. Failing to finish orders within the time limit can lead to a significant reduction of payment per order and a less advantaged position in future order assignment for the drivers, yet the article alleges that the apps’ back-ends use unrealistic route mapping to estimate delivery times (for example, using walking routes instead of motorbike routes, meaning drivers are forced to break traffic rules to arrive “on time”).

All of this takes place against a back-drop of hazardous working conditions: extreme weather (which naturally sees an increase in orders), packed and inconvenient elevators inside buildings, delayed order preparation from restaurants, unreasonable requests from customers, poorly-designed internal training systems, and problematic job welfare. The report points out that these factors inevitably set barriers for drivers in meeting the assigned targets while delivering orders.

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Such risks are not particularly well rewarded. According to the statistics, only 2.15% of the entire workforce of drivers earn more than 10,000RMB (around 1,461USD) per month, while more than half of them interviewed are finding it difficult to make basic ends meet.

Chinese netizens have responded with a mix of reactions — empathy, pain, concern, and anger.

The most upvoted comment under the original article on WeChat reads, “Actually I have asked a couple of people around me — most people don’t care if an order arrives two minutes early, or ten minutes late. The delivery platforms could be more tolerant towards drivers — we are not in that much of a rush.”

“I finished reading the article in a painful state,” writes another commenter. “To be honest, the problems revealed about the food delivery industry are hazardous. While we enjoy the convenience [brought by the delivery apps], we are exploiting the safety of drivers. If I could, I would rather not ask [orders] to arrive fast [in the future].”

One user suggests a possible way to save trouble for both customers and drivers, “When I order deliveries, I usually order one hour beforehand, [which as a result] I don’t have to push delivery drivers, and it won’t delay my meals. So Meituan and Eleme please be more human.”

The last few years, especially in the wake of Covid-19, China has seen an explosive growth in the food delivery market as the incomparable accessibility and convenience of China’s delivery ecosystem has supported busy workers and foodies. While discussions about the well-being of delivery drivers have appeared here and there, there haven’t been coordinated efforts in addressing this issue. Yet interestingly, another result of the coronavirus pandemic was an increase in respect for delivery drivers in China, as people across the country leant heavily on their services during lockdowns.

So far, Meituan has declined to comment on the issue while no updates from Eleme have been published. Update: In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Eleme announced a new feature that allows users to state that they are willing to wait an extra 5 or 10 minutes for their food delivery orders. Meituan also belatedly announced a similar feature — with an 8 minute wait.

It remains to be seen whether these two delivery giants will introduce new methods to adjust their algorithms and utilize a more human-centric approach to address the mounting concerns around safety and job security for delivery drivers. However, at the very least, there is now increased awareness around such issues from the people on the other end of the transactions: the customers.

Here’s How Second-Tier Taxi Apps May Dethrone China’s Ride-Share King

Didi is China’s biggest ride-share company. The app fought off international competition by driving Uber out of the country, and currently clocks over 550 million users and tens of millions of drivers in Asia, Australia, and South America. Founded in June 2012, it now holds an over 80% share of China’s private ride-hailing market.

For years, Didi seemed untouchable. But a few small companies in China’s second-tier cities are starting to nip at its heels.

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A channel on Chinese messaging app WeChat called “Deep Echo” (深响) recently published a wide-ranging look at the industry in China. In particular, it highlighted the growing phenomenon of smaller scale ride-share companies.

A company named T3 Travel announced in August that it had signed A-list actress Zhou Dongyu as the brand’s first spokesperson. They’re currently ranked ninth nationwide in terms of market share, but their goal is to gain 20% of the market in each of its operating cities, and are expanding rapidly.

Another car-hailing company based in southern China, Ruqi Travel, is expanding its services after getting investment from Guangzhou Automobile Group, Tencent, and Guangzhou Public Transport Group. The one-year old brand operates in the city of Guangzhou, and is about to start service in urban Foshan.

