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  <title><![CDATA[Shanghai Daily: Opinion]]></title> 
  <link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/</link> 
  <description><![CDATA[Shanghai Daily Opinion]]></description> 
  <language>en</language>
  <copyright><![CDATA[Copyright 2001-2021 Shanghai Daily Publishing House]]></copyright>
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/Crews-undesirable-moral-bondage/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Crew’s ‘undesirable moral bondage’</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wang Yong]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[PICTURE a group of stewardesses in high heels and short skirts pitter-pattering in small steps beside you as you saunter or stride toward your boarding gate at an airport.

You may appreciate the glamor ]]></description>
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		PICTURE a group of stewardesses in high heels and short skirts pitter-pattering in small steps beside you as you saunter or stride toward your boarding gate at an airport.

You may appreciate the glamor and elegance of these flight attendants dressed in professional uniforms, but has it ever occurred to you that, given long hours at work, they may feel quite uncomfortable wearing such uniforms, especially those shoes with steeply raised heels?

&ldquo;Why do we have to wear short skirts, silk socks and high heels in such a complicated high-altitude work environment? Why can&rsquo;t we simply wear trousers?&rdquo; asked Xi Ha, a talk show actress, in a widely circulated program broadcast in early July. Xi Ha is the stage name of the actress who used to be a stewardess.

&ldquo;I once asked my instructor why we couldn&rsquo;t wear trousers, and she replied that some passengers might feel uncomfortable if we wore trousers,&rdquo; she recalled.

The instructor&rsquo;s bittersweet answer brings home to us a longtime dilemma in the world&rsquo;s air travel industry: The need to exhibit the feminine beauty of flight attendants with short skirts, silk socks and high heels often compromises their work efficiency and personal comfort.

&ldquo;In a fire emergency, the last step of evacuation is that all flight attendants take off their silk socks, because these socks can burn easily in such a situation,&rdquo; Xi Ha said in her July talk show. &ldquo;But, why do we wear silk socks in the first place, now that we know they are dangerous?&rdquo;

Xi Ha told a real story: A chief flight attendant &mdash; a friend of hers &mdash; once successfully evacuated all the passengers within 90 seconds, but could not prevent herself from suffering injuries. Why? Because she had to take off her silk socks before escaping on a plane slide. Her legs were badly bruised. &ldquo;Had she worn a pair of trousers, she would not have been so badly hurt,&rdquo; Xi Ha claimed.

Her talk show quickly became an Internet sensation, raising public awareness about the dilemma facing many flight attendants.

&ldquo;I would not give in to undesirable moral constraints,&rdquo; Xi Ha said after the talk show. &ldquo;I will try all I can to find the best solution for now.&rdquo;

Toward the end of July, Shandong Airlines announced new uniforms for its flight attendants, allowing them to choose between skirts and trousers. In addition, flats would replace high heels.

I would not venture to say Shandong Airlines&rsquo; decision resulted from Xi Ha&rsquo;s highly publicized comment of what she called &ldquo;undesirable moral bondage&rdquo; in the form of rigid uniform requirement. In fact, some other domestic airlines had already replaced high heels with flat shoes earlier.

And China&rsquo;s latest regulation on cabin operation and management, released at the end of last year, has made it clear that flight attendants should not wear high heels during the period from aircraft taxiing (before takeoff) and landing (before all passengers get off).

CCTV, China&rsquo;s Central Television, published a piece of commentary on July 13, saying Xi Ha&rsquo;s talk show is not just a personal expression, but more importantly, a proof of gradual changes in social psychology and vocational principles.

The commentary concluded that letting flight attendants take off their high heels will serve to explore and pioneer a new route for all those working in the service industry who are constrained by old (and undesirable) rules one way or another.

Indeed, skirts and high heels can date back to the early days of the global civil aviation industry, especially to the 1930s when the world&rsquo;s first flight attendants appeared. And over time, skirts, high heels and, for that matter silk socks, seemed to have been accepted as &ldquo;unmistakable tokens&rdquo; of flight attendants across the world for many decades.

Now many airlines across the world no longer require their flight attendants to wear high heels or skirts, and China is also making substantial progress in this regard.

My hope: Although Chinese airlines did not do away with the old uniform requirement much earlier, enlightened public debates like Xi Ha&rsquo;s talk show will help China take the lead in designing safety- and comfort-oriented professional uniforms for attendants in the future that may set an example of how to make the world a better place for everyone.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/shanghai-daily-columnists/Mates-with-exinmates-Supermarket-chains-altruism/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Mates with ex-inmates! Supermarket chain’s altruism</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion Columns]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wang Yong]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[I’VE been following the words and deeds of the founder of a local supermarket chain in central China’s Henan Province for quite some time. And his minute care for customers and employees alike has convinced ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		I&rsquo;VE been following the words and deeds of the founder of a local supermarket chain in central China&rsquo;s Henan Province for quite some time. And his minute care for customers and employees alike has convinced me that an enterprise can thrive by enriching all parties involved instead of the boss alone.

For example, at Pangdonglai, a retail giant named after its founder Yu Donglai, about 95 percent of its profits go to staff payrolls. On June 11, Yu announced that the supermarket chain&rsquo;s net profits of 2025 were estimated at 1.5 billion yuan (US$205 million), the bulk of which would go to the payrolls of its more than 8,000 employees. Such a high payroll-to-profit ratio is rare indeed among many businesses the world over.

Customers get a good deal as well. For example, about half of the medicines sold at Pangdonglai are priced below 10 yuan, while the overall profit margin for drugs priced above 30 yuan hardly exceeds 10 percent, below that of other drug stores.

In short, I&rsquo;ve been watching Pangdonglai, an Internet sensation known for its egalitarian thoughts and actions, with a sincere hope that more businesses will follow suit by sharing benefits with customers and employees alike.

And yet, this is not the whole story about Pangdonglai.

On August 8, Pangdonglai announced it would recruit retired soldiers as well as released inmates for a new shop to be opened in Henan&rsquo;s Xinxiang City. To be specific, the new shop would need 1,000 employees, and Pangdonglai has reserved positions for 200 retired soldiers from the high-plateau frontier regions of Xinjiang and Xizang. Also, there would be jobs for 20 former inmates.

Such a recruitment notice immediately became a hot topic. As expected, there was unanimous support among netizens for Pangdonglai&rsquo;s decision to recruit retired soldiers. As for the decision to employ former inmates, public attitudes varied, though most netizens applauded it, calling Pangdonglai a benevolent enterprise doing good while doing well. Only a few netizens doubted former inmates&rsquo; ability to do well or do good.

On August 10, founder Yu explained why the supermarket chain would recruit released inmates. He said: &ldquo;He/she (a former inmate) took a wrong path, but he/she has served his/her prison term and become a normal person now... Let&rsquo;s understand each other, not discriminate against one another. Discrimination only causes greater harm.&rdquo;

Recruiting 20 former inmates may not be a big deal, but it sends a clear signal to society that love cures while discrimination hurts.

What moves me most is not the recruitment decision itself; it&rsquo;s the thinking behind it. Everyone could have taken a wrong path, but this should not lead us to believe that a once fallen soul cannot correct itself. Pangdonglai chooses to believe in everyone&rsquo;s propensity to do good and in the power of all to love each other.

Certainly, Pangdonglai is not the first or only firm to have recruited released inmates. But given Pangdonglai&rsquo;s unique influence as an enterprise thriving on doing good, its decision to recruit 20 released inmates may have a greater and more positive impact on people&rsquo;s attitude toward those whose life once unfortunately took a wrong turn.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/chinese-perspectives/No-superlatives-no-fancy-words-but-farmer-writers-still-strike-a-chord/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>No superlatives, no fancy words but farmer writers still strike a chord</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wang Yong]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[WHEN we talk of migrant workers, an image of lean but muscular men carrying bricks or binding steel bars on construction sites, rain or shine, comes to mind.

Liu Shili fits perfectly into this image. ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		WHEN we talk of migrant workers, an image of lean but muscular men carrying bricks or binding steel bars on construction sites, rain or shine, comes to mind.

Liu Shili fits perfectly into this image. A farmer from rural Henan Province, the 58-year-old has been doing odd jobs on construction sites in several cities, including Beijing, during non-peak agricultural seasons over the past three decades or so.

Like many migrant workers, he usually gets up early in the morning and avails himself of local job markets in the hope of finding some temporary assignments on construction sites. But sometimes, no job turns up.

This is where he differs from others. Hard pressed as he is to earn as much money as possible, he finds time to read books for free in a bookstore or library when no job is at hand.

In recent media interviews, Liu said he likes to visit bookstores or libraries where he can read various dictionaries, manuals on practical knowledge like welding and driving, and ancient Chinese poems. While practical knowledge helps him hone his working skills, other books, including collections of poems, impart wisdom of life and help him better square up to challenges in reality.

&ldquo;Reading brings grace to my life as a worker,&rdquo; he said.

Liu seldom buys books, though, because he moves around a lot, unable to carry the books. On the other hand, he has to save every hard-earned penny for his rural family as well as for his basic living in a big city.

A respectable reader

Rarely did I realize that reading &mdash; part of my daily work &mdash; could be such a luxury for someone like Liu. To think that he cannot even afford to buy a book while every room of my home in Shanghai is overstocked with books. Even my beds are spread with bedside reading materials.

Our pursuit of knowledge and wisdom is similar if not the same, but his perseverance commands more respect, because he has to travel a long distance on bumpy buses from a suburban labor market to a downtown bookstore, while a courier will deliver a book to my doorstep.

His silent and solitary search of knowledge and wisdom through constant reading would not have been known had it not been for his chance encounter with Chen Xingjia, a well-known public welfare worker.

When Liu was browsing in a major bookstore in downtown Beijing on June 25, he noticed Chen&rsquo;s book-signing event taking place there. He had heard about Chen before, so he decided to go over and try his luck.

That day there were more than 100 readers waiting to get Chen&rsquo;s signed book published by People&rsquo;s Daily Press. Liu stood in a corner, nervously. His image was so unique that he caught the attention of an editor from People&rsquo;s Daily Press who, having learned about Liu&rsquo;s background, decided to &ldquo;cut the line&rdquo; for him. Later, Chen gave his signed new book to Liu as a gift, and warmly hugged him.

The People&rsquo;s Daily Press editor shot a video of Liu&rsquo;s presence at Chen&rsquo;s book-signing event, which was then uploaded onto the Internet, generating nearly 50,000 comments. One netizen said: &ldquo;Why am I moved by Liu&rsquo;s story? Because he keeps reading despite all sorts of inconvenience, and because he pursues what he loves despite difficulties in life...&rdquo; This comment alone generated 5,000 likes.

Simple style

Certainly, Liu&rsquo;s story is about a farmer who keeps reading to refresh himself despite having to toil and sweat hard in wheat fields in his hometown and on construction sites in faraway cities. But if we read Liu&rsquo;s article published in the People&rsquo;s Daily on July 11, we will know Liu has much more to teach us &mdash; that is, his simple, unassuming style of writing that reveals his genuine thoughts.

