Twenty Years After the College Expansion: What a Second-Tier Graduate Found at Work
What does a degree really mean? Between a credential diluted by mass expansion and a job market that keeps raising the bar sit far too many individual choices.
QDaily in English
2310 completed translations from the archive. Articles retain their original publication dates.
He Made a Game That Simulates a Gay Man's Life, but Hopes It Doesn't Blow Up | 100 People With Ideas
He isn't after a sudden hit — he just hopes it survives, as a record of the gay community in this era.
A British Man Blogging About Feminism in Korea: Sex, Gender, and the Elephant in the Room
"Middle-aged, white, male, straight — I'm basically part of the most hated group of people on the planet."
Novelist Sarah Waters: "Lesbian Stories Are Just Human Stories, and They Matter to Everyone" | Interviews
Their life journeys are shaped by the fact that they are gay, but the obstacles they meet and the emotions they feel — desire, loss, betrayal, frustration — are the same for everyone.
A Wenzhou Man in Hainan: 29 Years of Gains and Losses | 2018 Stories ④
He always tied the success of his own life to the future of this southern city — and the city's future, in turn, depended on policy and the wider climate. The only problem: neither was something Lin Weiwen could predict.
The International Space Station Turns 20: It Was Once a Symbol of Global Cooperation | QDaily Business History
"A chance to cooperate on a shared scientific goal, existing largely above politics."
What Is Luxury, What Is a Creative Director, What Is the Market of the Future? It's Time to Ask Again
It all comes down to one question: how do you stay connected to consumers, and to the times, when everything inside and outside the business is changing this fast?
Scholar Wu Guosheng: The Values of the 1980s Left a Deep Mark on Us (Part 2) | Interviews
"The values of the 1980s left a deep mark on us. Of course you make adjustments, but the overall direction hasn't changed — you still feel that China's future and the fate of the Chinese nation have to move in that direction (toward liberalization and democratization). However you put it, nothing about this has changed."
#Cover: Why Is Young Americans' Sex Drive in a "Recession"?
Porn and dating apps have not made this generation's sex life more "prosperous."
Have You Also Become a Carrier of the Gentrified-Aesthetic Virus? | 100 Big Questions About Life
If the essence of humanity is a broken record, then the essence of human taste might be… a photocopier.
#Debate: Whether Gentrification Is Good or Bad Will Always Be Disputed — What Matters Most Is That Residents Get a Choice
Neighborhoods that were once colorful and varied always end up looking the same after gentrification. What does gentrification actually do? How should we think about it?
Scholar Wu Guosheng: Science Has Never Truly Entered the Movement to Renew Our National Spirit (Part 1)
A long interview, but worth your time. When we talk about science and technology, do we dwell too much on what "technology" can be used for, and miss what "science" does to the spirit?
HBO's *My Brilliant Friend* Premieres This Weekend. Its Author Is Still a Mystery
"Whenever director Costanzo speaks of Ferrante, the author of the original novel, his dark eyes look upward, as if searching for her in the cracks of the ceiling, or in some parallel plane above the hotel attic."
Bill Gates's High-Tech Toilet Expo, and How Its Attendees Imagine Solving the Toilet Problem
Can an engineer's way of thinking finally solve a public-health problem?
The Swiss Brand That Turns Truck Waste Into Cult Bags — What Is Freitag Really Selling? | Market Inventors
"Freitag talks about sustainability, but it still gets people to buy more bags. Isn't that a contradiction?"
Tencent Has Taken Another E-Commerce Company Public: 17 Charts on How Its Challenge to Taobao and Tmall Is Going
The fight over the future shopping habits of 1.4 billion people
A Beijing Renter in a Partitioned Room: Her Past Year | 2018 Stories No. 3
"Just the word 'partition' means you can never fully relax," she says.
The Artist Who Paints Whole Rooms With a Spray Gun Wants to Challenge Every Rule We Take for Granted
What she sets out to unsettle is not only how viewers define painting, or how painting relates to space, but every definition and rule we take for granted.
#Debate: How Should We Judge Smuggling, Morally?