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While these are just two companies, over the past two years there has been a significant increase in the number of ride-share apps attempting to enter the market. The article points out that second-tier ride-share apps may also have advantages that Didi does not.

Specialized apps in second-tier cities have close connections to the local area, and a higher probability of success in tasks such as obtaining license plates.

For ride sharing, service is still king, and smaller businesses are often able to provide better service both for passengers and drivers. Hexing Travel, for instance, has registered all their drivers as full-time employees, and provides specialized training in health, safety, and service skills.

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Meanwhile Didi is a huge company, and as a result faces major oversight and regulation that make it harder to keep up with the more nimble little guys. It also has faced issued with compliance costs, a tarnished public image in the wake of several grisly controversies, and a business model that struggles to account for the whole country.

The company had a watershed summer in 2018, during which several passengers were murdered by their drivers. Didi publicly apologized and implemented several safety features into the app in response — including a button that connects passengers to local police — but the news permanently affected public perception of Didi’s quality control and safety measures.

The company is constantly walking the tightrope between controlling costs and improving service, and if smaller providers are able to outdo Didi in customer experience, we may see a mounting threat to Didi’s dominance.

Despite a growing threat to its dominance, Didi still holds the majority share in the market. In August, the China Transportation and Communication Information Centre released data on the national presence of 98 ride-share and car-hailing companies. Didi still led the list, established in 306 cities.

But with ride-hailing brands Wanshun in second place at 272 cities, and Shouqi in third at 141, competition seems to be on the rise.

Why Have Beijing Authorities Seized Jackie Chan’s “Marijuana Mansion”?

Two of Jackie Chan’s luxury mansions in Beijing — including the home where his son was infamously arrested for distributing marijuana and harboring drug users — have been abruptly seized by authorities.

Details are few but speculation abounds as fans work to figure out what’s happening. A prevailing theory is that Jackie Chan may be facing blowback over old tax evasion; he bought the property for 13 million RMB (around $2 million USD), a 20.6 million RMB discount over the original purchasing price, in exchange for a celebrity endorsement of the property. The differential was converted directly into credit for his use, without passing through official tax channels.

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Celebrity tax evasion has been the subject of heated public discussion in China ever since fellow A-lister Fan Bingbing was exposed over “ying yang contracts.”

Still, the timing of the seizure has raised some eyebrows. At a tense time in the world, Jackie Chan is a vocal supporter of China’s government with major influence in Hong Kong and the US — why move now, after Jackie’s family lived in the home for 13 years?

Some speculate that the roots of the decision may go deeper than tax evasion, and that the sudden seizure of Jackie Chan’s properties could be related to the government’s inner workings.

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Jackie Chan has long been a pseudo-governmental figure in China with a host of powerful friends, even drawing public ire over the official military license plate on his car which allowed him to bypass tolls and other fees. But most of Jackie’s connections are through the Jiang clique, a camp of older officials who have butted heads with the current administration. The timing of the pressure on Jackie Chan seems to line up with the end of China’s high-power Beidaihe meeting, and subsequent pressure on other officials from the clique.

Jackie Chan’s real life is starting to be more exciting than his movies — after his son’s highly-publicized jail time, and his daughter’s recent marriage to her influencer girlfriend, the seizure of his Beijing mansions is only the most recent plot development.

5 Chinese Medicine Herbs You Can Use at Home

We owe a lot to the advancements of modern medicine. But Western medicine, and the shadowy figures in pharmaceutical board rooms, may be missing some of the bigger picture.

Powerful prescriptions and hands-on surgeries can be necessary — but in the long term, they can also lead to recurring symptoms, side effects, and general imbalances in the body.

Acupuncture and herbal medicine practitioner Emily Siy

With all that said, it’s no surprise that public curiosity about holistic medicine is on the rise. Emily Siy, an acupuncture and herbal medicine practitioner based in New York City, says there are, in fact, fundamental differences in outlook between Chinese and Western medicine. She says:

“Traditional Chinese Medicine doesn’t prescribe the same treatment for one condition. Instead, it’s important to discuss an individual’s unique presentation, condition, and tendencies.

