We Tried is a series where RADII staff try out unique foods, experiences, and phenomena in China. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
Ah, Taobao. The e-commerce platform on which China runs.
Founded by Alibaba in 2003, the online marketplace now ships packages all over China and the world — and the diversity of available products can be staggering. If you need portable, one-man saunas, or sneaky mahjong tiles with markings only visible through special contact lenses, or if you just need someone to call up your ex and yell at them, Taobao has you covered.
This time around, we just dived in, and ordered like five pounds of giant gummy candies from Hubei province. Next time, who knows?
Digitally China is a bi-weekly podcast from RADII hosted by Tom Xiong and Eva Xiao, and produced by Jacob Loven. On each episode, the team will tackle a different timely tech-related topic, providing key insights on all you need to know about the fast-changing nature of innovation in China. Find previous episodes of Digitally China here and subscribe on iTunes here.
In China’s fast-growing tech industry, it’s easy to focus on exciting new products and businesses while overlooking one of the most important elements of any company: the talent.
In this episode, we look at how the recruiting process at Chinese tech firms does — and doesn’t — differ from that of multinational firms, and how China’s new wave of tech professionals view their career options.
We examine
Incentives/disincentives for working at multinational firms vs. Chinese internet companies
There are two types of people in this world — those who would line up for four hours in Chongqing’s 100F+ summer swelterto buy a cup of milk tea, and those who are not fans of Karry Wang.
Ever since July 1, when the parents of the mega-star/TFBoy opened up a small milk tea store called Star Karry in Chongqing,throngs of fans have wrapped around the block of Shidai Road, all queuing with characteristic fangirl ardor for a cup.
There’s no special ingredient, limited-edition flavor, or culinary-marketing genius that makes this drink worthy of a four hour wait. It’s actually something much stronger: the power of 小鲜肉 (xiao xian rou — literally, little fresh meat, a term used to refer to young, fresh-faced pop stars).
Bubble tea shop open by Karry’s family. ? CHA FOR U 星卡里 – in Chongqing. When you go to Chongqing, don’t forget to stop by and support yo ~ ??? PS : Karry’s mommy and daddy are so cute and loving. ?? #王俊凯#karrywang#wangjunkaipic.twitter.com/cs0vw013gx
Maybe Wang’s parents just wanted to break into the market, maybe they genuinely enjoy brewing milk tea, or maybe they just wanted to make Western China’s oppressive summer heat pass more quickly. But most likely, they were banking on their son’s youth, freshness, and armies of fans to rack up sales.
A testament to pop cultural currents in China today, the popularity and omnipresence of the xiaoxianrou phenomenon has defined advertising, TV, the music industry, and now, the milk tea revenue of Wang’s parents.
Star Karry is a prime example of just how lucrative celebrity branding can be in China. Any fangirl could tell you that block-long lines, hours of mindless waiting, and unbearable weather conditions stand no chance in the face of obsession, devotion, lust, and all the other carnal emotions that characterize stans of celebrity idols. In this economy (that is, the fan economy), the clout surrounding xiao xian rou idols translates directly to sales, brand visibility, and big bucks.
Digital and social media have given rise to new forms of fandom and fan culture, and it’s now easier than ever before for fans to feel very real emotional connections to idols who they’ve never met. Livestreams, vlogs, variety shows, and other forms of digital interaction all serve to help celebrities forge seemingly deep relationships with their admirers and fans, eliminating barriers of space, time and formality. The result is an increasingly interaction-driven, emotionally invested fandom — a fandom that is driven by participatory culture.
The truth is, celebrity cafes have long been unabashedly surviving off of the fandom’s desire to participate. Such is the case across South Korea, where cafes owned by the family members of Korean pop stars regularly sport long lines of dedicated fans, all desperate to make a purchase in the name of their idols.
And in another example of recent xiao xian rou market forces, fellow idol Huang Zitao, or ZTAO, has partnered with popular Chinese IP derivatives brand 52TOYS — the pop star released a limited-edition series of astronaut-themed toy dolls, which fully sold out in just two days.
Marketing veterans will tell you that there’s no hard and fast approach to guarantee sales. But looking at the numbers behind all this little fresh meat, finding a winning strategy might be easier than we’d once thought.
Released in mid-June, Over the Sea I Come to You is a Chinese drama that follows the stories of four families sending their children to pursue higher education in the United States.
But, with a 3.5/10 review on ratings site Douban, the Dragon TV-Zhejiang TV co-production has become one of the worst-rated shows in history.
The drama aims to show how children and parents learn to exchange perspectives and foster understanding during the most rebellious years of pre-adulthood, yet their efforts have yielded a product that some netizens say “belongs in the harmful waste bin”.
So what has incited all the fury towards this show? What went wrong?
Here are some snippets that reveal an unprecedented fusion of bizarre plot devices and unrealistic characters.
At US customs, an officer turns the father away, suspecting his tendency to overstay in the countries he visits. After attempting to explain the reasons behind his visit, the father starts to sing. The officer ends up accepting the plea, granting his visit and extending his week-long residency limit to six months.
