If you and your friends went head-to-head in a contest inspired by the South Korean survival drama series Squid Game, who would be the last one standing? You’ll soon be able to find out the answer, as virtual reality company Sandbox VR is teaming up with Netflix to create an immersive VR experience based on the hit TV series.
The title, set to be released in late 2023, will allow players to participate in nerve-wracking games inspired by episodes in the show.
And while no footage of Sandbox’s Squid Game VR experience has been released, gamers have reason to have high expectations — based on the elite quality of the company’s previous offerings.
When asked what gamers can expect from the new Squid Game VR experience, Sandbox VR founder and CEO Steven Zhao tells RADII, “We’re taking elements of the TV series for sure, but also building it so that it’s incredibly fun in our Sandbox VR platform.”
Created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game has become one of Netflix’s best-performing shows ever. But even though the network has green-lit a second season, fans won’t be able to watch the sequel until early 2024.
Meanwhile, businesses worldwide have come up with Squid Game-inspired products to capitalize on the show’s popularity, from huge statues of deadly robot dolls to guard costumes to dalgona candies.
A Squid Game-themed event at the Korean Cultural Center in Abu Dhabi in 2021. Image via VCG
Sandbox VR, which launched in Hong Kong in 2017, now boasts branches in more than 30 cities, including London, Shanghai, San Francisco, and Vancouver.
The company offers a diverse range of VR experiences to cater to adrenaline seekers of all stripes, from adventures in space to surviving a zombie apocalypse. Sandbox VR’s current roster of games is: Star Trek: Discovery, Deadwood Valley, Deadwood Mansion, Curse of Davy Jones, Amber Sky 2088, and UFL: Unbound Fighting League.
The company’s branch in Shanghai, which has a 4.9/5 rating on the Yelp-like Chinese platform Dianping, currently charges 268 RMB (about 40 USD) per person for a 45-minute gaming session.
And while some might deem it more economical to purchase a VR headset themselves, few home kits can compare to Sandbox VR’s motion-tracking technology. Furthermore, Sandbox VR’s sprawling centers, each covering more than 5,000 square feet, comfortably accommodate large groups of friends.
“Since Sandbox VR offers full-body multiplayer experiences, expect fans to use their whole body to play and win these intense games. They can either collaborate or sabotage one another,” says Zhao.
Last but not least, the VR company also provides its customers with souvenirs by way of photos and videos.
Following a series of earthquakes that ravaged Türkiye (formerly Turkey) and war-torn Syria on February 6, governments from different countries — including China — have been dispatching search and rescue teams to aid with disaster response and recovery.
Not only did an 82-person-strong Chinese team arrive in Türkiye on February 8, but the Chinese government has also offered 30 million RMB (about 4.4 million USD) to Syria and 40 million RMB (about 5.8 million USD) to Türkiye to help offset the cost of the natural disaster.
Time is of the essence in earthquake rescue efforts, hence the need for more hands on deck. China’s team has joined some 53,000 individuals from the two affected countries, not to mention disaster assistance teams from the European Union, the U.S., South Korea, India, and other countries and regions.
According to ABC News, victims trapped beneath rubble are unlikely to survive for more than a week, and the odds of them surviving drops with each passing day. The below-freezing temperatures in Türkiye and Syria at present lower their chances of survival.
On February 10, The Wall Street Journalreported that the death toll for the Türkiye-Syria earthquakes had reached 21,000. However, this number is sure to keep rising in the coming days.
The Chinese rescue team on their way to Türkiye
Videos of China’s rescue team arriving in Türkiye have gone viral on the Chinese internet, and a related hashtag has received more than 60 million views at the time of writing. So far, the Chinese rescue team’s efforts include successfully helping to extricate a pregnant woman from beneath a pile of debris in the Turkish city of Hatay.
A poster calling for donations for the victims of the earthquake. Image via WeChat
The Chinese government aside, individuals and organizations from the country, including The Expatriate Center (TEC) in Shanghai, have also been doing what they can to help. On February 8, the NGO released a notice calling for donation packages from folks in China and stating that Turkish Airlines would help with delivery to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) in Türkiye.
Despite criticisms from some Chinese netizens at a perceived lack of assistance from NATO, individual countries under the NATO umbrella have also sent aid to Türkiye and Syria. America’s Los Angeles County has sent 100 firefighters and engineers to the earthquake zone. In an announcement on February 6, President Joe Biden said, “U.S.-supported humanitarian partners are also responding to the destruction in Syria.”
Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Bulgaria — among others — have also sent rescue crews or are prepared to provide aid.
An aerial video of the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake that registered 7.8 on the Richter scale. Complete destruction. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/kUgb39TjI2
Do you ever get hungry while watching cooking tutorials or food reviews on TikTok? Don’t worry, as you aren’t alone in this. TikTok’s sister app Douyin, which has 700 million daily users in the Chinese mainland, will soon double as a food delivery platform in what could be an effort to tap this market of hungry content consumers.
The company will officially launch an in-app meal delivery channel from March 2023 onwards. Internal tests are already underway in three Chinese megacities: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
The announcement hasn’t been surprising, given that Douyin launched its grocery delivery service in early February. The app’s venture into food delivery might have something to do with an agreement it struck with the takeout platform Ele.me in August 2022.
China’s food delivery services have long been dominated by two major players, Meituan and Ele.me. Both brands’ sales account for 95% of the market share, with Meituan alone accounting for almost 70%.
Meituan dominates the food delivery sector in the Chinese mainland. Image via VCG
Douyin’s announcement has sparked fierce discussions online, and a related hashtag had amassed more than 700 million views on Weibo, China’s top microblogging site, at the time of writing.
Many netizens are happy to see a new industry player, especially a tech giant like Douyin, saying that competition would be healthy for consumers, restaurants, and delivery drivers.
“The more merchants pay Meituan, the higher they rank when people search for food on the platform. This has made it difficult for me to find actual good food. Douyin already knows what I watch every day and my consumer habits, so I assume the restaurants it pushes to me will be more my taste,” opined a Weibo user.
That said, Douyin still has an uphill battle to fight against China’s delivery giants, and whether its new venture will fare well remains to be seen.
This article is part of our Sustainable Future series done in association with East West Bank. This article explores the issue of single-use plastic waste related to food delivery in China and the measures being taken to combat the problem.
Over the last decade, China’s online food delivery industry has grown nearly 40-fold(reaching a market size of 66.4 billion USD in 2022), making the country the world’s biggest online-to-offline food delivery market.
The robust industry offers consumers an astonishing variety of food choices, such as DIY barbeque kits complete with charcoals and cocktails that come in attractive stemware. However, nearly every food or drink order involves some packaging.
In 2018, while serving more than 400 million customers and 10 billion orders, China’s takeout market generated 323 kilotonnes of waste in tableware and packaging.
Below, RADII explores various steps that are being taken to address the problem of food delivery waste in China, such as government oversight, industry adjustments, and the individual actions of vendors and consumers.
Rallying Against Single-Use Plastic Waste in China
In 2017, China saw its first waste-related lawsuit against food delivery companies. A Chinese environmental NGO sued China’s three biggest takeaway platforms — Ele.me, Meituan, and Baidu Waimai — for generating resource waste and causing ecological damage by not allowing users to opt out of disposable tableware.
Around the same time that year, Ele.me acquired Baidu Waimai and has been dominating China’s food delivery industry along with Meituan ever since.
A promotional poster advocating not to choose disposable tableware. Image courtesy of Plastic Free China
Presumably in response to the lawsuit, Meituan and Ele.me respectively launched the Blue Mountain Project and Blue Planet Project in 2017. The two initiatives share similar objectives: both apps allow users to decide whether they need single-use utensils and also launched plastic food container recycling programs.
From September 2017 to July 2020, Ele.me claimed it had recycled 390 kilogramsof takeaway plastic and reduced 585 kilograms of carbon emissions. However, the amount of trash recycled isn’t awe-inspiring, given that China produces about 7 billion kilograms of plastic products per month.
Many food and drink vendors have also switched to biodegradable tableware, which includes paper straws. That said, single-use cutlery kits are still ubiquitous. Some restaurants deliver them even when their customers ask for none because vendors often deal with too many orders to check each buyer’s preference carefully.
Even McDonald’s China began to phase out plastic straws in 2020. Image via Weibo
Meanwhile, more grassroots efforts in sustainability have been gaining momentum. In 2018, Plastic Free China, a group of zero-waste activists, was established in Guangzhou, a city in South China near Hong Kong. Its members aim to reduce plastic waste through corporate campaigns that have the potential to change business practices and consumer behavior.