“Treatment should always be customized to the individual — that’s why TCM is successful, but sometimes difficult to understand for those who come from a Western background.”

“Difficult to understand” is a recurring theme. Feelings toward traditional Chinese medicine in the US tend to skew negative — the practice often gets conflated with pseudoscience and exotic animal abuse, or viewed as a primitive and outdated forerunner to modern medicine.

When the World Health Organization endorsed TCM, Forbes told us that we should “expect deaths to rise.” When scientists hypothesized that Covid-19 could have been transmitted to humans by pangolins, the internet was quick to point fingers at the underground TCM trade, where the animal has been hunted for the supposed medicinal properties of its scales.

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Wildlife trade, especially the trade of endangered animals, is a very serious concern. But for most of the world’s Chinese medicine users, endangered animals play no role in treatment. That subsection is incredibly small compared to the proportion of TCM users who focus on standard wellness practices such as massage, acupuncture, and herbal medicine.

“There are misunderstandings around TCM and herbal medicine. The US has a long history of xenophobia and anti-Chinese sentiments, and it does affect how TCM is viewed in the West,” says Siy.

“The US tends to hold Western culture above others, labeling other traditional medicine systems as ‘alternative’ or non-valid forms of medicine. There are evidence-based research studies on different forms of Chinese medicine, but writers will often claim that it’s pseudoscience.”

Principles throughout holistic and herbal medicine have been backed up by modern scientific testing, however, and more connections are being discovered each day.

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But before we dive in, let’s not get too excited — in most cases, you still need a professional.

“It is not typical to use single herbs in Chinese medicine. There’s an art and science to combining herbs,” says Siy. “This is the difference between using herbs and prescribing herbal medicine. In Chinese medicine, herbs are combined in order to enhance their functions, create new functions, or to modify an herb that could be too strong or potentially toxic. Single herbs are much more limited in their usage.”

For beginners wanting to explore the world of Chinese herbal medicine, however, here is our guide to some basic, single herbs backed by science that you can start using at home.

1. Chrysanthemum

“Chrysanthemum flowers are a popular tea at dim sum,” says Siy. “It’s a good summer drink, and helps to cool you down.”

What does it mean to cool you down? In Chinese medicine, herbs are classified by their energetic properties, rather than chemical components. Chrysanthemum is known for its cooling effect, and so is used to fight off conditions associated with excess heat.

“It can help with early signs of a sore throat or fever. It can also help with red, itchy eyes and certain skin irritations.”

2. Black Sesame Seeds

TCM knowledge notwithstanding, any Chinese food fan worth their salt will be familiar with this one.

Sesame seeds are believed to be one of the world’s earliest spices to be put into use. Black sesame is a common ingredient in Chinese cuisine, but the seeds themselves can also be consumed on their own for medicinal purposes.

“Black sesame seeds are abundant in vitamins and nutrients,” explains Siy. “In Chinese medicine they’re known for promoting healthy hair growth and delaying graying. Others use black sesame seed for constipation, dizziness, numbness, or to increase breast milk production.”

The seeds are usually harvested in early autumn just after ripening, and sun-dried before they’re consumed. Their oil content helps to lubricate the intestines, adding to a food that’s already naturally high in fiber.

3. Goji Berries

Goji berries, also called Chinese wolfberries, have skyrocketed in popularity over the past couple decades as a trendy superfood.

But are goji berries really that good for you? The answer seems to be a resounding “yes.”

“Goji berries help retain moisture in the body,” says Siy. “They can be used to promote a healthy skin complexion, or to combat certain eye conditions, especially dryness.”

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Chinese medicine’s use of goji berries for skin, eye, and liver health has been backed by the scientific community. One study found that seniors who drank goji berry juice for 90 days developed markedly increased amounts of certain antioxidants, while a second study found that goji berries protect the retina from glaucoma-causing ganglion cells.

