Regardless of how you feel about Niu Lai, we can all agree on one thing: something extraordinary has happened in Chinese cinemas this month. A mother-and-son duo’s animated 3D film earned just 342 yuan ($50) on opening day. Then its crude visuals turned it into a viral success, propelling it into the top 10 of the year’s domestic animated releases. This is a video thread. (This is the first video: an 8-minute clip with scenes from the film so you get the main gist.)

Quel charme! Chinese tourist goes out for a nice day of shopping in Paris following a weekend filled with so-called "zero-yuan shopping" (零元购 = looting). Video posted on Douyin by A Wan (阿万) today.

A Chinese elderly traveler sharing her experience of traveling to Europe, part 3: seeing the Eiffel Tower during a sightseeing cruise on the Seine: "Outside, it was cold, but we could take some photographs. The lights had come on, but they were dim and yellowish. The Eiffel Tower was also illuminated in a dull yellow light. It flashed briefly, but it wasn't flashing continuously, just a flash every now and then. Apparently, Europeans care about environmental protection and are concerned about light pollution. Even wearing a down jacket, I was still cold, so I went inside the boat's cabin. It was warm there, but you couldn't see anything. My eyes were so dry and irritated that they kept watering. Earlier that day, when we came down from the Eiffel Tower, one arm of my glasses had fallen off. Fortunately, I managed to find it in the dim light. So the sightseeing cruise didn't leave much of an impression on me. I still think Shanghai has a more beautiful night skyline." 😂😂😂

A Chinese traveler sharing her experiences of a trip to Europe, on Weibo, part 2: "Whenever we ate at Chinese restaurants, the food was reasonably good. As for breakfast, the worst was in Paris. They were also terribly strict about it. They had red ropes cordoning things off, treating us as though we were beggars trying to steal food. The chairs were packed so closely together that, being thin, I could just about sit down, but I hardly dared move. Apart from unlimited coffee and milk, which were lukewarm, there was only a small amount of bread, served cold; a little cold rolled meat; and one cold egg that was difficult to peel. I was basically left hungry and had to go back to my room to eat the multigrain bread I'd bought at a highway service-area supermarket. When French people come to China, we should serve them the same cold food. Fair is fair. Reciprocity, after all!!"

Planning a trip to Paris? 🇫🇷 Good news! Paris City Tours is now offering 50% off. Same iconic sights. Slightly different experience. My latest AI satire. Enjoy and Vive La France! 🇫🇷 Tools used: 🧠 Prompt Architect — ChatGPT 🖼️ Image generation — GPT Image 2.5 / Nano Banana 2.1 🎥 Video — Seedance 2.5 🎵 Music — Suno v6 ✂️ Edit & post-production — Adobe Creative Cloud

In the main urban districts of Hangzhou, people aren’t allowed to walk their dogs during the day, and many hope these strict dog-control rules will set an example for the rest of China. The local rule only allows owners of small dogs (larger breeds aren’t allowed) to walk their furry friends between 7 PM and 7 AM the following morning. The strict rule is supported by many online - they hope other cities will follow. But local dog owners disagree: “Are dogs not supposed to get any sunlight?” This actually is an old regulation but became a trending topic due to stricter enforcement. In the designated restricted dog-keeping areas, walking dogs during daytime hours can now result in fines ranging from 200 to 1,000 yuan (US$29–149).

Where else do you still find white wine for 0.94 eurocents per liter?!

Can you imagine one single lit room in a huge abandoned high-rise project? Trending video about one apartment in the midst of a big "lànwěilóu" 烂尾楼 (unfinished/abandoned building). Translation: "This must be the most heartbreaking story of a homeowner in all of China. His housing development has been left unfinished and abandoned for five or six years, yet he still has to keep paying off a mortgage of over a million yuan. With no other choice, he connected the water and electricity himself and started renovating his apartment alone in the deserted, unfinished building. Now, every day, he has to climb more than ten flights of stairs just to get home. His determination is both moving and heartbreaking, leaving you with a profound sense of helplessness."

Er is een Nederlands-Chinese influencer die door Nederlandse volgers "Sausje" genoemd wordt. Dat is helemaal niet leuk, dacht ik. Tot ik erachter kwam dat ze "Xiaoxue" heet. Wanneer vooral platpratende vloggers het over haar hebben, is die Chinese uitspraak zowaar perfect! 💯

“Ik ben niet kritischer geworden, China is veranderd.” Ik ben bij de boekpresentatie van sinoloog en journalist Garrie van Pinxteren, die de afgelopen viereneenhalve decennia van dichtbij zag hoe China zich ontwikkelde en veranderde, van Deng Xiaoping tot Xi Jinping. Vanaf 2001 was zij correspondent voor onder meer NRC en de NOS. In 2018 keerde zij terug naar China, waar ze tot 2025 bleef wonen en werken. Garrie’s afscheid van haar tweede periode bij NRC betekende ook een nieuw begin. Haar persoonlijke afscheidscolumn, waarin ze terugblikte op haar werk en leven in een sterk veranderd China, resoneerde zo met lezers dat het uiteindelijk de drijfveer werd voor het boek dat nu in de boekhandels ligt: "Control en Delete - Herinneringen aan een Autoritair China." Een interessante rode draad van deze avond, die ook terugkomt in de vragen van het publiek, is ht debat rondom de westerse berichtgeving over China en of die nu te negatief is of niet. We besteden volgens Garrie te veel tijd aan die vraag. De taak van een journalist is niet om positief of negatief over China te schrijven, maar om te onderzoeken wat er gebeurt, machtsstructuren bloot te leggen en systemen te bevragen. Garrie vindt niet dat zij door de jaren heen kritischer is geworden over China, maar dat China zelf is veranderd. Het land is geslotener geworden en er is minder ruimte voor discussie. Tegelijkertijd blijft China volgens haar onderbelicht. Er zijn ontzettend veel verhalen te vertellen, maar juist het vertellen daarvan is moeilijker geworden. Afspraken worden afgezegd, deuren blijven dicht en rond gevoelige onderwerpen liggen zoveel rookgordijnen dat het soms bijna onmogelijk is om tot de kern te komen. Daarin zit een paradox. Een Chinese onderzoeksjournalist zei ooit tegen Garrie dat China juist het ideale land voor journalisten is: niets is wat het lijkt, overal zitten verborgen verhalen en er is altijd iets nieuws naar boven te halen. En misschien is dat precies waarom het zo belangrijk blijft om die verhalen te vertellen, en om te luisteren naar de mensen in China die proberen hun eigen geschiedenis, in al haar diversiteit en complexiteit, te bewaren. Een goede reden om Garrie's boek te gaan lezen.

When Starbucks first entered China, part of its appeal was precisely how foreign it was, offering access to an imagined Western, cosmopolitan way of life. More than two decades later, in Urumqi, Starbucks is being appreciated for almost the opposite reason: for how local it is becoming, selling an imagined Xinjiang experience back to Chinese consumers. About Starbucks' debut in Xinjiang and why there's been such a huge gap between the reactions ➡️ eyeondigitalchina.substack.c…

Somehow, I don't believe it could be unclear whether an invitation to a White House dinner with Xi Jinping and the First Lady is for one person only or whether the invitee can bring their significant other, since the protocols are undoubtedly quite strict and straightforward. But maybe an expert on that could weigh in.

Sometimes I make the effort to get a book on China that I already own as an e-book in hardcopy too, simply because it’s too good not to own on paper. What books on China did you buy a hardcopy of because you just needed to own the paper version?

wechat upping its social media game it seems