“Most consumers don’t have a clear idea of how to classify takeout waste. Also, it’s not easy to recycle disposable tableware as Chinese food is often cooked with oil,” says Zheng Xue, director of Plastic Free China.
Over the years, the group has collected data, conducted research, and proposed policy changes while witnessing encouraging progress.
A poster advocating against using plastic bags. Image via VCG
In 2018, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment released a rather ambitious proposal revealing the country’s plans to ban non-degradable plastic bags in food delivery services in provincial capital cities by the end of 2020.
Perhaps fewer plastic bags are seen across the country today. However, from RADII’s own observations, takeout orders in Shanghai still come in non-degradable plastic bags more often than not.
In short, government bodies and food-delivery companies are taking action, but the battle against takeaway waste still has a long way to go. And more creative efforts can be made at the individual level.
Reusable and Returnable Packaging
Young netizen Yu orders food delivery at least seven times a week and jokingly calls herself a “takeaway warrior.”
“It’s a lot of work to cook, and I don’t want to dine out because I’m too lazy to drive and park or queue up for popular restaurants,” says Yu in defense of her habit.
The food delivery sector is robust in China
She admits that she has had to dispose of some food due to poor quality or overordering to meet minimum order amounts.
That being said, Yu tries to minimize takeout waste, and one way she does this is by saving her reusable packaging. Save for paper tableware which “makes food taste like paper,” she supports the use of reusable and returnable tableware.
Clay pots that Yu has collected. Image courtesy of Yu
For example, she collects clay pots and returns them to Mingqi, a restaurant that delivers its clay-pot rice, a traditional dish eaten widely in Guangdong and Southeast Asia, in mini clay pots. While this may seem troublesome to some, Yu doesn’t mind going the extra step.
“I love it because the clay pot preserves heat and freshness. It’s a pity to throw away the casserole dish, and I don’t need it myself. I am glad the restaurant recycles them,” Yu shares. “Although it’s a bit tiring to wash them, I’m spiritually fulfilled with a low-carbon lifestyle.”
An infographic explaining the idea of shared tableware. Image courtesy of Plastic Free China
This is one idea that could develop into something bigger. A 2020 study, which presumably takes a cue from China’s booming sharing economy, proposes an even more wholesome mechanism: the use of reusable and returnable tableware sets, aka shared tableware, which reportedly reduces up to 92% of waste as well as more than two-thirds of environmental emissions and water consumption.
Plastic Free China has also advocated for the aforementioned approach. Zheng tells RADII, “Food delivery platforms should also encourage vendors to use recyclable tableware or collaborate with domestic reusable tableware start-ups.”
Forget the Meal — Order the Chef
For Irissy S, the answer to combating takeaway taste is simply not ordering any delivery. An employee at a gaming company based in Shanghai, the 26-year-old usually gets off work between 8 and 10 PM and can’t bother cooking at night.
Instead, thanks to an introduction from her colleague, she has been hiring the services of a home cook since August 2022. The home cook, who works from 8 to 9:30 AM, prepares lunch boxes for S on workdays and gets paid 1,650 RMB (about 244 USD) per month.
Dishes prepared by a chef-for-hire. Image courtesy of Irissy S
Such professionals are colloquially referred to as ‘cooking aunties’ or zuofan ayi (做饭阿姨) in China, although they aren’t necessarily women.
“It’s so convenient. I usually order online groceries the night before and send what I want to eat to the aunty. She comes in the morning and sometimes helps with home cleanup if time allows. It’s the best money I spent in 2022,” says S with a grin.
Li Lizi, another RADII interviewee, feels similarly about the freedom she’s gained from hiring a cooking aunty. Li usually welcomes her into the home around 8:30 AM, goes back to sleep for another 30 minutes, and then gets ready for work.
Meanwhile, the cooking auntie makes six dishes for Li’s lunch and dinner and earns an hourly rate of less than 10 USD.
A collection of meals prepared by the hired chef and placed in reusable lunch boxes. Image courtesy of Li Lizi
Not only are young people hiring home cooks, but some have also joined the industry and started their own businesses.
In August 2022, 26-year-old Zhang Yaohong established her own company specializing in home cooking services in Chengdu, a city in Southwest China. Within two months, she recruited almost 50 new cooks.
Some of the young cooks at Zhang’s company. Image courtesy of Zhang Yaohong
Zhang requires all her staff to wear a uniform — a hat, mask, apron, gloves, and shoe covers — before entering their clients’ homes to lend her business an air of professionalism.