Here&rsquo;s my translation of the first paragraph of his article, titled &ldquo;Read to Make Ourselves Better.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m Liu Shili. I come from Puyang, Henan Province. I plow the land at home during peak farming seasons. Otherwise I go and work in cities to earn some extra money. After harvesting wheat at home, I came to Beijing a few days ago and started to look for jobs in the Majuqiao area. One finds more job opportunities before 5am but it is difficult after 7am. I do everything from binding steelbars and pouring concrete to building walls and screeding the floor. When there&rsquo;s no job, or after I get off work, I visit the Beijing Book Building at Xidan and find something to read. I feel relaxed and happy each time I open a book. I can stay there seven to eight hours at one time. It feels good.&rdquo;

What a simple style of writing! No big words, no fancy concepts, no superlatives. Isn&rsquo;t this a better way of telling a story than resorting to sensational words?

Liu is not the only farmer who can write a touching article with simple words. An Sanshan, from Shanxi Province, has moved many people to tears with his 800-word improvised composition titled &ldquo;My Mother.&rdquo;

On July 9, a vlogger went to a job market near Taiyuan Railway Station and challenged some migrant workers to finish a 800-word composition. Anyone writing such a composition with a given title could win 1,000 yuan (US$138.66) as a reward.

An, who had waited five hours but got no job that day, decided to give it a try. As with a case of opening a &ldquo;blind box,&rdquo; the topic he picked randomly happened to be &ldquo;My Mother,&rdquo; the very composition title in the nation&rsquo;s college entrance exam in 1957.

An, 66, said he finished writing the composition in about 1-1/2 hours. &ldquo;The words flowed from my heart.&rdquo;

His article was dedicated to the memory of his mother, who died years ago. He remembered how hard his mother had worked for the family.

I try to translate the last paragraph of An&rsquo;s composition as follows:

&ldquo;The grass on (my mother&rsquo;s) grave turns green, then yellow, then green again. Like my longing, it never fades. I&rsquo;ve become a father, and a grandfather, but for over 30 years I haven&rsquo;t called &ldquo;mom.&rdquo; When I can no longer shoulder cement bags, I&rsquo;ll return to my village and lie down beside that small mound of earth. Then, if I call &lsquo;mom&rsquo; again, she may hear me.&rdquo;

These are the simple words that have moved myriad netizens to tears. As a reporter, I have a lot to learn from this reverend farmer, whose words simply follow his heart and truly reflect a beautiful mind that no fancy words can describe.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/shanghai-daily-columnists/Chinese-tech-firms-join-hands-to-promote-circular-economy/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Chinese tech firms join hands to promote circular economy</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion Columns]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wang Yong]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[AS the world confronts a growing e-waste crisis, Lenovo, a US$69-billion-revenue global technology powerhouse listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has joined hands with the United Nations to promote ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		AS the world confronts a growing e-waste crisis, Lenovo, a US$69-billion-revenue global technology powerhouse listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has joined hands with the United Nations to promote the circular economy that features, among other things, responsible electronics management.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) announced on July 9 that it has formalized a strategic collaboration with the tech giant to accelerate global initiatives that support the circular economy.

&ldquo;We look forward to working together on technical cooperation and capacity-building operations across the world,&rdquo; said Ciyong Zou, deputy to the director general and managing director of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development at UNIDO. &ldquo;As the UN&rsquo;s specialized agency for industrial development, engagement with the private sector is key; Lenovo&rsquo;s commitment to sustainable industrialization fully aligns with UNIDO&rsquo;s vision for circular global supply chains in the electronics sector and beyond.&rdquo;

The latest collaboration comes at a time when the world is increasingly aware of the harm of e-waste and the benefits of its more efficient reuse.

Last year, the UN released the most recent edition of the Global E-waste Monitor, noting that the world&rsquo;s generation of electronic waste was rising five times faster than documented e-waste recycling. To put that into perspective, the 62 million tons of e-waste generated in 2022 would fill 1.55 million 40-ton trucks, roughly enough trucks to form a bumper-to-bumper line encircling the equator.

The UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024 further noted that less than one-quarter (22.3 percent) of the e-waste mass was documented as having been properly collected and recycled in 2022, leaving US$62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources unaccounted for while increasing pollution risks.

The report warned that the annual generation of e-waste worldwide was rising by 2.6 million tons annually and was on track to reach 82 million tons by 2030, up a further 33 percent from the 2022 figure.

E-waste, any discarded product with a plug or battery, may contain not only valuable elements such as gold and copper that should be properly recycled, but also hazardous substances like mercury which can harm people&rsquo;s health. Therefore, it&rsquo;s urgent for everyone to join hands and help recycle e-waste, whether it&rsquo;s for economic reasons or out of health concerns.

In its July 9 announcement, UNIDO acknowledged Lenovo&rsquo;s effort to accelerate environmental progress through its participation in the circular economy, including the continued use of closed-loop recycled materials in its products.

One may find a number of details about how Lenovo goes about recycling in the company&rsquo;s fiscal year 2024/25 ESG report released in June. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance.

For example, the report points out: &ldquo;Lenovo supports the use of recycled plastics, including ocean-bound plastics (OBP), to reduce consumption of virgin materials and to help support a circular economy. In 2019, the packaging team began researching the possibility of using OBP in product packaging and launched the first packaging cushion containing OBP (30 percent OBP and 70 percent other recycled plastics) in ThinkPad L14 packaging.&rdquo;

At the same time, as we find in the latest Lenovo ESG report, the use of bamboo or sugar cane fibers in select products has marked the launch of a new era of packaging offerings for Lenovo. The report explains that bamboo fiber has many favorable features, including being recyclable alongside paper and cardboard.

More importantly, Lenovo has predicted in its latest ESG report that 100 percent of its PC products will contain post-consumer recycled content materials (excluding tablets and accessories) by fiscal year 2025/26.

In an interview with Sustainability Magazine in 2023, Mary Jacques, executive director of Global ESG and Regulatory Compliance at Lenovo, also predicted that, by 2025, the PC maker will enable the recycling and reuse of 363 million kilograms of end-of-life products and ensure 76 percent of repairable PC parts returned to the company&rsquo;s service centers will be repaired for future use.

Certainly, there&rsquo;s always room for improvement in any company&rsquo;s effort to reduce waste by promoting repair, reuse and recycling. But Lenovo&rsquo;s collaboration with UNIDO, based in part on the former&rsquo;s current achievement, surely can help many developing countries embrace a circular economy in many ways.

Collective efforts

Not just Lenovo, many other Chinese companies like Xiaomi and GEM (Green Eco-Manufacture) have also contributed to the circular economy in the electronics sector.

Xiaomi, now the world&rsquo;s third-largest smartphone maker, has steadily thrown itself behind recycling of used items. It has set a target to recycle a total of 38,000 tons of e-waste over a five-year period (2022-2026). In its latest ESG report released in April, the company said it had fulfilled 95.94 percent of this target by the end of 2024.

In a section dedicated to the circular economy on Xiaomi&rsquo;s official site, one can find how much e-waste had been recycled in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. According to Xiaomi&rsquo;s statistics, the company had recycled 4,500 tons of e-waste in 2022, 12,260 tons in 2023, and 19,698 tons in 2024, signaling a growing momentum.

Its latest ESG report also shows that many recycled materials have been integrated into new products. For example, the back cover of the Xiaomi 14T smartphone uses a bio-based material derived from lemon residue, with half of its polyurethane sourced from bio-based raw materials.

Xiaomi is one of the Chinese firms that have joined the Circular Electronics in China project launched by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with other partners in 2017. In an updated report published on its website this June, the WEF says the project aims at helping companies in China reduce and recycle 50 percent of e-waste by 2025.

In a news report published last year, Chinese broadcaster CGTN noted: &ldquo;As the world&rsquo;s largest mobile phone consumer market, China is expected to have 6 billion used mobile phones by 2025. This creates huge opportunities for the circular economy. At the same time, the Chinese government has placed high expectations on the electronic recycling industry.&rdquo;

As the WEF noted, many big-name companies operating in the country have participated in the Circular Electronics in China project, including Xiaomi, All Things Renew Group, GEM, JD, Huawei and Oppo.

As early as in 2023, MIT Technology Review, which was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States in 1899, had listed GEM as a major climate tech to watch because of the company&rsquo;s great ability to recycle electronics and batteries. GEM was established in 2001 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

&ldquo;GEM&rsquo;s versatile factories can dismantle different kinds of batteries, and its hydrometallurgical extraction techniques are more effective at removing critical materials than competitors&rsquo; methods. For example, GEM can recycle over 90% of lithium from used batteries and extract nickel from materials that contain less than 0.1% of the metal,&rdquo; MIT Technology Review noted.

In April, reporters from overseas Chinese media outlets, including those from Canada, Japan and Venezuela, visited GEM&rsquo;s new material company in Hubei Province. The media outlet from Venezuela (pandavennews.com) reported that GEM now recycles more than 10 percent of China&rsquo;s discarded small batteries.

The list of Chinese companies dedicated to e-waste management can go on and on.

For example, if you look at All Things Renew, a recycling giant founded in 2011, you might be a bit surprised to find that such a &ldquo;young&rdquo; firm&rsquo;s achievement in recycling e-waste has been recognized by the UN.

Last year, the company&rsquo;s practice of promoting a circular economy in the second-hand consumer electronics sector was included in the United Nations Global Compact&rsquo;s leading cases of sustainable corporate development.

Concrete steps

Every individual company&rsquo;s effort matters, especially when such effort meshes with the UN&rsquo;s call for promoting green industrialization.

Ruediger Kuehr, a senior manager at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and an adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick (Ireland), said recently that &ldquo;concrete steps&rdquo; are urgently needed to reduce e-waste, especially at a time when many people in today&rsquo;s society use multiple computers and phones, an ever-growing number of new appliances, monitors and sensors, e-bikes, e-scooters, clothes, toys and furniture with embedded electronics.

Indeed, when an individual enterprise takes concrete steps to help enhance global green growth, the whole world stands to gain.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/shanghai-daily-columnists/Cityborn-architect-lists-inspiration-behind-his-designs-in-a-new-book/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>City-born architect lists inspiration behind his designs in a new book</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion Columns]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wan Lixin]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[WHEN Chinese-Canadian architect Peter Guohua Fu’s book, “The Stories Behind 100 Designs,” is introduced at the Shanghai Book Fair in August, readers can expect to learn many interesting stories about ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		WHEN Chinese-Canadian architect Peter Guohua Fu&rsquo;s book, &ldquo;The Stories Behind 100 Designs,&rdquo; is introduced at the Shanghai Book Fair in August, readers can expect to learn many interesting stories about numerous landmark structures, many of which are located in Shanghai.

Peter Fu, a professor from The Peter Guohua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University, Canada, and his son, Fu Jiawen, co-authored the book.

After graduating from Tongji University, Peter Fu studied architecture and urban planning at McGill University in Canada and earned a doctorate.

He has worked as an architect at several well-known Canadian architectural firms before founding the KF Stone Design International, which has designed approximately 5 million square meters of Shanghai&rsquo;s urban landscape, including the highrise buildings of Da&rsquo;an Garden in Jing&rsquo;an District and Yuyuan Road renovation in Changning District.

The company is also behind several innovative initiatives, such as a multi-stage outdoor theater made from discarded shipping containers.

