How did a bottom-up party this big come together at Singapore Design Week?
The organizer's question was simple: "Is there something, anything, that could get everyone talking?"
QDaily in English
2310 completed translations from the archive. Articles retain their original publication dates.
From building the rocket to renting the pad to reaching orbit: who takes part in a commercial space launch?
Commercial space launch is still not an industry with much of a division of labor.
24 Things Worth Seeing at This Year’s Design Shanghai — Most of Them Homegrown
If you have neither the time nor the patience for this “lively and crowded” design fair, here are the best bits.
Publishing Hinges on the Book Number. What Can We Actually Know About It?
An unverified report says a third of the year's book numbers will not be issued. How much should we make of that?
A Post-90s Artist Staged a Show About Plungers and Clouds. What Was He Trying to Say? | 100 People With Ideas
"My dad would say, 'Hey, aren't you studying art in London? What's this about making plungers?' He wanted me to head toward the clouds, toward the sublime. He wanted the architecture I made to be 'grand.'"
Taco Bell Got Trendy in China. What Is "Fast Casual" Dining, Anyway?
It is a delicate balance between the demand for speed and the demand for health, between wanting a quick bite and wanting somewhere to sit for a while.
Global Headlines Express: What the World Talked About in the Past 24 Hours
*Global Headlines* is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in trial run. As ever, it is here to help you know more.
Dangdang's 19 Years: A Story of Fighting Capital and Bubbles | QDaily Business History
Dangdang, a first-generation Chinese internet company founded in 1999, is being sold.
Hubert de Givenchy Dies at 91, and Postwar Fashion's Golden Generation Thins to Almost Nothing
He gave the world more than the little black dress. He kept elegance alive and made it popular — which his successors did not.
Global Headlines Express: What the World Talked About in the Last 24 Hours
Global Headlines is a new QDaily column launched in 2018. It's still in a trial run, but it remains committed to helping you know more.
Single Chinese Women Are Demanding the Right to Freeze Their Eggs. What Do We Actually Know About Egg Freezing — and What Should We Know?
We talked to women who have frozen their eggs, to agencies that broker assisted reproduction abroad, and to several doctors who do the procedure — and came away with some thoughts and questions.
Global Headlines Express: What the World Talked About in the Past 24 Hours
*Global Headlines* is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in its trial run. As ever, it is here to help you know more.
A Genealogy of Nationalism in the Long Nineteenth Century, and the Global Relay Race It Set Off | A Brief History of Things
In this model of nationalism, new political elites created it through deliberate policy.
Economist Sheng Hong Says the Young Should Learn to Strive in a Flawed Society
"Every era has its problems. 'These are bad times' has never been a reason to complain or to run away. We are all born into a flawed society. So the most interesting, most enjoyable thing a person can do with a life is to change that society a little, by his own effort. I think this is what everyone ought to do."
Repairing Ecology in a Concrete Jungle: What Has the Studio Called "Urban Wilderness" Been Doing in Shanghai? | 100 People With Ideas
They are a group of people racing against time and urbanization.
After 11 Years and 8.5 Billion Phones, Smartphone Growth Has Run Out
What comes next?
Writer Zhou Jianing on Writing and This Era: "I Really Hope I Can Live Up to My Responsibility" | Interviews
"What is it that we should be doing? What is it that we want? Even as we reject things, what exactly do we hope to build?"
Architecture's "Oscar" Goes to Balkrishna Doshi, Who Has Spent a Lifetime Defining the "Good Life" for India
Some architects have bluntly complained that judging by "social concern" has made the Pritzker ever more "politically correct."
A Literary Young Man in an Industrial Park, and His Ten Years
We said we'd tell three stories about a place called Shenxiang Village in the industrial city of Suzhou. This is the last one.
2018 Oscars: Is It Spring Again for the "Auteur Film," Where the Director Calls the Shots?
The box office doesn't make it obvious. But something is changing.
Amazon's Cashierless Convenience Store Is Coming to More Cities. What Makes It Different?
Going cashierless isn't mainly about cutting costs.
She Has Long Talks With Every Creator She Admires, and Turned Nearly 100,000 Words Into a Magazine
*Be Water Journal* is a magazine made by a magazine lover.
38 Nobel Laureates Write an Open Letter to Turkey's President, Calling for the Rule of Law and Free Speech
"We call for the state of emergency to be lifted, the rule of law to be restored quickly, and freedom of expression to be enjoyed in full."
Gun Control in America Rests on an Anti-Tyranny Premise, and Young People's Views Aren't as Simple as "the Shooting Generation"
Freedom — or more precisely, protecting your own safety — is still the main reason people own guns.
He Worked 10 Years and Still Can't Figure Out How Migrant Workers' Lives Came to This | Housing and Our Lives 17
Suzhou is usually seen as a city of gardens, and its industrial side gets overlooked. We're telling three stories about a place called Shenxiang Village, a microcosm of industrial Suzhou. This is the second.
iQiyi Lost 3.7 Billion Yuan in a Year and Is Now Filing to Go Public — 9 Charts on China's Online Video Business
iQiyi's nearly 100-page prospectus discloses detailed financial and operating data for the first time.