Research on animal models shows that goji berries can promote liver health and stop the progression of alcohol-induced disease, and when mice were given 5% goji juice, it gave them enough antioxidants to protect against UV light damage and skin disorders.

How much more super can you get?

4. Ginger

“Ginger has many anti-inflammatory properties,” says Siy. “It can help with upset digestion, nausea, and is safe to use for morning sickness. Taken early, ginger can be used to help fight off colds and the flu.”

In Chinese medicine, ginger is known for its warming properties — think about your mom pouring a warm cup of tea with ginger and lemon when you’re feeling sick.

Warming ingredients encourage the flow of qi — energy in the body seen as important in traditional Chinese medicine — and fluids in the body, which is why you may sweat when eating spicy food. In Chinese medicine, that heat is thought to strengthen the wei qi, the TCM version of the immune system.

If chrysanthemum tea is your summer cool down, make ginger your winter warmer.

5. Astragalus

“This is a great herb to help with the fatigue that can come after a long illness,” says Siy. “Astragalus can be helpful for those with weak lung conditions, and can help boost energy and immunity. However, it’s not appropriate to use while you’re actively sick.”

This may be the only herb in our list that you’ve never heard of before. So what is astragalus?

Astragalus, also called huangqi (黄芪) or Mongolian milkvetch, is one of the fifty fundamental herbs of Chinese medicine. And although there are over 2,000 species of astragalus, only two — Astragalus membranaceus and Astragalus mongholicus — are used primarily as medicines.

Chinese medicine users take astragalus to invigorate qi, promote yang energy (of yin and yang fame), and bolster the body’s wei qi defenses.

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Outside of Asia, many still view Chinese medicine through the shroud of exotic mystery.

However in daily practice, there’s often nothing exotic about it — our bodies want to be in balance, and traditional Chinese medicine seeks to restore that balance in nuanced ways.

“Cultural differences make many people misunderstand the medicine,” says Siy. “In the US, people often wait for the symptoms to become severe before seeking help. Not everyone has access to healthcare, and hospital bills always play a role. Chinese medicine is about health maintenance and disease prevention — it can be hard to understand that one should have been using herbal medicine the whole time.”

But by listening to our bodies and taking care of ourselves in little ways, we might find that those doctor visits become less and less frequent.

All illustrations: Helen Haoyi Yu

Why is Pepe the Frog Trending in China?

Chinese social media has been overflowing with images of Pepe the Frog, also known as the “sad frog meme,” to the point that it’s now trending on microblogging platform Weibo. What’s happening?

Today is Qixi Festival in China, the so-called “Chinese Valentine’s Day.” As couples prepare to celebrate the festival together, singles have used Pepe the Frog to express their loneliness.

“I’m the frog your friends set up as your Qixi Festival date” (image: Weibo)

In the United States, Pepe represents an entirely different movement. In the run-up to the 2016 election, the meme became associated with the alt-right, and was repurposed on 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit to symbolize racist or offensive viewpoints.

In China, however, Pepe has become a general symbol for disillusioned youth — their frustrations and worries are conveyed through memes, and Pepe is a central figure. During the Qixi Festival, the sentiment is no different; young people face mounting pressure to succeed, as well as pressure from family to marry. It’s no wonder then that this festival of love has catalyzed an uptick in self-defeatism.

In addition, the sound frogs make — “guagua” (呱呱) — in Mandarin Chinese sounds similar to the word “lonely” (gugua, 孤寡), which people have used to poke fun at their single friends and at themselves.

“Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely…” (image: Weibo)

The “Qixi frog” is even available as a virtual service on Chinese ecommerce platforms Taobao and Pinduoduo. Users can pay between 0.5RMB (less than 0.1 USD) to 100RMB (around 14.5USD) for pictures, text, and voice messages from the “lonely frog” for a set duration of time, according to Beijing News.