“We’re generally professional chefs or simply food lovers in our 20s or 30s. Most of our customers are young workers who don’t know how to cook or don’t have time to cook,” says Zhang, adding, “Home cooking is a trend. It can also reduce food delivery waste and protect the environment to a certain extent.”
This article was made as part of our Sustainable Future series in association with East West Bank to highlight the innovative tech that’s making the world more green and regenerative. East West Bank offers unparalleled services for individuals and companies who wish to build connections and foster collaborations between the US and Asia. Together, we will reach further. For more information, visit eastwestbank.com.
On February 5, in an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), science fiction author Liu Cixin reviewed The Wandering Earth 2, the second installment in a film series based on his short story of the same name.
A screenshot from Liu’s interview with CCTV
Liu’s story ‘The Wandering Earth’ was first published in July 2000 in Science Fiction World (科幻世界), a prestigious Chinese print magazine. It depicts humankind’s attempt to escape a dying Sun by piloting our cosmic home out of the solar system.
The first film adaption came out in 2019 and loosely followed the short story, in which Jupiter’s gravitational pull threatens to destroy Earth almost two decades after the journey begins.
The second film, on the other hand, is an entirely new venture. The Wandering Earth 2 is a prequel to the earlier film and was released on January 22 this year.
Liu said in the CCTV interview, “The Wandering Earth 2 is very different from my story. It is completely an original work by the film’s creators, which is very encouraging.”
A promotional poster for The Wandering Earth 2. Image via IMDb
Below, we give you some of Liu’s top takeaways regarding the film.
An Innovative Spirit
Liu has already seen The Wandering Earth 2 in theaters twice, and he has repeatedly expressed his awe at the quality of the work.
In a post on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, Liu wrote, “The creators of The Wandering Earth 2 are very similar to the characters in the film, their great courage and innovative spirit serving as an engine, pushing the planet of sci-fi films into the future.”
Again, in the CCTV interview, Liu said, “The Wandering Earth 2 is really well-made… [and] looks like a historical documentary, with a sense of heaviness and importance.”
In the author’s opinion, the film is an evolution of the Chinese science fiction genre as a whole, giving him hope that the genre no longer has to rely on novel adaptations.
The Problematic Space Elevator
Despite his love for The Wandering Earth 2, Liu also noted a small error.
In the film, the space elevator is launched by four rockets. However, Liu has pointed out that rockets are unnecessary.
The rockets on the space elevator. Screengrab via the CCTV interview
“The point of building a space elevator is to eliminate the use of rockets… [otherwise,] what is the point?” he explained.
Other than the rockets, though, he seems to have no complaints.
Easter Eggs Galore
Liu claimed in the aforementioned Weibo post that “[The Wandering Earth 2] has a huge amount of information, [and] every time you watch it, you can discover new details, new feelings, and new mysteries.”
In this spirit, some netizens have gone back to look for Easter eggs.
One blogger noted that Yaya — a child whose being is preserved online, an example of ‘digital life’ — wears the same sweater before and after her death, but the embroidered rabbits smile in real life and frown in the digital world.
A comparison of Yaya’s sweater after her death (left) and before her death (right). Image via Weibo
“This implies that digital life is not feasible,” writes the blogger. The promise of digital life is a big part of The Wandering Earth 2: The project to thrust Earth out of the solar system is upended multiple times by terrorists who believe digital life is the best way to preserve humanity.
Other Easter eggs the blogger points out are references to the 1968 sci-fi adventure film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 1967 Colombian novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Liu’s most notable work, The Three-Body Problem.
A Science Fiction Writer From Age 16
Liu, who was born in 1963, told CCTV later in the interview that he began writing science fiction in high school.
“I submitted two manuscripts for publication, but I was rejected, so I stopped writing,” he said, a cycle that continued sporadically throughout the rest of his schooling.
After college, he worked as an electrical engineer, but he always returned to science fiction. Liu published his most famous work, The Three-Body Problem, in 2006 (soon to be a Netflix show) and became the first Asian author to win a Hugo Award in 2015.
Those in the mood for the latest adaptation of Liu’s The Three-Body Problem can watch the live-action series Three-Body, which premiered on January 15 and is wrapping up on Tencent.
Young China Plates is a monthly series that sees RADII dissecting mouthwatering food trends favored by Chinese youth. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion! This time, we received a tip-off about a dessert dégustation in a secretive Shanghai venue.