In 2021, he was awarded the Shanghai Magnolia Silver Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals who have contributed significantly to Shanghai&rsquo;s economic and social growth.

&ldquo;&lsquo;The Stories Behind 100 Designs&rsquo; is born of the architectural works, and their derivatives, that I have been responsible for over the past 25 years, which essentially amount to a sum-up of different genres in my architectural series, ranging from architect-themed musicals to stage operas, sculptures and paintings,&rdquo; the architect said.

Fu added that he hoped the city would become more human-centric, with stories behind buildings that would capture the attention of more residents, who would care for and talk casually about these architectural narratives as part of the effort to transition from grand architectural art to grand visual expression.

Shanghai accounts for roughly half of the approximately 100 buildings in the book. As Fu noted, as a Shanghai-born architect, coming to structures that he designed is a source of immense pleasure and satisfaction.

The book also includes about 20 projects in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, including the &ldquo;Music on the TM River&rdquo; project, which cost 5 billion yuan (US$700 million) and took 15 years to plan. Since its completion at the end of last year, the project has earned Fu rave reviews.

Fu was nostalgic about the building&rsquo;s design, emphasizing that, while the concept came to him by chance, there was also a sense of inevitability to the structure.

The design resembles half of a dulcimer lying on its side. When viewed from a distance, its reflection in the Tianmu River forms the image of a complete dulcimer, which is truly inspiring.

It is also strictly functional. With the upper part smaller than the lower part, the structure is both mechanically sound and cost-effective.

The entire project appears to be destined for Hengqin, an islet in Zhuhai that is strategically located in the Greater Bay region. It might have seemed out of place in New York, Beijing or Shanghai.

With 100 drawings created by Fu himself, the book recounts the vicissitudes the architect has witnessed over the last 25 years, serving as a truthful monument to his profound, bittersweet experience.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/china-knowledge-wharton/China-antidesertification-drive-fuels-green-growth-common-prosperity/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>China anti-desertification drive fuels green growth, common prosperity</title>
		<category><![CDATA[China Knowledge]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wang Yong]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[TO understand China’s growth potential and strategy, it’s not enough just to calculate how many cars or clothes are produced and sold. A look into the country’s vast desert area is necessary if one is ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		TO understand China&rsquo;s growth potential and strategy, it&rsquo;s not enough just to calculate how many cars or clothes are produced and sold. A look into the country&rsquo;s vast desert area is necessary if one is to see the bigger picture.

On June 30, China completed a barrier belt along the southeastern edge of its fourth-largest desert &mdash; the Tengger Desert &mdash; in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In a report released on July 1, Xinhua news agency called the barrier belt a milestone in China&rsquo;s desertification control efforts.

The 153-kilometer belt in Ningxia, which is 10 to 38 kilometers wide, creates a formidable vegetation barrier against the eastward movement of the Tengger Desert, which spans about 43,000 square kilometers. In particular, the barrier belt will fix the dunes and prevent them from affecting the adjacent Yellow River area.

There are at least two things we can learn from this milestone desertification control project, both of which are related to China&rsquo;s growth potential and strategy.

First, the power to invent new things.

Although the efforts to fix the dunes with a barrier belt in Ningxia date back to the 1950s, when the straw checkerboard approach was invented to protect China&rsquo;s first desert railway, special progress has been made in the recent past, aided by the application of new technologies, including those that help improve straw checkerboards and develop artificial cyanobacteria soil crusts.

Compared with traditional straw checkerboards which are usually handmade and last about three years in practical use, the new versions weaved by recently invented machines are much tougher and last about six years after they are &ldquo;planted&rdquo; in the desert.

Biological soil crusts

An article posted on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on June 11 explains how cyanobacteria-dominated biological soil crusts (BSCs) help stabilize soil in arid areas.

&ldquo;Cyanobacteria are foundational organisms in these crusts, using their trichomes and secreted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) to bind soil particles. Their ability to move within soil layers is closely linked to crust formation and expansion,&rdquo; the article explains.

Despite the &ldquo;magic&rdquo; effect of cyanobacteria-dominated BSCs in fixing the dunes, it usually takes more than 10 years for such crusts to form under natural conditions, a Xinhua report published last June pointed out. However, a new technology recently developed by Chinese scientists has made it possible to form BSCs in just two to three years, as people can spray liquid cyanobacteria into the dunes that are fixed within those improved straw checkerboards.

Second, the readiness to share.

The completion of the 153-kilometer barrier belt is just the latest demonstration of China&rsquo;s relentless efforts in desertification control. CGTN (China Global Television Network) reported in June that in China, more than 24 million hectares of sandified areas have been turned into green land, and nearly 1.9 million hectares have been buffered against desertification since 2012. It further cited official data as saying that from 2000 to 2019, the total amount of wind-eroded soil in the country&rsquo;s major deserts and sandy land had declined by about 40 percent, and China has become the first nation to achieve zero growth in land degradation.

Xinhua has reported that, since signing the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in 1994, China has continuously shared sand control experience, technologies and talent with the world. A latest example was the inauguration of the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center in June. The new center is based in Ningxia.

Also in June, a foreign ministry spokesperson said that China stands ready to deepen cooperation in ecological and environmental protection with Central Asian countries and the rest of the world to jointly create more miracles of turning desert into oasis.

The spokesperson Guo Jiakun made the remarks when asked for more details on China and Central Asian countries&rsquo; joint efforts to tackle the Aral Sea ecological crisis, a collaboration that brings green hope to the &ldquo;dry tears&rdquo; of Central Asia. Xinhua cited Guo as saying that since the first China-Central Asia Summit in 2023, China and Central Asian countries have carried out joint scientific exploration, worked on the improvement of saline-alkali land, and set up a demonstration zone of water-saving cotton fields, which have been welcomed by local people.

What China has to offer extends beyond dune-fixing technologies.

As a senior World Bank official noted last year, Ningxia&rsquo;s story is also one about economic growth. Valerie Hickey, global director of the World Bank&rsquo;s Environment Department, told Xinhua in an interview in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that the most valuable takeaway from Ningxia&rsquo;s environmental efforts is to seize opportunities to &ldquo;end poverty and grow the economy,&rdquo; by growing goji berries, making wines, and developing the solar industry in the arid land.

Indeed, China&rsquo;s constant progress in combating desertification is not just a story of technological breakthroughs. It&rsquo;s a story of green growth and common prosperity as well.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/foreign-perspectives/5-mental-health-memoirs-that-will-sort-your-life-out/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>5 mental health memoirs that will sort your life out</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[FOR those jetting off somewhere hot, life will still be messy when you get back from the beach. These five memoirs have carried me through some tough times and showed me that our struggles, however isolating ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		FOR those jetting off somewhere hot, life will still be messy when you get back from the beach. These five memoirs have carried me through some tough times and showed me that our struggles, however isolating they seem, are shared. None of these books are recent releases, but at least one will be new to you, and their insights feel more relevant than ever.

Each offers a different window into the landscapes of suffering and survival, written by people brave enough to map their pain so the rest of us might understand ours.

&lsquo;Shoot the Damn Dog&rsquo;

The first mental health memoir I read. Sally Brampton founded&nbsp;Elle&nbsp;UK but behind the glossy exterior was a woman battling severe depression and alcoholism. Her account is unflinchingly honest about what it feels like to live inside a depressed mind.

Brampton doesn&rsquo;t romanticize mental illness or offer false hope. She writes about depression like someone clawing at the walls of their existence.

Brampton died by suicide years after publication. I was in the bath when I heard the news and cried like a baby. I reread her book to remind me why I&rsquo;d connected with her words. Her brutal honesty about the fight for her life continues to help people feel less alone in theirs.

Why to pack:&nbsp;Perfect for anyone drowning in their own mind.

&lsquo;Man&rsquo;s Search for Meaning&rsquo;

This book is on every therapist&rsquo;s bookshelf for good reason. For me, it was my mom who recommended it, but she&rsquo;s a therapist. Double whammy. Frankl&rsquo;s central insight is that we cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose how to respond. This might sound like greeting card philosophy, but Frankl earned the right to say it through unthinkably hard experiences. There&rsquo;s a reason this slim book has sold over 16 million copies and been named one of the most influential books in America.

Frankl&rsquo;s therapy focuses on finding meaning rather than pursuing happiness. In our culture of toxic positivity, this feels revolutionary. Sometimes the question isn&rsquo;t &ldquo;How can I be happy?&rdquo; but &ldquo;How can I make this suffering worthwhile?&rdquo;

Why to pack:&nbsp;When life feels unbearably cruel, Frankl shows the way forward.

&lsquo;A Million Little Pieces&rsquo;

The world was sold on this book being a memoir until it turned out to have fictional elements. The addiction narrative hits like a freight train regardless of what&rsquo;s &ldquo;true.&rdquo; Frey&rsquo;s account of rock-bottom addiction and treatment is visceral in ways that stay with you. He doesn&rsquo;t glorify addiction or make recovery read easy. This is about the daily grind of choosing sobriety when every cell screams for relief.

Frey refuses to make himself sympathetic. He&rsquo;s often unlikeable, sometimes cruel, frequently self-pitying. But that honesty makes his recovery feel real. The controversy misses the point: Frey captured something essential about addiction that resonates regardless of embellishment.

Why to pack:&nbsp;The unvarnished truth about rock bottom and climbing back.

&lsquo;Tuesdays with Morrie&rsquo;

Words from a dying man that are neither morbid nor manipulative. Albom reconnects with his former professor Morrie Schwartz, who is dying from a motor neurone disease. What begins as a courtesy visit becomes Tuesday conversations about love, work, death and what makes life worth living.

I must have bought 10 copies of this book because I&rsquo;ve given it away to at least nine friends. Each one has fallen in love with Morrie. I challenge you not to.

Albom arrives as a successful but spiritually empty workaholic and leaves understanding something fundamental about human connection. The conversations are grounded in the reality of a deteriorating body and a sharp mind grappling with mortality.

Why to pack:&nbsp;A gentle reminder of what matters.

&lsquo;Hunger&rsquo;

I hate my body. If you&rsquo;ve ever been at war with yours, this is the most honest thing you&rsquo;ll read about that particular hell. Gay&rsquo;s memoir chronicles how childhood sexual trauma led to extreme weight gain and what it&rsquo;s like to live in a larger body.

This isn&rsquo;t just for people who&rsquo;ve suffered similar trauma. I live with a severe eating disorder and find this book incredibly powerful. Gay writes brutally, with short, devastating sentences that tell it like it is.

Gay doesn&rsquo;t apologize for her size or promise transformation. Instead, she offers something harder: the truth about surviving in a body that feels like both protection and a prison.

Why to pack:&nbsp;Essential reading for anyone carrying trauma in a body of any size.

These books don&rsquo;t offer easy answers or quick fixes. What they provide is more valuable: proof that others have walked through similar darkness. While you&rsquo;ve got sand between your toes and a pina colada in one hand, hold one of these books in the other.

Sometimes choosing deeper reading over our usual romance or spy thriller gives us something extra. The knowledge we&rsquo;re not alone in whatever else we&rsquo;re packing.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/chinese-perspectives/HK-unveils-new-policy-to-recapture-its-prominence-in-global-finance/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>HK unveils new policy to recapture its prominence in global finance</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Leo Zhang]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[THE Hong Kong Stock Exchange has quietly rolled out one of its most consequential reforms in years: the Technology Enterprises Channel, or TECH.