The father and the son are relieved after getting through customs. But a few moments later, the father has changed into a TV-ready hip hop outfit, explaining that he’s trying to look like Steph Curry.
Fast-forward to the son at his university. One day, a masked gunman shows up and kills several students (is this the mirror we need, America??). Instead of escaping the crime scene, the father and the son dash inside the building and run into the felon. The father ends up dodging a bullet and vanquishing the criminal with his bare hands. Yep.
The gun violence scene and the father’s act of heroism both come out of left field, leaving many netizens questioning the plausibility of the events.
Another scene raising controversy features a student who claimed that anyone with money could easily pass interviews in America. He confesses that he used to do poorly in class, but has become a straight-A student since starting up classes in the US.
It kind of goes without saying that the show oversimplifies the challenges faced by international students, both socially and academically when adapting to a new environment.
“Most of us work hard and have no time for superficial trifles,” comments one netizen.
Maybe the director wants to draw attention to China’s “spoiled generation,” who are raised by booming middle-class parents, all of whom pay great fortunes to shape a better future for their kids. Maybe the show intends to demonize life in America and discourage fantasies that glorify life in overseas countries. Maybe the show is just telling the same old unbelievable stories, only in a different country this time.
But regardless of its intention, with its melodramatic plotlines and lack of real understanding, the show has clearly failed to win the public’s heart.
“If zero stars were possible, I wouldn’t have rated it one,” reads one of the most-liked comments on Douban.
Last weekend, the 43rd session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. The committee, first convened in Paris in 1977, is tasked with formally elevating sites of cultural, historical, and natural importance to its independently maintained World Heritage Site list, which as of last week’s session includes 1,121 sites in 167 countries.
29 new sites were added to the list during the recent session, including two in China: a series of migratory bird sanctuaries in China’s Bohai Gulf, and the archaeological site of Liangzhu in modern-day Zhejiang province, whose ruins date back more than 5,300 years.
UNESCO world heritage sites in China as of July 2019 (Wikipedia)
Following these two additions, China now has the most UNESCO-designated World Heritage Sites of any modern nation-state, at 55 total. (Italy is now runner-up, at 54.) China’s entries on the list include some archaeological greatest hits (such as the Great Wall and the Mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor, where the Terracotta Soldiers reside) alongside sites of natural or ecological significance (such as Wulingyuan, where Avatar was filmed, and the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries).
At the conclusion of the 43rd session, it was also announced that Fuzhou, the capital of the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, will host the committee’s 44th meeting next year. Fujian province currently has three sites on the UNESCO list: Wuyi Mountain, added in 1999; Fujian tulou, a distinctive type of roundhouse architecture characteristic of the region’s Hakka people; and danxia, a unique petrographic landform concentrated in southern China. Sanfang Qixiang, a network of lanes and alleys in central Fuzhou dating to the Tang dynasty, was added to the World Heritage Site’s Tentative List in 2013, and given an Honorable Mention in 2015.
Chinese State newspaper Xinhuareported from the announcement ceremony in Baku:
[Chinese Vice Minister of Education] Tian [Xuejun] was elected as chairman of the 44th session of the committee. In his speech, Tian said that China would work to fully cooperate with the World Heritage Center to host a successful session next year and make contributions to world cultural exchanges, sustainable development and the building of a community with a shared future for humankind.
In recent years, China has shown increased interest in global, multi-national organizations such as UNESCO. China’s expanding role within UNESCO was made more pronounced by the January 1, 2019 withdrawal of the United States from the organization, which the U.S. co-founded in in the aftermath of the Second World War. “China values the importance of Unesco and would like to contribute more to the organisation’s cooperation,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said at a press briefing in Beijing soon after the U.S. announced its plan to withdraw, according to the South China Morning Post. Dr. Hao Ping, who from 2013-2015 served as the first Director-General of UNESCO from China, is now the Communist Party Secretary of Peking University, China’s most prestigious institute of higher learning.
To learn more about how the Chinese State’s official narrative about its own history and cultural importance might intersect with the status conferred by bodies such as the World Heritage Committee, read the first installment in RADII’s new Archaeology column, Testing the Past, which examines how the recently UNESCO-certified site of Liangzhu is reviving China’s claims to “5,000 years of continuous history”:
We Tried is a series where RADII staff try out unique foods, experiences, and phenomena in China. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
In China, there’s more to your average TCM/massage parlor than just traditional massage. At most places, you can get anything from your neck scraped and back suctioned to your face tickled and even your nose picked.
Then there’s the ears — those overworked, but often neglected little flaps that never get the TLC they truly deserve. Luckily, Chinese clinics have thought of that as well, and offer an hour-long treatment to scrape, vibrate, tickle and tease out your ear wax for 138RMB (20USD).
This week on We Tried, we put RADII staff Mayura Jain and Li Zhang on the table to see how pleasant or painful ear cleaning actually is — (spoiler alert: it’s kind of awesome!) — and witness the unpleasant discovery of what really builds up inside our ears.
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