A common critique about fine dining is that it often takes itself too seriously, but can this be true if a tasting menu opens with a marshmallow (and a homemade one, at that)? The sweet confectionary with medicinal roots may no longer be used to treat chest colds or insomnia, but it does wonders for morale, especially in the middle of a bitter Shanghai winter.
Fire, both a friend and a foe, takes the sweet treat to new latitudes. Wielding a kitchen blow torch, Friso Hsiao of Endo Dessert Bistro toasts each marshmallow so that sweetness dances on the edge of bitterness.
Marshmallow surrounded by a moat of oat milk and chef-proprietor Friso Hsiao
Tucked away in a discreet corner of MIX320, a hip food and beverage hub in Changning district, the restaurant feels like a secret sanctuary, with its mood lighting and gentle incense. Decked out in white lab coats, the trio behind it — unidentical twins Friso and Yen Hsiao and their partner Charlie — offers an art-directed take on desserts.
As countless RADII stories have underscored, not all Chinese youth covet deskjobs, and many are breaking free of China’s stifling 996 work culture. Curious about whether ‘tiger mom’ expectations ever stood in their way, we tiptoe around the question.
“Well, that painting is by my mom. I think that explains a lot,” says Yen with a chuckle and a sideways glance at a kaleidoscopic work of art that brightens up the entire room.
While one almost expects to meet the chef at fine dining establishments nowadays, it is a real treat to come face to face with a space’s designer.
Yen, whose passions include jewelry and homeware design, singlehandedly crafted the museum-esque sculptures, flower vases, servingware, and lamps in the restaurant. Fashioned out of copper and paper previously used to wrap Pu’er tea, the last of these speaks for a growing awareness of sustainability among youth.
Two fruit-forward courses titled ‘It’s Cold Outside, Babe’ and ‘Not Your Everyday Mille-feuille’
A running joke that pervades popular memes and online communities such as Subtle Asian Baking, the Asian love of anything that’s “not too sweet” is steeped in truth — there is no smoke without fire, after all. Endo does its best to honor this preference.
“In traditional dessert-making, we often see a great deal of butter and sugar. Here at Endo, we try to reduce the sugar content in all our creations; there are multiple dishes without any added sugar,” explains Friso, who oversees the kitchen with his former culinary classmate-turned-colleague Charlie.
Instead, the kitchen uses savory elements to mimic the mouthwatering effect that fat imparts. Vegetable and pepper crisps are paired with persimmon, while a chocolate and rose tart gets its tartness from vinegar — a far cry from frosted cakes and stodgy puddings.
As integral to Chinese culture as wine is to French society, tea is an essential part of the dining experience at Endo, but so is wine, which China is increasingly known for.
Yen, who oversees the restaurant’s tea service, keeps our cups filled with countless kinds of Chinese tea while his bespectacled brother educates us on every glass of ‘fermented grape juice’ we bring to our lips.
“Our wine pairing is all about contrasts. The tea pairing, however, is all about complementing each other. In the Chinese dining tradition, freshly-brewed tea is drunk at the end of a meal [but] our tea pairing serves as an extension of flavors, drawing out the lingering notes while comforting the palate,” says Friso, who also enlightens us about a unique Chinese wine containing rice in addition to grapes.
Well-traveled and worldly, the young restaurateurs may have gotten their core concept from fine dining pioneers in the West (“Room4Dessert has definitely been an inspiration for us,” confirms Friso) but are making it their own.
“We wanted to create a platform for enthusiastic diners in Shanghai to explore a new way of looking at dessert,” Friso underscores. “We focus a lot on indigenous ingredients that are very seasonal and low yield. It’s a place where diners get to experience and learn about the seasonality and produce of different regions in China.”
If there’s one trait that many Millennials and Gen Zers share, it’s a refusal to be pigeonholed. This is a sentiment the folks behind Endo Dessert Bistro can relate to.
“We use the techniques that make the most sense to us, be it a classic French or Chinese pastry technique. To us, what’s really exciting is when a French diner or a Chinese diner takes a bite of the same dessert and says, ‘Oh wow, this reminds me of my childhood — that is when we know we are on the right track.”
Cover image designed by Zhouhan Shao
STORIES
Menu
VIDEOS
Menu
ABOUT
Menu
Menu
CATEGORIES
VIDEOS
ABOUT
NEWSLETTER
Get weekly top picks and exclusive, newsletter only content delivered straight to you inbox