On paper, the channel is a regulatory update, allowing ]]></description>
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		THE Hong Kong Stock Exchange has quietly rolled out one of its most consequential reforms in years: the Technology Enterprises Channel, or TECH.

On paper, the channel is a regulatory update, allowing early-stage tech and biotech firms to file applications for initial public offerings confidentially and with greater flexibility. In practice, it&rsquo;s a strategic reset &mdash; a bold attempt to strengthen Hong Kong&rsquo;s position as a global finance center and anchor China&rsquo;s drive for innovation in a friendlier capital environment.

This isn&rsquo;t just about streamlining listings. It&rsquo;s about repositioning Hong Kong as the go-to launchpad for Chinese technology firms at a time when US capital is retreating, geopolitical headwinds are intensifying and capital markets are fragmenting.

TECH reflects elements of the tech-heavy Nasdaq index in New York. It targets high-growth sectors like biotech, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and green energy. It permits dual-class share structures and provides confidentiality, which is critical for companies in politically sensitive or more closely guarded fields of development.

But this is not a copy-and-paste effort. It&rsquo;s tailored adaptation.

The STAR Market in Shanghai has served a similar purpose since 2019. Yet for globally minded Chinese firms seeking dollar-denominated capital, international visibility and more flexible corporate governance, Hong Kong remains unrivaled.

TECH strengthens that bridge. Its lighter-touch listing rules &mdash; even for Hong Kong &mdash; are designed to keep the next BeiGene or SenseTime in the region rather than losing them to New York.

The message is clear: Companies no longer need to choose between alignment with China&rsquo;s national interests or access to deep global capital pools. In Hong Kong, they can have both.

Timing matters. The post-globalization window for cross-border capital is closing fast. US restrictions on Chinese AI and quantum-computing firms, along with growing scrutiny of overseas listings, signal the end of easy money across borders.

Meanwhile, China&rsquo;s innovation engine is running hot. Domestic AI models like DeepSeek are catching up with global leaders. In 2024, China surpassed the United States in clinical drug trials, with more than 7,100 studies versus America&rsquo;s 6,000, a symbolic milestone in biotech capacity.

But while innovation surges, financing options lag. US listings are increasingly out of reach, hobbled by politics, regulatory risk and investor skepticism. That creates a fundamental mismatch: Companies need capital quickly but traditional avenues are narrowing. This is the gap TECH is designed to fill.

A strategic hedge in disguise

At its core, TECH is more than a regulatory channel. It&rsquo;s a strategic hedge. It reduces friction for IPOs while offering a neutral, credible platform free from Washington&rsquo;s geopolitical entanglements. This isn&rsquo;t deglobali&shy;zation; it&rsquo;s realignment.

The response has already begun. CAR T-cell developers, generative AI platforms and deep-tech startups are reportedly lining up to list under the new channel. Crucially, the new rules relax profitability thresholds, a long-time barrier for vanguard companies engaged in extensive research and development, but with little or no profit yet. By focusing on innovation and market potential, the system better reflects how value is created in the tech economy.

Still, TECH is not a silver bullet. Hong Kong faces real challenges: slowing mainland growth, risk-averse investors and stiff competition from exchanges like Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

But what TECH signals is more important: Hong Kong is finally shedding its reputation for regulatory inertia and showing a willingness to move forward decisively.

If that momentum is sustained, the channel would evolve into a cornerstone of China&rsquo;s long-term strategy of developing self-reliance in technology.

Zooming out, TECH is part of a much bigger play.

As the US seeks to decouple financially from China &mdash; cutting funding to strategic industries and restricting listings &mdash; China is doubling down on building capital infrastructure closer to home. Not just for political insulation, but for economic sovereignty. &ldquo;Building a financially strong nation&rdquo; is now part of China&rsquo;s national mantra.

This is where Hong Kong&rsquo;s unique identity shines. As both part of China and a globally connected offshore market, it occupies a space no other city can quite replicate. Chinese mainland hubs like Shanghai and Shenzhen will dominate yuan-based finance, but Hong Kong, with its global currency and investor trust, can anchor the offshore ecosystem.

Over time, more Chinese firms are likely to &ldquo;come home&rdquo; by choosing Hong Kong over New York, London or Singapore. That means liquidity, valuation and investor attention will gradually concentrate in one place &mdash; Hong Kong. It&rsquo;s a shift that won&rsquo;t happen overnight, but the trajectory is unmistakable.

Other trends are working in Hong Kong&rsquo;s favor. The weakening dominance of the US dollar, the rise of the yuan in international trade settlements and the emergence of a multipolar financial order &mdash; spanning the BRICS group of nations, China&rsquo;s Belt and Road initiative and the Global South &mdash; all enhance Hong Kong&rsquo;s strategic relevance.

The TECH channel may look like a niche policy tweak. But in geopolitical terms, it&rsquo;s a windfall of opportunity born from timing, turmoil and tectonic changes in global capital flows.

The challenge now is execution. Hong Kong&rsquo;s financial community must think bigger and move faster.

That means aligning more closely with China&rsquo;s national goals. It must support Chinese companies with world-class advisory support. And, just as crucially, it must tell the China innovation story credibly to international investors.

TECH gives Hong Kong the mechanism. What&rsquo;s needed now is the movement.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/foreign-perspectives/The-Tom-Cruise-standard-Why-you-should-give-100-some-of-the-time/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>The Tom Cruise standard: Why you should give 100% some of the time</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[ACTION movies aren’t my thing, but there’s something seductive about watching Tom Cruise hurtle through the world with desperate intensity. The Tom Cruise run isn’t really running. It’s something between ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		ACTION movies aren&rsquo;t my thing, but there&rsquo;s something seductive about watching Tom Cruise hurtle through the world with desperate intensity. The Tom Cruise run isn&rsquo;t really running. It&rsquo;s something between a sprint and a panic attack. Behind him, things explode, but he never looks back because looking back is for people who aren&rsquo;t Tom Cruise.

&ldquo;The run&rdquo; is perhaps the least exciting thing Tom Cruise does. In &ldquo;Ghost Protocol,&rdquo; he scaled the Burj Khalifa with adhesive gloves. In &ldquo;Rogue Nation,&rdquo; he held his breath underwater for six minutes. In &ldquo;Fallout,&rdquo; he learned to fly a helicopter for a mountain chase. For any mere mortal, any one of those things would be a death wish. For Tom Cruise, it&rsquo;s a Tuesday.

In need of mindless escapism, I went to see &ldquo;Mission: Impossible &mdash; The Final Reckoning.&rdquo; Three quarters in and there&rsquo;s Tom, dangling from an airplane wing at 5,000 feet. Watching this absurd oath to the Cruise craft got me thinking.

When was the last time I committed to anything with Tom Cruise intensity? When did you?

I&rsquo;d guess most of us operate at around 70 percent capacity and call it a good day. We&rsquo;re present, but not really; engaged, but not fully; tired, but for all the wrong reasons. Time flies whether you&rsquo;re having fun or not. The speed is the same. Only the quality of attention differs. I&rsquo;m starting to realize that my careful rationing of energy might be the very thing that makes years feel monotonous when I look back.

The truth is I don&rsquo;t give 100 percent to anything. Not to my work, though I love it. Not to my friends, though I love them. Not to managing my well-being or color-coordinating my wardrobe. I spread myself so thin across everything that nothing gets the full force of who I am. I tell myself this is balance, but it feels more like a slow betrayal of everyone and everything I claim to care about. I&rsquo;m managing life rather than living it.

We&rsquo;ve created this culture of strategic disengagement, and it&rsquo;s not helpful.

This isn&rsquo;t just about emotional self-protection. Most of us are caught between deadlines and responsibilities, trying to maintain some basic level of fitness after 40. The luxury of single-minded intensity feels absurd when you&rsquo;re trying to remember if you fed the dog while answering work e-mails during a friend&rsquo;s dinner party.

But life&rsquo;s practical obstacles aren&rsquo;t the only reason we don&rsquo;t give 100 percent. There&rsquo;s something deeper going on. Full engagement makes us vulnerable. When you give everything to something &mdash; a relationship, a project or a conversation &mdash; you&rsquo;re completely exposed when it fails. We&rsquo;ve learned that caring deeply amplifies disappointment, so we&rsquo;ve developed ways of caring just enough to function but not enough to hurt.

The cost? We&rsquo;re losing our capacity for depth. When we protect ourselves from disappointment by withholding full investment, we also protect ourselves from genuine joy and meaning. We become people who can&rsquo;t fully celebrate successes because we&rsquo;re already bracing for the next challenge; people who can&rsquo;t fully grieve losses because we never truly loved.

The less we invest in experiences, the less meaningful they become. We end up in chronic mild dissatisfaction, not miserable enough to change and not engaged enough to thrive. The Pew Research Center found that 76 percent of adults feel &ldquo;constantly busy but not productive.&rdquo; We&rsquo;re running faster while getting nowhere.

Take this article. Did I work hard on it? Yep. But did I stay up until 4am obsessing over every word? No. Because that&rsquo;s not sustainable when you have a life to maintain. I gave it what I could between other demands. That&rsquo;s how most of us approach everything. Maybe that&rsquo;s wisdom: Know when to give 70 percent so you can give 100 percent when it counts. But what if we&rsquo;ve forgotten what 100 percent feels like?

Here&rsquo;s where Tom Cruise becomes instructive. He&rsquo;s made something like 45 films over 43 years: roughly one per year. Even Tom Cruise isn&rsquo;t making movies most of the time. The goal isn&rsquo;t maximum intensity all day long. It&rsquo;s about choosing our peak moments: the ones that deserve everything we have and really showing up for those. The rest of the time? Cruise control.

The question isn&rsquo;t whether Tom Cruise is mad for doing his own stunts. It&rsquo;s whether we&rsquo;re mad for getting comfortable with partial living. Next time I catch myself going through the motions &mdash; the distracted phone call, scrolling while someone speaks &mdash; I&rsquo;m going to ask: &ldquo;Is this worth my all?&rdquo; Because here&rsquo;s what I learned watching Tom Cruise dangle from an aircraft: If the fall doesn&rsquo;t kill you, not living fully will.

Life is happening now. Look up. Look around. This is it. The difference between a life that feels rich and one that feels like sleepwalking isn&rsquo;t about what happens to us. It&rsquo;s about how completely we show up for the moments that matter.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/shanghai-daily-columnists/Sports-are-good-economic-as-well-as-healthy-option/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Sports are good economic, as well as healthy, option</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion Columns]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wan Lixin]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[SPORTS are no longer merely a means to keep people healthy, but increasingly appreciated as a means to boost the economy, given its significant contribution to consumption in Shanghai.

A number of recent ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		SPORTS are no longer merely a means to keep people healthy, but increasingly appreciated as a means to boost the economy, given its significant contribution to consumption in Shanghai.

A number of recent events lend credence to the observation that &ldquo;one sports event could lead to a run on a city.&rdquo;

Take the 2025 Formula One Chinese Grand Prix, held on March 21-23 in suburban Jiading District, which spurred both consumption and foot traffic. The event drew a record 220,000 spectators, with international attendees making up 15 percent of them, 60 percent of which explicitly came to the city for the race.