Under Chinese law, smuggling covers everything from buying an iPhone in Hong Kong and walking through customs without declaring it to hauling drugs and guns across a border. Should all of it be judged the same way?
Every Generation Rebels. Here Are 11 Ways This One Does It | 100 Big Questions About Life
“Rebelliousness” makes us ask: in this new era, what do “success,” “fun” and “beauty” actually mean?
"Taobao Brands" Are Stuck on the Road to an IPO. 12 Charts on the Stories They Tell
And the questions they dodge, wittingly or not.
Smartisan's 12th Launch Event, and the Journeys of Six Fans
A Smartisan Technology launch event with no phone in it
She Grew Up in an Old Neighborhood, Seeing Life Through the Eyes Her Father Gave Her | 100 People With Ideas
When asked what role her father played in how she came to understand the world, Wang Zhanhei answered without hesitation: "a fellow traveler." "When he was around, he'd take me along. When I was around, he'd turn up too."
Niu Went Public Four Years After Founding. What Does a New Manufacturing Company Go Through?
The internet and capital got it started. In the end it came back to competing offline and living with regulation.
He Doesn't Understand Technology, but He Hopes Bitcoin Will Make Him a "Leader": His Past 5 Years | 2018 Stories No. 2
Zhou Cheng's life looks like a string of accidents: he happened to buy Bitcoin, he happened to meet a Bitcoin expert. But he tied those accidents together and decided to turn them into "inevitability."
Five Days With the New iPad Pro: A Big Upgrade, But Do You Need It?
It depends on how many days a week you already carry an iPad out the door. What it is for hasn't fundamentally changed.
She's Playful About Food and About the People Eating It — No, Actually, She's Serious | 100 People With Ideas
"A designer only raises questions and provokes thought; a designer doesn't hand down a verdict," she says. "The thing a designer should avoid most, I think, is political correctness."
Mainland Universities Keep Opening Their Doors to Taiwanese Students. Five Post-90s Students on Studying and Working There
As more Taiwanese students come to the mainland, what they learn studying and working here naturally becomes the story the next batch of students hears.
Luo Yijun, the Novelist Who Is Fun: Is a Novelist a Psychiatrist, or a Patient? | Interviews
On writing about wastrels, the novel, The Scholars, and a novelist's illness
#debate: Can Music Piracy Ever Be Ended? Streaming Hasn't Done Much Either
Perhaps by definition, piracy — unauthorized copying — is a thing that can never be got rid of. After all, the modern music industry got its start from the very fact that music can be copied.
A Close Interview With the Writer Ian McEwan: The Future of Literature, and Lonely Humankind
Do you like his books?
The Biggest Open-Source Software Company Just Sold for $34 Billion. How Did Free Become a Business? | QDaily Business History
The word "open source" turns 20 this year.
From "Five Stresses and Four Points of Beauty" to "Guardian Girls": How Has Our Collective Vocabulary Changed in the Past Few Decades? | 100 Big Questions About Life
Collective vocabulary is a kind of cultural isotope: it marks the stages of a society's development, and our lives are woven into it.
A Korea Daigou Hopes to Live a Little Better | 2018 Stories ①
Regulation is tighter and carrying goods costs more, but the side business goes on.
Chasing Artistic Rigor and a Mass Audience at Once, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival May Be Theater's Predicament in Miniature
A theater festival is not only a cultural occasion; it is also a mass event — and stacking the two on top of each other tends to cause trouble.
Jin Yong's Two Jianghu, and His Hong Kong Miracle
Farewell, Knight-Errant Jin.
The Biggest iPad Upgrade in Eight Years — and It's Still Not the Computer Apple Promised
Unless you're an illustrator.
From B movies to mainstream favorites: the revival of horror films and shows
Backed by indie studios and streaming, horror again carries meaning beyond its genre — exactly what audiences living in crisis want
Plant Milks, Oat Milk Included, Have Become a New Consumer Choice — By Picking a Fight With Cow's Milk
Chinese consumers know so-called plant milk inside out. So why does it still feel new to them?