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Pepe’s popularity is part of a wider phenomenon in China known as “sang” (丧), which uses dark humor to explore feelings of detachment, apathy, and readiness to suffer. For young netizens, Pepe the Frog has become an easy way to comment on life’s disappointments.

So while the controversial frog’s place on the Weibo trending chart may raise some eyebrows in the US, rest assured: in China, it’s just another meme.

Is Chinese TV Biased Against Non-Mandarin Music?

China’s hit rap competition The Rap of China has been making plenty of noise this month, with its fourth season debuting on Friday, August 14 on China’s Netflix, iQIYI. The latest season has also brought the question of so-called “dialect rap” back into the national conversation, after an incident got netizens talking online.

Guangdong rapper SOULHAN auditioned for this year’s The Rap of China rapping in his native Cantonese, but a new judge on the show, Mandopop star Jane Zhang, asked if he had provided a Mandarin verse instead. The rapper did not have one, and SOULHAN did not earn a place on the show in the end. The incident stirred up anger on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo after SOULHAN posted about the incident.

One of the most upvoted comments under his post implied that the show was out of touch, saying, “A hip hop TV show asking Jane Zhang to join is already very un-hip hop.” In China, Zhang is best known as a Mandopop singer, but has collaborated with rappers such as Big Sean.

“Why are Cantonese songs not okay?” wrote another.

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Speaking about the incident, SOULHAN told RADII, “I respect the decision made by Jane Zhang. In recent years, people have lost faith in Cantonese rap, as more and more people believe only Mandarin hip hop could attract traffic. But I will continue to engage in efforts in promoting Cantonese rap and make it work.”

Similarly in the opening episode of the second season of rock music-focused variety show The Big Band, Guangdong folk rock group Wutiaoren decided to change their performance at the last minute. Scrapping their pre-planned Mandarin language song, they instead performed “Doshan Boy” (Daoshan Liangzai 道山靓仔) sung in the dialect of small-town Haifeng, in east Guangdong province.

The exact reason behind the change was unclear, though some speculated that it may have been an act of rebellion against the judge’s preference for Mandarin-language songs. Wutiaoren were given a low score and were initially supposed to be eliminated from the show, but were later brought back.

Shows like The Rap of China and The Big Band have made no bones about the fact that they prefer Mandarin lyrics over regional languages such as Cantonese or Shanghainese, as they aim to appeal to the mass market.

However, as these forms of underground music have increasingly found itself pushed into the spotlight on streaming platforms like iQIYI, musicians performing and writing in regional languages have been forced by necessity to sing in Mandarin, or have been pushed to the sidelines.

“The commercial value of Mandarin music appeals to the media, and that explains why Mandarin songs are preferred predominantly on TV programs,“ Zhou Yulou, a senior linguistics student at Stanford, tells RADII. Zhou also participated in the now-defunct dialect music variety show 1.3 Billion DB in 2016, a key example of how music using regional languages and dialects has struggled to gain a hold on modern media.

Produced by iQIYI and first aired in 2016, 1.3 Billion DB (十三亿分贝) invited people to sing songs in languages and dialects from their respective regions of China. While the show garnered positive feedback from its audience, it was discontinued the following year, as it struggled to bring in online traffic nationwide compared to other entertainment TV programs.

The Push for Mandarin in Media

China’s efforts to promote Mandarin as its primary language began as early as the founding of China in 1949. In 2019, the penetration rate of putonghua (普通话) — the modern, standardized form of Mandarin language, adopted for use as the common language in China — had reached over 80%, compared to that of 53% nearly 20 years ago in 2000.

Earlier this year, short video and video streaming platform Douyin (the TikTok equivalent in China) reportedly banned video-bloggers from using languages other than Mandarin during live streaming, warning users to “take care of different language needs” across the country.

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The entertainment industry has closely regulated the use of dialects as well. As early as 2005, China’s National Radio and Television Administration created a dialect ban for all TV dramas except for “special needs,” such as in the case of regional operas like Sichuan opera. The mixing of English words with Mandarin has also been discouraged elsewhere, with the justification that it might disrupt the overall quality of TV programs.