Another event, the 2025 Longines Global Champions Tour Shanghai, attracted more than 30,000 people to the Juss International Equestrian Centre in the Pudong New Area during the May Day holiday.

With several world-class competition brands established over the past three decades, ranging from tennis, equestrian and auto race, to marathon and golf, Shanghai has become a global sports event hub with a diverse sporting culture and international influence.

One student from Nepal even told Shanghai Daily that she chose to study at Shanghai New York University four years ago because the city hosts the F1 race.

These events brought in revenue not only from tickets, but also related spending, such as transportation, hotels, restaurants and shopping.

Shanghai hosted 178 sports events last year, which generated 11.378 billion yuan (US$1.58 billion) of direct economic returns, according to a report released by the Shanghai Sport Bureau. In comparison, 163 sports events were held in Shanghai with about 6 billion yuan of economic returns in 2019, indicating increasing public willingness to spend in the sports industry.

This trend has drawn attention from the local political advisory body which has launched a special project to conduct in-depth research into the issue to draw up suggestions for the city&rsquo;s 15th Five Year Plan (2026-2030).

Wang Renwei, a member of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People&rsquo;s Political Consultative Conference and a former sports editor, said Shanghai has advantages in the relatively higher commercial value in the events it hosts.

&ldquo;Some events have been well established,&rdquo; he said.

&ldquo;For instance, the lottery success rate for Shanghai Marathon remained relatively low, suggesting it is highly sought after,&rdquo; Wang added.

Wang also suggested Shanghai should pay more attention to the branding of its own sports competition. For instance, in view of the fact that squash will soon be an Olympic event, the city could think of burnishing its own brand in this category.

Meanwhile, political advisers also learned that local residents are more willing to spend on sports, either for themselves or their families.

According to Yu Shiping, an official from the Shanghai Sport Bureau, in 2024 an average resident in the city spent a total of 4,362 yuan, a growth of 6.4 percent over the previous year, which accounts for about 8.3 percent of the per capita disposable income.

There are also demographic trends.

&ldquo;For those born since the 1980s, they are spending more on services, in hiring coaches or accessing training, while those older tend to spend more on physical items, such as sports goods and attire,&rdquo; said Yu.

Yu added that the higher percentage in term of services is generally indicative of quality development.

The ratio for the city, at about 50 percent, already represents major progress from that a few years ago, according to Yu.

Specifically, this usually occurs in the purchase of membership fees, training, and, especially for the young people, sports travel to other cities or abroad.

Interestingly, having more kids could have a significant bearing on sports consumption.

&ldquo;From our findings in recent years, it is found that children tend to spend more than adults, probably due to parents&rsquo; willingness to pay for sports-related training for their kids,&rdquo; Yu said.

&ldquo;If you investigate a little, it is easy to see that, for those born since 1980s, those with kids are spending far more than those without, hence another vociferous advocacy for encouraging people to have more kids.&rdquo;

Tao Luna, former shooting champion, proposed that more competitive events be sponsored at community level, as parents-kids fun events, or community sports meet.

Tao, a famous markswoman who won the first gold medal for China at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, is now in charge of a shooting and archery center under the municipal sports administration.

She said, according to professional estimates, providing sport fun events could boost foot traffic in commercial circles by 10 to 20 percent.

Tao also cites other advantages of sports, particularly for young people, for its benefit in fostering resilience, perseverance, and concentration, qualities that are indispensable for success in any endeavor.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/foreign-perspectives/Midyear-meltdown-Lessons-from-2025/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Midyear meltdown: Lessons from 2025</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[WE’RE halfway through 2025, time for an honest assessment of the gap between January’s ambitions and June’s reality. Essentially, I’m the same person. So are you. All is not lost: Every year teaches things ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		WE&rsquo;RE halfway through 2025, time for an honest assessment of the gap between January&rsquo;s ambitions and June&rsquo;s reality. Essentially, I&rsquo;m the same person. So are you. All is not lost: Every year teaches things we didn&rsquo;t expect to learn.

So here&rsquo;s what 2025 has delivered &mdash; five truths that emerged not from achieving much, but from the messy reality of being human.

Change is hard

I&rsquo;ve done none of the things I promised myself this year. Duolingo sits ignored. The gym membership I bought with optimism has become an expensive reminder of good intentions. The healthy eating plan lasted until I smelt a croissant.

Every Sunday, I think &ldquo;on Monday, I&rsquo;ll be different.&rdquo; Mondays pass, months unfold. I used to think this made me lazy. Now I think it makes me normal.

I&rsquo;m waiting for motivation to arrive, still believing I&rsquo;ll wake up wanting kale and excited about cardio. Still thinking there&rsquo;s a better version of me around the corner. There isn&rsquo;t. Maybe that&rsquo;s the point. We&rsquo;re not broken for struggling with change. The version that keeps trying despite failing is exactly who we&rsquo;re meant to be. Struggle isn&rsquo;t the problem; it&rsquo;s proof we haven&rsquo;t given up.

Self-acceptance is harder

Twenty years into an eating disorder, and my self-loathing has reached new depths. I avoid mirrors, photos, anything that might confront me with reality.

As such, I spent weeks in a panic leading up to my 40th birthday party. I starved myself, convinced that people wouldn&rsquo;t love me unless I was smaller. The party happened, and friends filled my home. They weren&rsquo;t there because I&rsquo;d earned their affection. They were there because of who we are to each other.

Self-acceptance asks us to stop fighting wars we&rsquo;ve waged our entire adult lives. Most of us can&rsquo;t. But sometimes, surrounded by people who see us clearly and stay anyway, we glimpse the difference between how we see ourselves and how we deserve to be seen.

Milestones hit hard

Weeks after my birthday, my every waking thought is still &ldquo;shit, I&rsquo;m 40.&rdquo; I keep checking parts of my body for evidence of this inconceivable truth. Age wasn&rsquo;t supposed to happen to me. I was young, for like ... ever.

I&rsquo;m scared of time wasted, questionable decisions and everything I haven&rsquo;t achieved but was supposed to. Milestones force us to take inventory against bullshit checklists we never agreed to follow.

Nobody reads a book in reverse, and milestones are chapters in an ongoing story. Rather than rereading the pages behind me, I&rsquo;m trying to focus on what&rsquo;s next. The characters I&rsquo;ll love and lose; the plot twists I didn&rsquo;t see coming; the ending I wasn&rsquo;t ready for. It&rsquo;s unpredictable, but the best stories always are.

Love can mean letting go

In 20 years of therapy, I haven&rsquo;t cried once. I discuss my mental collapse with the emotional detachment of a weather presenter.

But last month, when my therapist suggested it might be time to &ldquo;break up&rdquo; with anorexia, my voice cracked. Just for a moment, but enough to surprise us both. Because that&rsquo;s what her suggestion felt like, ending a committed relationship that comforts and consumes me.

It&rsquo;s not the only breakup I&rsquo;ve navigated recently. I had to walk away from a friendship that mattered deeply. Someone I clicked with and cared for, but whose presence in my life became complicated. The hardest goodbyes aren&rsquo;t to people who hurt us deliberately. They&rsquo;re to connections we love that simply couldn&rsquo;t continue.

Some relationships teach us about love by ending. Others teach us about ourselves by staying too long. These relationships taught me that love and loss can coexist. Sometimes the most caring thing we can do is mourn what we cannot keep.

Life is precious when threatened

Earlier this year, I genuinely thought I was going to die. Not in a dramatic, metaphorical sense, but in a very real &ldquo;I need to call someone&rdquo; way. Severe dehydration and a body I&rsquo;d treated badly made my mortality clear.

I&rsquo;d spent months, maybe years, flirting with the idea that life wasn&rsquo;t worth the effort. But lying on the bathroom floor, convinced my heart might stop, something shifted. I desperately wanted every breath. I wanted to see tomorrow, next week, next year.

It&rsquo;s a cruel irony that we don&rsquo;t recognize life&rsquo;s value until it&rsquo;s threatened. When everything is stable, we take our pulse for granted.

I&rsquo;m not grateful for the health scare, but I&rsquo;m grateful for what it proved. That beneath hurt, fear and confusion, part of us knows our existence is worth protecting.

Death makes a terrible life coach, but it&rsquo;s remarkably effective at reminding us what matters.

So kindly on yourself, halfway through means halfway left. Enough time to cock up spectacularly or figure something out. I&rsquo;m not a glass half-full kind of columnist, but there&rsquo;s something exhausting and comforting about having six months to get things wrong in new and interesting ways.

If 2025 has taught me anything, it&rsquo;s that progress doesn&rsquo;t feel like progress when you&rsquo;re living it. We&rsquo;re all waiting for some mythical end point where everything clicks. Spoiler alert: There isn&rsquo;t one. There&rsquo;s just the ongoing, endless, messy, beautiful work of being human. And isn&rsquo;t that enough?

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/foreign-perspectives/UNCOMFORTABLY-COMFORTABLE-The-reality-behind-our-perfect-lives/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>UNCOMFORTABLY COMFORTABLE: The reality behind our perfect lives</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 24 May 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[I won’t pretend I’m poor because I’m not. But at 40 years of age, I’m also not where I thought I’d be. More than that, I have recently relied on parents to help with cash flow. That’s not sexy.

Let me ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		I won&rsquo;t pretend I&rsquo;m poor because I&rsquo;m not. But at 40 years of age, I&rsquo;m also not where I thought I&rsquo;d be. More than that, I have recently relied on parents to help with cash flow. That&rsquo;s not sexy.

Let me break it down. I have monthly payments that include:

Rent

Groceries

Ayi

Gym membership

Healthcare

Therapy

...

If I sound privileged, it&rsquo;s because I am. Still, a significant change in circumstance has meant keeping up with outgoings isn&rsquo;t easy.

I could drop the gym but I&rsquo;m there as part of a recovery routine. But yes, I could run around Fuxing Park for free. I have an ayi who comes twice a week. I could cut that in half or cut her altogether. I live central and could move. But in better times I wallpapered my apartment and spent a small fortune making this pretty shoebox a home.

With regards to health care, I live with mental health struggles that require meds. The sad truth is insurance companies do distinguish between a broken collarbone and a broken brain or heart. I cannot unfund this, and the same goes for therapy. As for groceries, it would be cheaper if I cooked more and bought locally. I cook a few times a week, then live off takeaways and occasional dinners out.

I never buy clothes, I don&rsquo;t pamper myself, and nor do I spend without consideration. I am uncomfortably comfortable. And I&rsquo;m not alone.

Sarah&rsquo;s had to borrow money from her parents to tide the costs of education fees, living expenses and so on, while Jo has moved back to her parental home having lived alone for over a decade. Steven has borrowed money from friends to help get his business off the ground, and Neil is knee-deep in debt.

For context, I&rsquo;m talking about middle-aged working professionals. You wouldn&rsquo;t know it to look, but many of us are scraping by. The thing is we&rsquo;re scraping by with kids at international schools and cold cuts from Alimentari.

How did we become a generation that appears successful while quietly drowning?