Game mechanics have seeped into the real world and are quietly reshaping it. Do you take that for granted too?
When you are handed a “quest” and it works on you, do you ever ask whether this is a form of control?
Jin Shijie: "A Person Is an Actor. The Acting Job That Earns Money and Puts Food on the Table, I Just Do on the Side" | Interviews
My motivation to learn has always come from knowing that I am a person in this universe with no ground under my feet. Not knowing life, not knowing death — it can't help but push you to dig into more things, to observe more.
A Show That Can't Be Defined — and the Blur Between Actor, Play, Theater and Theme Makes It All the More Interesting | Wuzhen Theatre Festival
“Everyone has a marginal side to them. That’s the thing I’m looking for”
Xianzi, 25, and the 91 Days Before October 25
July 26, 2018 is the day Xianzi posted on WeChat Moments accusing Zhu Jun of sexual harassment. On October 25, Zhu Jun's defamation suit went to a closed-door exchange of evidence at the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing.
Just Do It Turns 30. So Why Have Brands Stopped Shouting Slogans?
What's the last slogan that gave you a jolt?
Set Aside the Airport Success Studies: What Does Success Look Like to Young People Now? | 100 Big Questions About Life
Six forms of success in disguise, produced by commercial triumph and individualism.
From Printer Fonts to Photoshop on Your Phone: What Changes Has Adobe Kept Up With in 36 Years? | QDaily Business History
The full version of Photoshop finally reaches mobile next year
Director Wang Chong: If It's Purely for Entertainment, There Are Plenty of Industries Besides Theater | Wuzhen Theatre Festival
"For a long time, Chinese theater has been about escaping reality — fencing off a space and manufacturing illusions inside it. But that's actually a kind of political incorrectness."
Cattelan Keeps the Art World Talking. Is He Really "the Boy in The Emperor's New Clothes"?
Or perhaps people simply need him to play that part. But once he becomes a symbol of rebellion — Cattelan = rebellion = fashionable — hasn't the rebellion already ended?
#Debate: Is What We Call Childhood Really a Fixed Idea?
Many scholars believe the childhood we know today is a fairly recent invention — and that it is changing again.
A Week With the iPhone XR: What Is It Like to Use After Apple Compromised on Price?
Using the XR feels more like a stripped-down iPhone X than an iPhone 8
When Games Get Political: What Wins Praise, and What Wrecks a Reputation?
As game companies stake out different positions, players — whose goodwill keeps swinging — discover where they themselves actually stand.
Tesla's Shanghai Factory Could Knock Nearly 200,000 Yuan Off the Price of Its Cars — But It May Have Come Too Late
Amid endless uncertainty, Tesla has launched its China factory.
British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop: understanding China and the Chinese through food
She started her first notebook in September 1994. She now has more than 130 of them — the record of her attempt to understand China and the Chinese through food.
What Decided the Normandy Landings | A Brief History of Things
Air and naval supremacy gave the Allies unprecedented mobility and concealment. They knew when and where the battle would begin. The Germans did not.
The Life and Aesthetic of Horiyoshi III, Japanese Tattoo Master | Yoshii Shinobu's Second Round
"Yoshii Shinobu's Second Round" is a QDaily column by Yoshii Shinobu, a Japanese writer who works in Chinese. A nijikai, or "second round," is the gathering Japanese office workers move on to after the first bar — attendance optional, and the talk looser and more open.
Forget the Designers: What Was Worth Noting at This Year's Shanghai Fashion Week, a Snapshot of the Whole Industry?
What has been happening to sustainable fashion, an ever-younger luxury market, bloggers, and department stores in transition?
BTS Made the Cover of Time. How Did a Korean Boy Band Get This Much Influence?
BTS has no backing from one of Korea's three big entertainment companies, and its success may have something to do with that.
Bullfrog Became an Internet-Famous Dish. Where Do All Those Frogs Come From?
Restaurants are selling more bullfrog than ever, but the supply chain behind it has barely changed.
