China Insider

News.

What we're reading, writing, and arguing about — every week.

Food & Beverage

Hema Saw Cats Hugging Winter Melons Online — Now It's Selling 'Cat Cooling Melons'

Summer in China is brutal, and cats — covered in fur, dramatically opposed to air conditioning bills — are struggling.

Jul 202 min read
Food & Beverage

Tsingtao Turned the World Cup Into a Hotpot Board Game — and It Made Perfect Sense

Every World Cup, brands fight tooth and nail for the official sponsorship spots — the pitch-side LED boards, the matchball ceremony, the badge on the broadcast.

Jul 202 min read
AI

The hottest part of Shanghai’s giant AI expo WAIC is hidden in the basement

Shanghai’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference is designed to overwhelm visitors with scale.

Jul 195 min read
Fashion

LOEWE Made a Pair of Sandals Out of Fuse Beads — and It Works

LOEWE's latest campaign doesn't feature a runway, a celebrity face, or even a glossy studio shoot.

Jul 192 min read
Fashion

FREITAG teamed up with Taobao's VIP club to turn scrap truck tarps into tiny flowers

FREITAG is not the kind of brand you expect to see doing a Taobao VIP collab.

Jul 192 min read
Food & Beverage

Haidilao Just Turned a Childhood Browser Game Into a Hotpot Party — and 500,000 Free Ice Creams

July 10 marked the start of a nationwide team-up that, on paper, sounds like a cultural Rorschach test: Haidilao (海底捞), China's infamously service-obsessed hotp

Jul 182 min read
Food & Beverage

Feng Zikai's Watermelons Are Now a Coffee Drink — And It Works

Lucky Cup Coffee (幸运咖) just did something smarter than your average summer collab: they went and put Feng Zikai's watermelons into a cup.

Jul 182 min read
Food & Beverage

Luckin’s Minions Takeover: How a Summer Collab Became a Two-Month Treasure Hunt

Luckin Coffee has a summer playbook, and it goes something like this: find an IP with sky-high recognition, roll out drinks and merch in waves, and let the coll

Jul 172 min read
Food & Beverage

KFC is giving away whole watermelons with fried chicken in China

China has officially entered Sanfu — the hottest stretch of the year — and KFC is celebrating it in the most Chinese way possible: by giving away whole watermel

Jul 171 min read
Food & Beverage

KFC China Just Turned Its Viral Chicken Feather Duster Into a Fan — and It's Already Gone

Last summer, KFC China asked a question no one was asking: what if we made a feather duster out of chicken feathers and sold it as merch?

Jul 172 min read
Beauty

To Summer 's New 'Bare' Body Care Line Started as a Nude Painting — Now It's About Cotton Seeds

Five years ago, Chinese fragrance brand To Summer (观夏) launched a perfume called "裸" (Bare/Nude), inspired by Chang Yu's painting Nude Woman .

Jul 162 min read
Retail

A mall in Shenzhen just turned flip-flop kicking into a full-on championship

A mall in Shenzhen just turned flip-flop kicking into a full-on championship A shopping mall in Shenzhen has taken one of southern China’s most ordinary pieces

Jul 153 min read