I&rsquo;ve had a job since I was 14, and I have been financially independent since my 20s. That&rsquo;s nearly two decades of paying my own way, making my own decisions and handling my own crises. I&rsquo;ve been broke; I&rsquo;ve been fortunate; I&rsquo;ve been somewhere in between. But I&rsquo;ve never been here, working full time while accepting handouts to cover what have become basic expenses.

But that&rsquo;s the thing: An ayi and a gym membership are not &ldquo;basic expenses.&rdquo; They are expenses I&rsquo;ve grown used to. The gap between perception and reality is real. We&rsquo;ve created lives that look enviable from the outside while privately making calculations about what we&rsquo;re willing to lose.

My mom had me, paid her way through university, became a lawyer, and owned a house before my age. When she was building her career, my grandparents supported her by taking care of me. They picked me up from school and made my dinner. But childcare feels like an appropriate form of family support, while direct financial help feels dirty.

I&rsquo;ve cringed at stories of adults relying on their parents, and I&rsquo;ve scoffed at divorcees fighting to maintain a lifestyle after separation. But the moral mathematics I apply to strangers grows complicated when applied to my own life.

Here&rsquo;s the brutal truth: I could be financially independent tomorrow if I was willing to give up enough. Would doing so make me more respectable? Probably. Would it make me happier? I doubt it.

Perhaps there&rsquo;s dignity in accepting help when we need it, the sensitivity to take only what&rsquo;s necessary, and the commitment to regain our footing when we can. This could be nothing more than another turn in the circle of family support. My grandparents helped my mom with childcare, my mom sometimes helps me financially, and one day I will look after her in another way.

Independence isn&rsquo;t binary. It exists on a spectrum that shifts over time. I am not where I hoped to be, but I am paying for what&rsquo;s possible, accepting help where needed, and working toward something better.

In the meantime, I&rsquo;m learning to accept help as part of adulthood. It takes strength and maturity to admit we need a hand. This uncomfortable comfort isn&rsquo;t a failing of independence. It&rsquo;s proof we&rsquo;re grown-up enough to stop pretending we have it all sorted.

That&rsquo;s a luxury money can&rsquo;t buy.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/chinese-perspectives/US-may-be-wielding-a-stick-but-China-seeks-trade-recalibration/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>US may be wielding a stick but China seeks trade recalibration</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 May 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Leo Zhang]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[WHEN China and the United States announced a 90-day mutual cut in tariffs after talks in Geneva, headlines declared a “trade truce.” But let’s not fool ourselves. This isn’t a peace deal; it’s a tactical ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		WHEN China and the United States announced a 90-day mutual cut in tariffs after talks in Geneva, headlines declared a &ldquo;trade truce.&rdquo; But let&rsquo;s not fool ourselves. This isn&rsquo;t a peace deal; it&rsquo;s a tactical pause in a long game of attrition.

China, contrary to popular Western tropes, isn&rsquo;t just reacting; it&rsquo;s recalibrating with clarity, discipline and a long-term focus.
While US tariffs on Chinese goods drop from a staggering 145 percent to effectively 30 percent, and China&rsquo;s levies fall from 125 percent to 10 percent, these headline numbers tell only part of the story. What really matters is what happens after the 90-day window and who&rsquo;s more prepared when the game restarts.

Since the beginning of the tariff war, Washington has outpaced Beijing in tariff escalation. But instead of responding blow for blow, China has chosen selective, proportionate retaliation. Some in the West saw that as weakness. It wasn&rsquo;t. It was a calculated display of restraint, designed to minimize self-harm, stabilize markets and signal maturity to the global community.

Even amid rising pressures, China resisted the temptation to slam the brakes on US businesses operating locally. That choice &mdash; keeping Apple stores open and Tesla factories humming &mdash; didn&rsquo;t result from naivety. It came from an understanding that long-term credibility is a more valuable asset than short-term political theater. The contrast with Trump-era brinkmanship is stark. Where Washington leans into chaos as leverage, Beijing plays the adult in the room, buying time to adapt its economy and to outgrow the need for confrontation.

The tariff truce offers American companies short-term relief, but it also delivers a wake-up call. The new geopolitics isn&rsquo;t about decoupling; it&rsquo;s about derisking. US multinationals now grasp the fragility of globalized supply chains tethered too tightly in geography. So, we&rsquo;re seeing a slow but definite realignment, not an exodus from China but a diversification.

Look at Apple&rsquo;s supply chain strategy. While maintaining its massive operations in China essential to serving the domestic and Southeast Asian markets, it is also investing in manufacturing in Vietnam and India. This isn&rsquo;t rejection; it&rsquo;s hedging. China understands that and is responding not with panic, but policy.

The Guangdong and Jiangsu provincial governments have rolled out incentives to deepen supply chain integration and increase added-value manufacturing. Local firms like BYD and CATL are investing in both upstream and downstream capabilities, from lithium refining to battery recycling, so that if supply chains shift, China keeps the high ground.

The US wants to rebuild domestic manufacturing in critical sectors like semiconductors, new-energy vehicles and defense. But wanting isn&rsquo;t the same as doing. Washington still lacks the policy consensus and execution tools to turn that ambition into industrial reality. Congress can barely agree on a budget, let alone an industrial strategy.

China, by contrast, is moving ahead with purpose. Since 2023, export dependence on the US has declined to below 11 percent, down from over 18 percent a decade ago. At the same time, China has signed or deepened trade agreements with Southeast Asian countries, which have overtaken the US as China&rsquo;s largest regional trading partner.

Equally important is a domestic turn. China is pivoting hard toward internal demand, not just as a growth engine but as a buffer. The &ldquo;dual circulation&rdquo; strategy isn&rsquo;t just a slogan; it&rsquo;s become a guiding economic doctrine.

Facing both offshore tariff threats and domestic economic headwinds, China has gone further. It&rsquo;s unilaterally expanded access to key sectors like finance, cloud services and autos. While Western media fixates on &ldquo;crackdowns,&rdquo; foreign capital inflows into China&rsquo;s green technology and electric vehicle sectors have surged, drawn by scale and predictability.

As the dust settles on this latest truce, the US may be wielding a stick, but China is steering the cart.

The author is an adjunct research fellow at the Research Center for Global Public Opinion of China, Shanghai International
Studies University, and founding partner of 3am Consulting, a consultancy specializing in global communications. He has no conflict of interests to declare.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/foreign-perspectives/Not-dead-yet-and-wont-age-quietly/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Not dead yet, and won’t age quietly</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Views]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 May 2025 00:01:00 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[IT’S rare I get writer’s block. I don’t believe in it. But I starved for ideas this week. You know why? Because I’m 40. Let me repeat that. I’m 40. It’s been a slap in the baps.

My birthday was on April ]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		IT&rsquo;S rare I get writer&rsquo;s block. I don&rsquo;t believe in it. But I starved for ideas this week. You know why? Because I&rsquo;m 40. Let me repeat that. I&rsquo;m 40. It&rsquo;s been a slap in the baps.

My birthday was on April 24, and a fortnight later my every waking thought is &ldquo;I&rsquo;m 40.&rdquo; I keep checking parts of my body for evidence of this inconceivable truth. I&rsquo;ve done the math: 1985 deducted from 2025 is indeed 40. The World Wide Web didn&rsquo;t exist when I was born. Phones had cords, and people carried cash. You could smoke on an airplane. That&rsquo;s how old I am.

I think I&rsquo;m having a midlife crisis. Maybe mixed with early menopause, possibly a heart attack, or &mdash; as suggested &mdash; I&rsquo;m being dramatic.

But I&rsquo;m scared. Scared of time wasted, wrong decisions and running out of options. Scared my best days are behind me. In search of reassurance, I googled &ldquo;women at 40.&rdquo; Mistake. I was met with pages about &ldquo;fashion for the over 40s&rdquo; and cheery reminders about mammograms. I&rsquo;ve moved down a box in the age category on medical forms, and my social media feed has shifted from vacation spots to anti-aging cream. Apparently, I&rsquo;m past my prime.

Who decided we have a &ldquo;best before&rdquo; date, and why should anyone accept it?

I&rsquo;ve banged on about this milestone to friends for months. Most have passed it and talk about greater confidence and clarity. I hear &ldquo;40&rdquo; and hear &ldquo;invisible.&rdquo; Why? Because that&rsquo;s what I was taught. Men age like wine; women age like milk. Our relevance lies in our beauty, and our beauty is tied to our worth. Of course, men feel the sting of stigma too, and the better part of me knows ageism is trash. Still, 40 wasn&rsquo;t supposed to happen to me. I was young, for like ... ever.

The shock of age is amplified by its sneakiness. You don&rsquo;t see age every day because every day you see you. It&rsquo;s like gaining weight. We collect years by accident, until one day we look in the mirror and find time has tattooed itself across our skin. I&rsquo;m seeing this change in action; I don&rsquo;t much like it. But gradually, my perspective is changing too.

I won&rsquo;t write a postcard piece about aging because I&rsquo;m still getting used to it. But nor will I subscribe to the idea that anyone over any threshold is somehow worth less.

I spent two decades hating my body. I still hate it. Only now it&rsquo;s softer. I worried about what I had and what I didn&rsquo;t have; who I was and who I wasn&rsquo;t. Self-doubt meant 20 years passed without appreciating the gift of life. And therein lies the bitter joke of time. Only in its passing do we realise how precious it is.

Age is cruel. It&rsquo;s cruel that we shrivel, that people leave, that things end. But there&rsquo;s extraordinary privilege in sticking around long enough to witness it. To know loss means to have known love.

What&rsquo;s really scary isn&rsquo;t getting older. It&rsquo;s a miserable future. Honoring poor choices to stay comfy. Losing interest in the endless possibilities of tomorrow. Spending so much time mourning yesterday that you miss today.

I&rsquo;m continuing my right to exist with Lady Gaga. I&rsquo;m going to see her next month in Singapore. I wouldn&rsquo;t declare myself a diehard fan, but she is an example of life done differently. At 39, there&rsquo;s no indication of Gaga apologizing for her age. She&rsquo;s constantly reinventing herself and refuses to be defined by expectation. That&rsquo;s what I need. I will wear something fabulous and dance badly, because why not? This is my now. My 40-year-old now. And it deserves to be celebrated.

I know at 50 I&rsquo;ll think 40 was young and at 70 I&rsquo;ll see this rant for the ridiculousness it is. This is the youngest I &mdash; or you &mdash; will ever be. Isn&rsquo;t that terrifying? Isn&rsquo;t that wonderful?

I&rsquo;m working harder to be here. To embrace change instead of fighting it. To see the pleasure in growing older in a world where many don&rsquo;t get the chance. I&rsquo;m coating my skin in lotions I was saving. I&rsquo;m making new friends knowing they won&rsquo;t be around forever and continuing to learn because there&rsquo;s so much I don&rsquo;t know.

I&rsquo;m not dead yet. If you&rsquo;re reading this, neither are you. Perhaps the real crisis isn&rsquo;t getting older; it&rsquo;s letting the fear of it stop you from noticing the beauty in what remains. Like writer&rsquo;s block, age isn&rsquo;t about running out of experiences, ideas or moments of joy. It&rsquo;s about being on the cusp of new ones.

Now is all we have, and it&rsquo;s everything worth living for.