The Flagship Store Concept Gets Another Upgrade — This Time From Nike
Another big company has opened a superflagship store. But this one, "Nike Shanghai 001," looks like a lot of small shops stitched together.
The Real Meaning of “Quantifying Contemporary Life” Is That We've Invented a New Unit Even for “Unboxing Deliveries” | 100 Big Questions About Life
Part two of “New Units for Measuring Contemporary Life.”
Shenzhen's Maker Carnival Turns Seven: Four Projects Worth Seeing
Compared with past years, makers' energy is fading.
Every Week They Listen to Transgender Callers From Across China. They're Called "Transgender Hotline Operators"
The questions tend to cluster around a few themes: anxiety over gender identity, sexual orientation, coming out to family, getting medical care and hormones, and work.
China's First Foreign-Controlled Automaker Is Coming, and Brilliance Has Lived Through Every Turning Point in China's Auto Industry | QDaily Business History
China traded market access for money more than for technology.
Literary Editor Li Jingze: Today's Novelists Have Lost the Ambition to Understand Life and the World | Interviews
"We are facing a great era, but our writing may be small and mediocre."
Over the Next 82 Years, Can Humanity Hold the Line at 1.5°C of Warming?
The old adage that you should "aim for the top and you'll land in the middle" may not apply to climate change. Against a risk no one can predict, the only option is to go all out.
If You Wrote a Vocabulary List for Today's Young People, Games Would Supply More Than Half the Words | 100 Big Questions About Life
Area-of-effect blasts, pulling aggro, grinding for levels, landing crits with the cheats on — we use them so often we have almost forgotten they all began as gaming terms.
This 29-Year-Old Has Been Pushing to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage, Because It's His Own Life
Three years ago, Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang walked hand in hand into the civil affairs bureau to register their marriage and were turned away. Ever since, pushing to legalize same-sex marriage has been part of their lives.
Wutiaoren, the Folk Band Known for Documentary Songs: "We Don't Reject This Society — We've Been Merging Into It All Along"
Singing in dialect and documenting society made Wutiaoren's name. But in songwriting, design and live shows, the band keeps trying to shake off every constraint.
730 Million People Spent 650 Billion Yuan Over the National Day Holiday — 9 Changes in How Chinese People Travel and Spend
Twenty years into the Golden Week, all kinds of change are showing up in holiday spending.
Courier Companies Are Raising Prices Before Singles' Day Again. What Has Changed in the Cost of Shipping a Package?
Costs are rising at every step, and most of all in big cities.
Xu Bing: Art That Examines Society — and Asks Where That Impulse Came From
An icon of Chinese contemporary art has opened his retrospective.
The “Capital Iron and Steel Company” Goes to Venice: Why It’s There Is More Interesting Than the Show Itself
Using the history of the “Capital Iron and Steel Company,” it carries abroad China’s resolve to remake its heavy industry — and a complicated nostalgia for it.
Why Are Wireless Bras Getting More Popular? | Market Inventors
Aesthetics are diversifying, comfort is winning, and women's social and economic standing has changed
Ninety Years From IP to Meme: What Has Disney's Mickey Come to Mean?
The American spirit, capitalism, rebellion without a cause — almost everything in contemporary society leaves some trace on Mickey Mouse.
An Economist's View of Crisis, Human Nature, Rebellion, and the Future Role of Technology | Interviews
Wang Dingding, a professor at Peking University, once said: "Arthur's story is a permanent reminder to me that any mainstream — including the mainstream of economics — inevitably suppresses and excludes humanity's independent spirit and free thought."
After Giving Up Ride-Hailing Completely, Here Are 7 Things We Noticed About Getting Around | Hack Your Life
The fifth installment in our National Day digital-detox series. This one is about ride-hailing.
A Week Without Food Delivery: Can Someone Already Hooked Break the Habit? | Hack Your Life
Part 4 of our National Day digital-detox series
Can You Live on Just WeChat and Mini Programs? If You'll Accept a Second-Rate Experience, You Can Last a Week | Hack Your Life
Part 3 of our National Day series on quitting digital services.
