Category Archives: Uncategorized

New York State Will Celebrate Its First “China Day” this October 1

Don’t get yours hopes up kids, you still have to go to school for this one! But it looks like we can add “China Day” to a long list of celebrations kids won’t be getting time off of school for after the New York State Senate passed a resolution to recognize October 1 as China Day. The first week of October this year will also be designated as Chinese American Heritage Week in New York.

October 1 is a national holiday in China, as the date marks the founding of the People’s Republic — and October 1 2019 will be the 70th anniversary of this occasion.

But we guess this “China Day” will be different to the one that’s been going on in New York since last year:

new york fashion week nyfw china day
Alibaba’s Tmall is Taking Over New York Fashion Week With a “China Day” This Week
Article Sep 09, 2018

So what’s up with this new China Day? The resolution supporting it was brought by James Sanders Jr, state senator representing the 10th Senatorial District in Queens and one very snappy dresser. Sanders said the day was about recognizing the importance of good relations between New York and China, going on to declare that,

“We are breaking down walls of misunderstanding in a day like today where there is enough tension in the air.”

The resolution highlights the trading relationship between both China and the US in general, and China and New York State in particular. As of 2019, China is the biggest exporter to the US with 19% market share worth more than 430 billion USD. The resolution states that, “The State of New York exported $3.3 billion worth of products to China, making the 8th largest foreign market for the State
of New York, and the bilateral trade and investment have created tens of thousands of jobs in the State of New York.”

 

David Carlucci, 38th District Representative, says their attitude towards the situation is, “If our President is going to have problems we are going to make sure that those problems don’t exist in New York State, and that our partnership remains strong and vibrant.”

The motion also aims “to strengthen the friendship and bilateral relationship between the State of New York and Chinese Americans”, noting the contribution made by laborers of Chinese heritage to the Transcontinental Railroad and that “1 in 5 Chinese Americans enlisted to serve in World War II”.

Related:
transcontinental railway railroad chinese immigrants laborers
Chinese Exclusion: Celebrating the Workers Who Helped Build the Transcontinental Railway
150 years ago this month, one of the most famous photographs in American history commemorated the completion of the transcontinental railway. But where are the Chinese workers who played a key role in building the railroad?
Article May 14, 2019

Sadly, designating a month or a week annually to this segment of the population invites the idea that for the rest of the year, the contributions of nearly 7% of the US population can be overlooked. Still, China Day may well be a move in the right direction — let’s see exactly how it gets marked in New York State. And hey, it wouldn’t hurt if there was a parade, or even a half day off, maybe?

Cover photo: Andre Benz on Unsplash

618: China’s “Other” Shopping Festival by the Numbers

Since Liu Qiangdong founded ecommerce giant JD.com (aka Jingdong or simply JD) in Beijing on June 18, 1998, the company has been increasingly promoting online sales with exclusive coupons and brand collaborations to celebrate its anniversary. Where Alibaba has the headline-grabbing Singles’ Day, JD has the slightly lower profile “618” shopping event, a dose of mid-year shopping mania that has spread to other ecommerce platforms across China (including, oddly, Alibaba’s Tmall).

So how did it go down in 2019? Here are some of the key stats.

3C products (computer, communication, and consumer electronics) still constitute the majority of 618 sales. From June 1 to June 18 (the site spins its anniversary out for longer than a mere 24 hours of course) the total transaction volume on JD.com reached 201.5 billion RMB.

Despite China’s apparent breakneck dive into all things digital, books were one of the fastest-growing sales categories for 618 this year. Tmall reported that book sales increased by 550% compared to the same period last year. That means that the number of books sold in 3 minutes during the 618 promotions period this year exceeded the one-hour sale number in 2018.

Related:

China Gears Up for JD.com’s Massive “618 Sale”
Article Jun 17, 2017

At the same time, more young people are splurging on luxury products. The number of consumers under 25-years-old who purchased luxury products was up by 50% compared to last year.

Demand for beauty products also saw strong growth this year. The sales of moisturizer, body serum and eye cream increased by over 100% each. Among all beauty products, cosmetic medicine saw a sales volume 572% higher than that in 2018. And sales weren’t just going to female consumers — sales of male beauty products saw a 522% increase within the first hour of 618, reinforcing the ongoing trend of changes in beauty standards and the perception of machismo in China.

Finally, although consumers in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou still snatched most of the 618 sales, the top three cities with the most accelerated sales “performance” in 2019 were Beitun and Tumxuk in Xinjiang, and Qingdao in Shandong province. Moreover, on cut-price deals platform Pinduoduo alone, over 70% of sales came from tier-3 or below cities.

Related:

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How a Cut-Price Upstart Took on Alibaba and JD to Become China’s Fastest-Growing E-Commerce Platform
Group-buying, bargain-sharing platform Pinduoduo has gone from nothing just three years ago to being valued at over 20 billion USD as it looks to list on the Nasdaq this month
Article Jul 18, 2018

Cover photo © Shannon Fagan | Dreamstime.com

Wǒ Men Podcast: China’s Struggle to Tell Its Own Story

The Wǒ Men Podcast is a discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang, Jingjing Zhang and Karoline Kan. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men Podcast can be found here, and you can subscribe to Wǒ Men on iTunes here.