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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/Can-a-zealous-tea-chain-be-Chinas-answer-to-Starbucks/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Can a zealous tea chain be China’s answer to Starbucks?</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:58 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Leo Zhang]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[In the global race to dominate the lucrative beverage market, coffee has long reigned supreme. Starbucks turned a simple cup of java into a cultural ritual, building an empire on a caffeinated lifesty]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		In the global race to dominate the lucrative beverage market, coffee has long reigned supreme. Starbucks turned a simple cup of java into a cultural ritual, building an empire on a caffeinated lifestyle.But in China, a challenge is rising — not from beans, but from leaves.Meet Chagee, or Bawangchaji in Chinese. It’s a new-style brand that’s reinventing traditional tea culture for the modern age. And with its successful debut on New York’s Nasdaq exchange on April 17, the brand is brewing ambitions that stretch far beyond its home turf.Founded in Yunnan in 2017, Chagee is no ordinary milk tea brand. It calls itself a “new-style tea beverage brand,” but that barely scratches the surface. Think: part premium teahouse, part boutique coffee shop, part minimalist lifestyle label. Its sleek stores, uniformed staff and curated menu evoke a sense of deliberate design, a familiar echo for anyone who’s stepped into a Starbucks Reserve outlet.The marketing strategy is working. Chagee has expanded at a staggering pace, operating 6,440 teahouses at the end of last year, including outlets across Southeast Asia. Chagee’s initial public offering in New York has been the largest US listing for a Chinese consumer brand since 2021. In the prospectus for its IPO, the company reported 2024 revenue of 12.4 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion), with net profit surging 213 percent from a year earlier. These are numbers that investors and even the biggest names in the coffee house industry can’t ignore.Chagee isn’t chasing Starbucks by accident. Its brand strategy is intentional and tight. Instead of seasonal gimmicks, it focuses on a limited line-up of just 19 core beverages — mainly brewed milk teas made with real tea leaves. Three signature drinks alone account for more than half of its sales. This “do-a-few-things-but-do-them-well” model recalls Apple marketing more than that of bubble tea competitors.But Chagee’s secret ingredient may be cultural storytelling.The Chinese name Bawangchaji is a nod to the Peking Opera classic “Farewell My Concubine.” The logo features a huadan, an archetypal female character traditionally played by a male actor in times gone by. The storytelling branding is a bit reminiscent of the Starbucks, which took its name from a character in Melville’s “Moby Dick” and drew its logo from the mythology of sirens whose sweet songs lured sailors to shipwreck.Chagee outlet interiors balance East Asian esthetics with restrained modern touches. It’s a branding steeped in identity and one that resonates with younger consumers who crave both global style and local soul.That cultural confidence may be its biggest edge, or its biggest test, as it pushes abroad. So far, it’s found a firm footing in Southeast Asia, where tea culture is familiar. But its sights are now set on the ultimate prize: the US market. Chagee has said that it plans to open its first US outlet in a Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles later this spring.That won’t be easy. In America, tea has yet to become a common lifestyle choice; it’s still mostly seen as either a wellness drink or a coffee alternative. Chagee will have to do more than serve good tea; it must redefine what tea means to a Western audience. That involves educating consumers, building new rituals and tweaking formats without losing its essence.Fortunately, the timing might be ideal.For starters, there are now about 4.7 million people of Chinese descent living in the United States, according to the latest census estimates. And Gen Z consumers in the US, no matter what their ethnicity, are globally tuned-in, visually driven and authenticity obsessed.Chagee’s minimalist esthetics, photogenic packaging and cultural backstory are tailor-made for the Instagram age. And its price point, akin to Starbucks, positions it as an accessible luxury.Still, the challenges are real. Competitors like HeyTea and Nayuki are expanding globally. Coffee chains like Luckin are undercutting on price. And Chagee’s reliance on a few star products, while efficient, leaves little room for error if trends shift quickly. Innovation will be key but so will discipline.There’s also geopolitics to consider. A Chinese consumer brand going public must contend with regulatory scrutiny and shifting public sentiment abroad. For Chagee, exporting tea means exporting culture. That requires translating not just flavors and names, but also rituals and values. Western consumers prize speed and convenience. Chagee offers ceremony and meaning. Can the two meet in the middle?Yet what Chagee offers is genuinely new. For decades, global beverage trends have been stuck in remix mode — more caffeine, less sugar, new syrups, same game. Chagee’s proposition is different: tea not just as a drink but as a narrative of heritage, bottled, branded and made shareable.What makes Chagee compelling isn’t just what it sells; it’s what it stands for. In an era where consumers seek experiences with depth and design, Chagee sells a taste of modern China that is confident, stylish and steeped in tradition.If Starbucks can successfully export American coffee culture to the world, why can’t Chagee do the same in reverse and make Chinese tea culture cool?The brand may still be writing its early chapters. But the question is no longer whether Chinese tea can go global. Rather, it’s who will lead the charge. And Chagee may be well positioned to do just that.
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/What-about-the-kids-The-digital-dilemma-raising-junkies/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>What about the kids?  The digital dilemma raising junkies</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:29 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[This week and without warning, a horrid video popped up on my phone. A puppy had its mouth and paws bound with tape, and was hanging in a plastic bag by the motorway. I immediately flicked past, but the]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		This week and without warning, a horrid video popped up on my phone. A puppy had its mouth and paws bound with tape, and was hanging in a plastic bag by the motorway. I immediately flicked past, but the image stayed with me. This was something I didn’t want to see, yet there it was at 11am on a Tuesday.At 39 years old, I have the knowingness to scroll, ignore or block things and people I don’t want to interact with. A 10-year-old doesn’t. That’s a problem.We’re facing a dual crisis we’re not talking about. First, we’ve lost our capacity to be bored. Second, we’re no longer accessing information; we’re being subjected to it: without filters, without warning and without consent. These twin developments aren’t separate problems. They’re concerningly connected.Remember boredom? Me neither. But as a kid, I’d stare at the ceiling, play with my dog, or sit with my thoughts until something bubbled up. Now I grab my phone. We’re all fed a steady stream of content designed to keep us scrolling, each video building on the dopamine hit of the last. It’s a race to the bottom of our attention span, and we’re losing. Years ago, Andrew Tate would likely have remained the nobody he ought to be. But our reliance on technology to escape boredom has given rise to “influencers” whose job is to infiltrate our lives and shape our world view.It’s this influence that “Adolescence” explores, the drama portraying a teenage boy radicalized by Tate-style content. The show’s unflinching portrayal is a wake-up call so compelling that it was discussed in UK Parliament. Unfettered online access is now a national security concern. Before social media, fringe ideologies remained fringe because accessing them required effort. Today they’re coughed up between cat videos and food hacks.“Adolescence” left me with more questions than answers. Here’s one: Whose responsibility is it to protect children from this digital onslaught? Parents? Teachers? Tech companies? And whoever it is, are they doing enough?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I spoke with Everett, both a father and school leader. “It’s down to everyone who cares about this issue,” he said. “Reality is no one is doing a good job.”Let’s start at home, where much of the finger pointing is directed. “It should begin with parents,” Everett reckoned. “They should monitor their child’s tech as much as possible.” But the reality? “Devices are great babysitters. Parents hand off the tablet, and kids entertain themselves. The tap and play leads to finding all kinds of things children shouldn’t be seeing, from misinformation to adult content.”As for schools, Everett admits they struggle. “The firewalls are okay, but students teach each other how to skirt them. Teachers call kids out, but eventually, they give up. Rarely is good tech use taught.”Which brings us to the digital door of tech companies. Let’s be real. It’s about money for them. These corporations designed “infinite scroll” features and notifications for a reason. Their business model depends on addiction, not protection. They want you to buy their product and stay stuck to it. And it’s working. My screen time averages eight hours and 43 minutes. Find out yours before judging.I’ve watched my attention span shrink to seconds. If something doesn’t grab me, I scroll. I check my phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I reach for it in moments of discomfort, or even in conversation. I can’t help myself.That’s the trouble. We’re asking children to navigate a digital world we can’t handle. When we can’t put our devices down, how do we convince kids they should? When algorithms outpace our understanding, how do we teach children to recognize manipulation? We’re handing kids the keys to platforms designed by behavioral psychologists, then wondering why we’re raising a generation of junkies.There’s hope. Some schools have gone completely phone-free with remarkable results. Katharine Birbalsingh, known as “Britain’s strictest headteacher,” has implemented a total phone ban, contributing to outstanding academic achievement. Everett thinks this approach shows promise. “With books like ‘The Anxious Generation’ and other research, parents are waking up to the damage done by devices to children. But it will take serious commitment by all groups to make a difference.”Agreed. The answer demands action from all sides: parents setting boundaries, schools teaching media literacy, tech companies designing child-safe platforms rather than attention traps, and government regulation with teeth.The greatest fear isn’t just what our children might see online. It’s what they’ll miss while they’re there. The quiet moments of discovery. The creativity born from having nothing to do. The messy relationships that don’t provide instant validation. The thoughts that only emerge when there’s space for them. How can kids discover themselves when every moment of consciousness is filled with someone else’s content, ideas or agenda?The question isn’t just what we’re protecting children from, but who we’re turning them into, and even sadder, who we’re keeping them from becoming.
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/Spanish-businessman-thriving-in-the-city-he-deems-second-home/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Spanish businessman thriving in the city he deems second home</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:06 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wan Lixin]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[Pablo Fernandez, a Spanish business executive and investor, first set foot in China in 2009 and arrived in Shanghai in 2015, a city that has not only been a stage in his career development but a destination]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[
		Pablo Fernandez, a Spanish business executive and investor, first set foot in China in 2009 and arrived in Shanghai in 2015, a city that has not only been a stage in his career development but a destination where his heart belongs.In Shanghai, Fernandez co-founded a company, serving as its general manager and CEO for six years. When the company had cash flow problems, Fernandez did not hesitate in suggesting delayed payment of his own salary to help the company.However, in 2020, with disagreements between founders and investors, the company sank into decline. The company terminated Fernandez’s contract in early 2023, without paying him over 800,000 yuan (US$112,000) in salary arrears. Faced with such a predicament, he had no option but to seek legal redress.It could be mind-boggling for a foreigner to navigate the legal complications of an alien land, though Fernandez was lucky in coming across quite a few judges from the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court.In light of the principle of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign enterprises and employees in China on an equal footing, the judges thoroughly investigated the case and surveyed the evidence and arguments from multiple perspectives, all in an effort to fully protect Fernandez’s legal rights.The fair ruling was more than a source of solace for Fernandez. It elicited his heartfelt reverence for the fairness and efficiency of Chinese judiciary.Fernandez is fully aware that all of this could only be understood in light of the spirit of inclusiveness and the rule of law inherent in the city.Over the past 10 years, he has witnessed Shanghai’s rapid development, as evidenced in a city that is becoming more vibrant in economic terms, safer, more innovative in technology, more open to the outside world, and creating more amenities in daily life and getting around.These changes have not only earned Fernandez’s affection, but also instilled in him an unwavering confidence in the future.It comes as no surprise that Fernandez has come to deem Shanghai his second home.“Whether as a common worker or a business operator, I have found a stage for me in this vibrant city. Additionally, a level playing field in legal terms sets me completely at ease,” Fernandez said.Currently, he is an investor and general manager of Nevegy Environmental Technology (Shanghai) Co.