Archaeologist Robert Kelly: Six Million Years of Human History May Foreshadow Our Future | Interviews
Kelly believes we will witness the end of the nation-state as a sacred identity, the disappearance of war, the death of capitalism, and the beginning of a new era of global cooperation.
Without Filters or Beauty Apps, How Much “Real” Did I Meet? | Hack Your Life
Part 1 of our National Day experiment in quitting digital services
Scholar Xu Zidong: Research Only Has Value If You Find Yourself in It (Part 2)
The second part of our interview with Professor Xu Zidong, mainly about his life, his intellectual formation, and his scholarship.
Heading to Beijing Design Week this holiday? These 10 events are worth a look
At this year's Design Week, the phrases heard most often were "old city revival" and "core functions of the capital."
The Modern Gentleman's Code: How Should We Handle Traditional Rules and Fashion Trends, and How Should We Treat Women?
This is the second piece in our Decency series. We use the “gentleman” as a vessel for going one step further into what it takes to be a decent person.
What Resolve, and What Conflict, at a Global Climate Summit Billed as "The Future Is Us"?
With Washington denying climate change and pulling out of the Paris Agreement, local governments are trying to build a climate leadership of their own — and facing discontent of their own.
From “Be Yourself” to “More Possibilities”: Which Small Everyday Freedoms Do Young People Want Now?
Includes a wish list of 74 small everyday freedoms.
Ten Years of the App Store: The Decade Apple and Google Redefined the Software Business | QDaily Business History
Meanwhile, software went from a productivity tool to something you consume, much like television.
Copenhagen, City of Bicycles: Less a Template Than a Set of Questions
One-off construction that shows fast results is easy. Sustained, invisible design is hard.
Scholar Xu Zidong: Why, 100 Years On, Does Lu Xun Still Sound Like He's Talking About Today? (Part One)
This is the first part of our interview with Professor Xu Zidong, mainly about the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun, and enlightenment.
From Third- and Fourth-Tier Cities to Buying Arc'teryx: How Anta Upgraded Its Brand Through Two Rounds of Acquisitions
Buy or build — in the apparel industry, one of the two upgrade paths open to Chinese brands has won
Basic Income, Explained: Does It Only Work in Certain Kinds of Countries? | Interviews
Economist Guy Standing talked with us about the precariat, basic income policy and global economic politics — and about what makes a job "bullshit" and what makes work valuable.
Did He Ruin Lin Hao, the Earthquake's "Little Hero" — or Make Him? | "Ten Years" ⑪
In the political climate after the earthquake, was the "pairing" of Tian Wanliang and Lin Hao an accident, or was it inevitable?
A Rare Large-Format Polaroid Exhibition, and Photographic Ideas That (Perhaps) Never Go Out of Style
The medium has changed, but good work is still good work — and instant photography still has life in it.
British Artist David Shrigley: Life Is Hard Enough, So of Course Everything Deserves to Be Challenged
These days, griping really is easy — and it sells~
Four Days, Five Public Speeches: What Was Jack Ma Trying to Explain?
From he's fine and Alibaba is fine, to the economy and the state of the world.
How One Studio Ended Up Designing So Many of China's Playgrounds
Playgrounds are increasingly a selling point for malls and residential projects. So far, are they any good?
He "Built Only Half a Dozen Houses in His Life" — and Became the Dissenter Modernism Could Not Ignore
But "thoroughgoing rebel" may be a misreading of Venturi.
Besides Making Old iPhones Faster, What Else Did iOS 12 Change?
Most of the changes aren't where you can see them.
Ralph Lauren's Polo Shirt Turns 50 — It Once Told a Generation's American Dream Through Fashion | QDaily Business History
But that generation has grown old.
The Law of Jante, a Nordic Specialty: It Grants You Equal Satisfaction, and Forbids You Ever to Stand Out
An equality with no privilege — and an equality with a touch of force in it. In a society ruled by collectivism, everyone is a victim.
A Writer Born in the 1990s Just Won a Literary Prize. The Ordinary People in Her Stories May Look Familiar
Very down-to-earth — and here, "down-to-earth" is not an insult.