Jiayun (Jenny) Feng is the Society and Culture Editor at The China Project. Born and raised in Shanghai, she is a bilingual journalist committed to reporting on China-related issues with a global perspective.
Hundreds of hotels in Wuhan have teamed up on an open letter calling on the local government to issue financial assistance after they provided free accommodation for medical workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Haidilao, a popular Chinese hotpot chain known for its exceptional customer service, has drawn a great deal of attention and controversy after complaints about price increases surfaced on Chinese media. This happened as it reopened some of its stores last week following weeks of closure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The resistance to the price hikes has been so fierce that the company apologized to its customers on April 10, saying that it had lowered the prices for food back to where they were before the outbreak.
When Thai actor Vachirawit Chivaaree retweeted a photo of Hong Kong last week, he didnโt intend to set off a Thai-China political dispute. But what happened next was one part dystopian sci-fi, and one part a regular occurrence in the age of Chinese nationalist trolls: They attacked. He apologized. And a bizarre sequence of events happened.
While the full economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak on Chinaโs economy is still uncertain, popular business writer Wu Xiaobo detailed in a recent report that about 247,000 Chinese companies declared bankruptcy in the first two months of 2020.
Africans in Guangzhou face special scrutiny amid coronavirus-fueled xenophobia
Despite the overwhelmingly negative perception of Luckin Coffee among U.S. investors and policymakers, the company's fraud scandal didnโt seem to have an adverse impact on its business in China. Some proponents even came to Luckinโs defense, arguing that a Chinese company scamming American investors for the benefit of Chinese consumers was actually a โnobleโ idea.
While Chinese women have undeniably acquired greater decision-making power in both their households and the markets in the past decade, their improved economic status has done little to uproot the deeply ingrained sexism in Chinese society, where women are objectified and expected to conform to ultra-traditional gender roles. These regressive attitudes toward women are most clearly evident in Chinese advertising, which often perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes.
Are movie theaters in China an unofficial indication of the countryโs success at eradicating the COVID-19 outbreak? According to the Hollywood Reporter, China has ordered all its movie theaters to shutter again without explanation after hundreds had already reopened.
Adult entertainment site Pornhub, which is blocked in China, has implemented a ban on the Chinese words for โrapeโ (ๅผบๅฅธ qiรกngjiฤn), โgang rapeโ (่ฝฎๅฅธ lรบnjiฤn), and โdrug-facilitated rapeโ (่ฟทๅฅธ mรญjiฤn). The move came in response to an online campaign on Weibo that accused the website of allowing videos of rape and sexual abuse to be uploaded and making the content easily accessible to Chinese-speaking users.