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/THE-ADOLESCENCE-PARADOX-How-many-lambs-to-the-slaughter/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>THE ‘ADOLESCENCE’ PARADOX: How many lambs to the slaughter?</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:43 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Emma Leaning]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of “Adolescence,” the No. 1 streaming show around the world. Like some other 90 million people, I binged it.]]></description>
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		Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of “Adolescence,” the No. 1 streaming show around the world. Like some other 90 million people, I binged it. It was bloody brilliant. The four-part drama about a teenage boy radicalized by Andrew Tate-style content is so compelling that the UK prime minister discussed it in Parliament.One of the brilliances of “Adolescence” is that you’re left with more questions than answers. This one hit me:In a show about a 13-year-old boy being radicalized by toxic content, we cast a 15-year-old boy to play his part. This real teenager performed scenes requiring sexually explicit language, misogynistic rhetoric and acting out the stabbing of another student. He adopted a hyper-masculine persona beyond his years and inhabited a character consumed by violent ideology.Does anyone see the irony?To warn society about children accessing Andrew Tate’s dangerous content, we placed an actual child directly in his toxic path. Not only that, but in front of cameras, performing scenes channeling dangerous ideologies. The entire premise of “Adolescence” is that young minds are vulnerable to harmful influences, yet we’ve asked a young mind to immerse himself in them. Yes, he’s an actor. But so what?Yalda Uhls, former film executive and child development researcher, writes: “When we put children in adult situations and adult worlds, we’re asking them to emotionally handle things that developmentally they’re not ready for.” How does a child process the complex horrors Owen Cooper acted out? Or the fame that comes with starring in the world’s No. 1 series?We’ve seen this story play out before with devastating consequences. Michael Jackson being the most obvious example. A boy catapulted to fame who became a man accused of sickening sexual violence. Britney Spears famously shaved her head and attacked a car with an umbrella during a public breakdown, later testifying: “I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK and I’m happy ... I’m not happy. I can’t sleep. I’m depressed. I cry every day.” Drew Barrymore was in rehab at 13, later reflecting: “I was a sad, confused, lonely little kid. I was basically alone. My parents weren’t there. I was basically raised by my make-up and hair people.” Liam Payne, former One Direction star who entered the spotlight at 16, recently died after falling from a hotel balcony, following years of mental illness. Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin, Amanda Bynes, River Phoenix ... Need I go on?These aren’t just the complaints of spoiled celebrities. There’s substantial psychological research backing up what these former child stars have experienced. Donna Rockwell, clinical psychologist who studies fame, explains: “Child stars often experience a fundamental break in natural child development. Fame establishes an identity for them that isn’t based on a natural, organic development but something external and artificial.”I know the counterarguments. The young actor in “Adolescence” has protections. There are child psychologists on set. His parents are present during filming. There’s carefully controlled exposure to disturbing content. But safeguards fail. Protocols get compromised. Good intentions aren’t always enough. What I’m asking is a broader question, and one I don’t have the answer to: Is it ever OK to put a child in the limelight? Are they ever ready for it, no matter how much cotton wool we wrap them in? No matter how good the performance, no matter how important the story, should we put children on stage? And who decides when it’s OK?This is not a case against “Adolescence.” I think it’s an incredible piece of art. I recommend everyone watch it, and I’d even go as far as to say watch it with your teenage children and talk about its importance. The series brilliantly captures the dangers of online radicalization and deserves every bit of acclaim it’s received.What I’m wrestling with is the paradox that struck. In trying to highlight the dangers young people face online, we’ve potentially created another kind of danger for another young performer.Next week, I’ll be writing about “Adolescence” through another lens: the devices we carry in our back pockets and what endless access to information means. What responsibility do parents, schools, tech companies and society bear in protecting young minds from toxic content?For now, I’m left with the “Adolescence” paradox. How many lambs are we willing to slaughter for entertainment? I don’t have a neat answer, but I think it’s a question worth asking.See you next week.
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/Judicial-intervention-ensures-redress-for-fraudulent-bank-card-withdrawal/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>Judicial intervention ensures redress for fraudulent bank card withdrawal</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:11 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wan Lixin]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[Nicholas Steven Wynne, an Irish teacher at Shanghai United International School, has been in Shanghai for many years. Multiple travels between his home country of Ireland and the city of Shanghai over]]></description>
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		Nicholas Steven Wynne, an Irish teacher at Shanghai United International School, has been in Shanghai for many years. Multiple travels between his home country of Ireland and the city of Shanghai over the years have enabled him to better perceive the rapid development of China and the ever advancing convenience of living in Shanghai.A few years ago, Wynne encountered an incident that has been impressed upon his memory. It happened that one of his bank cards saw a fraudulent withdrawal overseas, causing a loss of 5,000 yuan (US$704). Although the loss amount was not high, Wynne made it a point of upholding his legal rights by filing a lawsuit at a Shanghai court.After the case was accepted, the judges at the Hongkou District People’s Court, after conducting a rigorous investigation, came up with a professional judgement. By resorting to legal principles, life experience, and logical reasoning, the judges concluded that there was a high probability of transactions using counterfeit cards and, as a consequence, Wynne was not at fault.On the basis of their professional acumen, the judges ruled that the issuing bank should compensate Wynne for all his economic losses, and the judgment was fully executed without delay.Reflecting on this experience, Wynne waxed emotional: “As a resident of Shanghai and a financial consumer, this judgment gave me a strong sense of security. I deeply appreciated the professionalism and fairness of the Shanghai courts, and I was fully confident in Shanghai’s financial environment.”With significant improvement in chip technology and beefed-up risk management, cases of bank card frauds like the one Wynne endured have since dropped significantly.Bank cards, as a rule the first “window” for foreign consumers to have initial contact with Shanghai’s financial services, are now strongly safeguarded in terms of safety.Wynne noted that in Shanghai the ubiquitous mobile payment is changing the traditional lifestyle, enabling him to enjoy convenient and secure financial services anytime and anywhere in the city, with the judiciary providing a robust “shield” against any risk inherent in financial consumption.The Irishman also mentions that he has witnessed the judiciary’s unremitting efforts in promoting financial consumption safety, protecting consumer rights and pushing high-quality financial development.Wynne is looking forward to taking these interesting and touching experiences back to his country, to share with his family and friends in Ireland, “so that they could see a China that is innovative, developing, equal and inclusive. This is also an important part of being a teacher, where we encourage cultural communication and exchange.”
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		<link>http://www.shanghaidaily.com/opinion/How-ordinary-people-are-quietly-changing-relations-between-nations/shdaily.shtml</link>
		<title>How ordinary people are quietly changing relations between nations</title>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:11 +0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yang Jian]]></dc:creator>
		<description><![CDATA[When American father Brecken Neumann traveled to Shanghai this spring to meet his Chinese Internet friends, the sight of toddlers swapping snacks wasn’t just a cute moment but a glimpse of a quiet rev]]></description>
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		When American father Brecken Neumann traveled to Shanghai this spring to meet his Chinese Internet friends, the sight of toddlers swapping snacks wasn’t just a cute moment but a glimpse of a quiet revolution.From viral “Say Hi” videos to family meetups arranged through social media platform Xiaohongshu (Red Note, China’s lifestyle-sharing platform with 300 million monthly active users), ordinary people are reshaping relations between countries through genuine connections.In response to the looming United States TikTok ban in January, many American users migrated to China’s Xiaohongshu.Algorithms, once seen as tools of division, have sparked cross-cultural curiosity. Xiaohongshu’s personalized feed recommends Chinese breakfast videos to Utah moms and Colorado ski Vlogs to Guangzhou office workers. Virtual exchanges lead to real-world friendships.Neumann, following the trend on Xiaohongshu, posted a photo of himself and his daughter greeting Chinese netizens. Soon, his comments section was flooded with “hi” messages from people of all backgrounds, including a family photo of Rongrong and her family from Shanghai. The side-by-side comparison of these two images quickly went viral on platforms like X, with a “Isn’t this how the world should be?” remark by a netizen, garnering nearly 400,000 likes. Inspired by the kindness of Chinese netizens, the Neumanns embarked on their journey to China.They aren’t alone. Foreign visitors, inspired by online conversations, are flocking to China.In 2024, over 20 million inbound trips were made under China’s visa-free policies, a 112.3 percent year-on-year increase.American basketball fan Jiggly Boy, or “Wolf Uncle,” praised Shanghai’s cleanliness and modern skyline, calling it “one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”Italian traveler Federico, retracing his mother’s visit from 30 years ago, marveled at Shanghai’s growth and cultural scene, surprised by the authenticity of Italian pizza.British streamer “itsjavachip” visited Chongqing after gaining fame from “Black Myth: Wukong.” This Chinese video game sold 10 million copies globally in three days.Their visits sparked global praise, with social media users saying, “This is what the world should be like.”While government diplomacy can be fragile, citizen-led connections are often more resilient. Even as political tensions rise, people find ways to collaborate. Music, food and laughter connect people in ways that official statements rarely can.YouTuber Darren Jason Watkins Jr, known as IShowSpeed, recently conducted a series of livestreams during his inaugural visit to China. His six-hour broadcast in Shanghai attracted over 6.4 million views and thousands of comments. With 37 million YouTube subscribers, IShowSpeed is recognized for his energetic and expressive on-screen presence.During his tour, he explored cities like Shanghai and Beijing, participated in cultural activities such as lion dances, sampled local cuisines and experienced riding shared bicycles. The American’s real-time, high-definition 2K livestreams, even aboard China’s 350 km/h high-speed trains without connectivity issues, impressed many international viewers.These unfiltered broadcasts provided audiences worldwide with a firsthand look at modern China, challenging longstanding stereotypes and offering a fresh perspective on the country’s development and culture. Viewers expressed surprise at China’s modernity and the warmth of its people, contrasting sharply with previous perceptions of the nation as “backward” or “closed.”Comments from international viewers included sentiments like, “Respect the Chinese people and China. Hope we can get along and put aside political differences.”Such kind of people-to-people diplomacy mirrors what biologist Lynn Margulis called “symbiotic evolution” — distinct entities thriving through cooperation. When people meet, talk and understand each other, they create bonds that withstand the shocks of political uncertainty. Even in tense times, empathy and curiosity remain forces for mutual understanding.Gen Z is leading the change. American and Chinese gamers form teams in “Minecraft,” collaborating on elaborate virtual worlds like Minecraft. On Xiaohongshu, they exchange memes, learning each other’s humor.The movement is reminiscent of the 1971 “ping-pong diplomacy” that paved the way for normalized China-US relations. Back then, a simple table tennis match symbolized hope.Today, a dance challenge on social media sparks laughter and connection across continents.Instead of summits, real progress might come from Midwestern moms sharing cookie recipes with their Chinese friends, grandparents exchanging herbal remedy tips online, or families comparing grocery prices and salaries across the Pacific.Diplomats may negotiate treaties, but the true architects of peace might just be snack-sharing toddlers and meme-posting teens. After all, it’s difficult to fear someone who just taught you how to make their grandmother’s soup and gave it five stars.
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