Culture

Culture

All Brocade and 'As Before': Why Chinese Costume Dramas All Sound the Same

A viral Weibo thread catalogs how Chinese costume dramas have converged on a handful of poetic title formulas — 'As Before,' 'Like a Dream,' endless 'Brocade' — until viewers can no longer tell them apart. The joke says something real about the web-novel adaptation pipeline behind the genre.

Ninety years after the Red Army's year-long trek from Ruijin to Yan'an founded the legend of the Long March, a Fuxing bullet train now covers the route in under 12 hours — over seven existing lines, with no new track laid.

Culture

Back to the Furnace: University Graduates Enroll in China's Technical Schools to Get Hired

Beijing and other cities are opening technician classes reserved for university graduates as degrees lose their hiring power. The trend has a name — hui lu, 'back to the furnace' — and a case study: a sports coach who left the pitch to learn robotic arms.