Interestingly, the film industry has been able to escape this trouble to an extent as regulations have tended to be less stringent for movies. In the past two years, there has actually been a growth in movie productions that use local languages and dialects. According to statistics from People’s Daily, there were around 20 domestically-produced movies in 2018 and 2019 that used local dialects, a noteworthy increase compared to previous years. In particular, a couple of well-known Chinese directors have seemingly favored dialect language in their works — Jia Zhangke’s 2018 hit film Ash is Purest White uses Jin Chinese dialect from Shanxi province, while rumor has it that award-winning Hong Kong based film director Wong Kar-wai’s first-ever TV series Blossoms Shanghai will be filmed entirely in Shanghainese.

“I feel the next ten years could be the last period of growth for dialect music and dialect-based new media,” says Zhou. He adds that he believes “dialects might become a symbol of regional culture, and will survive in areas where cultural identity is strong” but that the role of dialect music will eventually “become similar to that of opera [in China]” — largely seen as a high-brow art form, rather than appealing to the mainstream.

How Similar are Dialect Languages to Mandarin?

Some regional languages have found success, however, within the mainstream market. The languages of Sichuan and Chongqing — two of the newer epicenters of Chinese hip-hop — have increasingly had a greater presence in music as prominent rappers from the region gained national recognition. Rap crews CDC from Chengdu and GO$H from Chongqing are among the most famous and well-respected rap crews in the country.

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One reason that could account for Sichuan and Chongqing’s popularity is the similarity of Sichuanese (spoken in Sichuan province and the neighboring metropolis of Chongqing) to standard Mandarin. Both belong to the general Mandarin (or guanhua 官话) category and share around 48% of the same vocabulary; most words in Sichuanese are also phonologically similar or identical to Mandarin, apart from the tones. Therefore those who understand Mandarin are most likely to capture the meaning of Sichuanese by paying a bit more attention.

But regional languages from southeastern China, such as Cantonese and Shanghainese, are drastically different from standard Mandarin, setting language barriers for audiences outside of these areas. (Cantonese, for instance, sounds completely distinct from Mandarin and has six tones, while Mandarin has only four.)

This linguistic difference can in some ways help account for the limited spread of Cantonese rap in China, compared to the more widespread Sichuanese rap music, though Cantonese is the third most spoken language in China, with more than 90 million native speakers. While Cantonese language music was all the rage in the ’90s — in the form of iconic Cantopop — interest from the music industry has gradually shifted to the Chinese mainland, with idols from Hong Kong such as Kris Wu, G.E.M., and Jackson Wang focusing their efforts on Mandarin language songs for a mainland Chinese audience.

It is worth looking at Shanghainese in this context as well. Perhaps because of the city’s distinct geopolitical significance, as well as a push for its revival by local communities and government, there has been a trend in Shanghai to protect Shanghainese through both bottom-up and top-down approaches. Local public schools have been setting up Shanghainese language lessons as early as kindergarten, while Shanghainese-speaking teachers have been employed in all elementary schools.

Local Music and Personal Stories

As music genres like hip hop go global, drawing from a mixture of different cultural elements and influences can be a potent force for artists looking to make a genre their own. Perhaps most importantly, artists using local languages can help get their stories right — as a substantial amount of rap content focuses on personal stories.

Zhou posits that the market for music in languages such as Cantonese is out there, referencing Mongolia in this context, which has a population of only three million people but can nevertheless support its own music industry. The trouble in China is perhaps the sheer number of regional languages and dialects throughout the country, as well as its government’s decades-long push to make Mandarin its common language. “China is a homogeneous market,” Zhou observes, “and media wants to profit from its audience nationwide.”

For that reason, it’s hard to understate the role that TV shows like The Rap of China and The Big Band play in the survival of regional languages and dialects in popular music.

Header image: Guangdong rapper SOULHAN