Against the backdrop of the China-US trade war, the recent “debate” between two presenters from opposing sides of the argument — Trish Regan from the Trump-supporting Fox network and Liu Xin from State-owned Chinese media platform CGTN — attracted a lot of eyeballs.

What materialized was ultimately more of a conversation than a debate, yet it was refreshing to see China’s State media engaging in a direct conversation with an international audience and attempting to share its perspective directly into the homes of audiences in the US.

Related:

fox news cctv cgtn debate trish regan liu xin
Fox’s Trish Regan Invites CGTN’s Liu Xin to Trade War Debate “Round 2”
Chinese State media host Liu Xin may get another chance to air her views directly to American audiences
Article Jun 07, 2019

But what’s at the root of the perception that China is afraid of engaging in difficult conversations? What’s going wrong with China’s so-called soft power project? And is there a better way to tell a good China story?

In the latest Wǒ Men Podcast, Jingjing and Karoline share their own experiences and observations regarding China’s attempts at storytelling and soft power and how these have evolved in recent years.

Listen below on Mixcloud, or find Wǒ Men on iTunes here.

China Now Has the “World’s Largest Social Credit System”

China’s sprawling credit system is now the “world’s largest”, State media outlet Xinhua just reported.

The People’s Bank of China deputy governor Zhu Hexin told Xinhua that the system has information on “990 million individuals and 25.91 million enterprises and organizations, accumulatively”, all of whom have involved themselves in credit activities in some way.

The report doesn’t specify which activities those are, however, but emphasizes the usefulness of the information in business activities specifically, like “forestalling financial risks and ensuring financial stability”, said Zhu.

Related:

Into the Black Mirror: The Truth Behind China’s Social Credit System
Is China’s Social Credit System a dystopian rating program for all citizens, or something less sinister?
Article Jan 21, 2019

China’s social credit system is a policy project meant to expand various credit-based services around the country, but its unclear how the various initiatives and information they gather are consolidated into a single format.

Jeremy Daum, the founder of China Law Translate and senior research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai Center, told us it’s unlikely the government would collect information from people using Sesame Credit, for instance.

If you’re confused and want to know more, check out our full piece on China’s social credit system linked above.

Earliest Evidence of People “Getting High” on Marijuana Found in China

Some important breaking news coming from the AP here: “Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China.”

The artefacts — which University of Hawaiii botanist Mark Merlin describes as, “the earliest strong evidence of people getting high” — were discovered up in the Pamir Mountains in what is now Xinjiang, close to the border with Tajikistan. A delegation of high-ranking Chinese officials, including the highest, is currently in the region, but we’re sure that’s just a coincidence.

According to the AP report,

“Excavators found 10 wooden bowls and several stones containing burnt residue of the cannabis plant. Scientists believe heated stones were used to burn the marijuana and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a burial ritual. […]

‘During funeral rites, the smokers may have hoped to communicate with the spirit world — or with the people they were burying,’ said study co-author Yimin Yang of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.”

Makes sense. So what will this do for China’s zero tolerance stance on drug-taking? Can we expect a weed-themed extension to the Belt and Road project given this discovery’s location near the old Silk Road route: One Belt, One Road, Two Joints maybe? Or perhaps Higher Brothers can go on tour there?

Unfortunately, as prominent cities in China go through a period of stringent drug-testing (clubs and bars have been regularly raided and customers forced to take pee tests in Shanghai in recent months for example), anyone invoking ancient history in their defense is unlikely to get much of a hearing.

Don’t be surprised however if one of China’s many industrial cannabis companies launches a marketing campaign built around 2,500 years of continuous cannabis history soon.

Related:

cannabis china marijuana
Will China’s Dreams of Industrial Cannabis Production Go Up in Smoke?
Chinese companies are flocking to the fast-growing cannabis industry – but that interest is at odds with the government’s strict stance on weed
Article Apr 15, 2019

Cover photo: Roberto Valdivia on Unsplash

UNIQLO UT x KAWS Collab Sparks Manic Scenes in China

Chinese shoppers got down on the floor, up on tables, and in face-to-face tussles on Monday to get their hands on UNIQLO UT x KAWS special edition T-shirts, and the frenzy left a series of videos and memes in its wake.

Multiple clips of crazed shoppers have been floating around Weibo over the past day, where the hashtag # Everybody KAWS has already received over 460 million views.

People were so eager to make it to the racks that some dropped phones and other belongings without realizing it, like this 100RMB bill someone picked up at a UNIQLO entrance:

“I still haven’t grabbed any clothes” “Found 100rmb at the UNIQLO entrance”

Stripped mannequins were delimbed and dishonored by the crowds that swept through to get their hands on the special edition T-shirts:

“Someone help me!!!”

This is actually the New York based graffiti artist-turned-designer and worldwide sensation KAWS’s fourth time collaborating with UNIQLO, but seems to be the first time Chinese shoppers had such an unbridled response to his work.

The shirts that sparked the craze feature various iterations of his signature “COMPANION” figure, which is a dark overwriting of Mickey Mouse, and alternative Sesame Street animations:

Some have commented on social media that wearing one of these shirts after these events took place is like a form of self-protection, because anybody who was able to snatch one must know how to fight and run fast.

So, basically it’s a badge that says, “don’t fuck with me”.