Historical Anthropologist Wang Mingke: Ethnic Identity Is Not Your Only Identity, or Your Only Way Out | Interviews
Who are we? What is our culture? What is our history? When the dominant group holds the right to speak, what comes out is stereotypes.
More Than a Quarter of Chinese People Traveled Over Spring Festival. How Did They Spend 536.8 Billion Yuan?
Spring Festival is just about the only holiday that stretches this youth-driven market to every age group. And it invites splurging.
22 Years, 9 Acquisitions: How Geely Went From a Cheap “Four Wheels and a Sofa” to Upending a Car Market Run by State Firms | QDaily Business History
Cheap imitation, overseas acquisitions, in-house R&D
To Prepare for an IPO and Keep Growing, Airbnb Shifts Its Focus From "Experiences" Back to Hotel-Style Standardized Service
How to balance more listings with more distinctive experiences — a question that has run through Airbnb's first decade, and looks likely to keep running.
Russians Born in the 1990s Never Knew the Soviet Union. What Do They Think About Who Becomes President?
They were born in the 1990s. They never lived under the Soviet Union, and the internet has shaped them deeply — those are the two labels that matter most. What do they think about who becomes president?
Scholar Dai Jinhua: I Don't Want to Surrender to the Younger Generation's Era | Interviews
"When I'm with the younger generation, it's usually I who come across as naive and they who seem mature. The naivety and the maturity show up in our different attitudes toward existing reality, toward the existing order. They think, of course it's like this — what's there to make a fuss about? Or they think it can't be changed, so what's the point of discussing change?"
How Microsoft Climbed Out of Its Slump | A Brief History of Things
Since taking over in 2014, Satya Nadella has driven Microsoft into the cloud era, doubling its market value in three years and adding $300 billion.
The Big Mac Turns 50: How a Burger Built on "Bigger Is Better" Rewrote the Rules of Fast Food
It set off fast food's supersize craze and became a symbol of American business — and, through its link to obesity, a social problem.
Britain's Worst University Strike in Years: What Are Chinese Students Fighting For?
This is both a nationwide campaign for rights and an attempt by Chinese students to take part in local politics.
A Comfortable Life, Born in 1967: He Caught the Good Times | Housing and Our Lives ⑯
Housing is the largest commodity a person can buy, and one of the witnesses to how an individual life changes. QDaily is running a series of reports that follow housing as a thread, to see what happened in the years behind us.
Who Remembers Ordinary People? An Exhibition About Urban Memory Tries to Answer
"Vegetable Basket Workstation" runs through March 2. If you're in Shanghai, it's worth a visit.
I Tried to Meet Up With WeChat Contacts I Hadn't Talked to in Ages. I Got 4 | Beating Boredom During Spring Festival
Expanding your social circle still takes work...
I Went a Week Without Disposable Products. Here's How It Felt | Beating Boredom Over Chinese New Year
It wasn't such an ordeal.
These Ten Museums Are Worth a Visit for the Space Design Alone
“Going to a museum” has become an ordinary thing to do, and the appeal of the museums themselves has started to stand out. This roundup might make a good reference when you are picking a travel destination.
A Week Without Any Social Media: What Changed in My Life? | Beating Boredom This Spring Festival
Not bad.
See Everything Through Your Phone: 50 Apps for Exploring a Vast World | Beat Boredom This Spring Festival
Arm yourself with knowledge apps.
Everyone Says "Be Yourself." So How Do Young People Today Decide Who They Are? | QDaily Research Lab
Labeling and sorting themselves, changing how they look to feel they have achieved something, quantifying themselves, and shutting themselves inside an echo chamber.
Shandong Ruyi Buys Bally. Why Has This 167-Year-Old Luxury Brand Never Worked Out What It Is?
New capital has handed Bally another chance, but it cannot answer the question the brand has failed to settle in 167 years: does it have one consistent, clear identity — and once it finds one, can it keep supporting it and keep delivering good design?
59 Beautiful Games to Fill a Whole Afternoon and Carry You Into a Magical Wonderland | Beating Boredom This Spring Festival
If you have a beautiful game to recommend, share it with everyone in the comments.
Going Home for Chinese New Year: Are You Also a Guest Lodging in the Shadow of Your Past Self? | QDaily Research Lab
In their parents' eyes, kids never grow up — but why?
A Million Cape Town Households Face Water Rationing. How Did a Modern City Get Here?
After a drought called "the worst in 384 years," people like Sanya have begun to ask what went wrong
MC Tianyou Is Banned Across Every Platform, and a Hanmai Idol's Career Stops Dead
The song that broke the rules was banned two years ago. Nothing new on the record explains why a performer who had already made his compromises still had to be pulled off the air.
In an Age When Nobody Writes With a Pen, How Does Old-Line Stationery Maker M&G Find a Future?
Going through the motions in a fog clearly leads nowhere better. But once you start upgrading, you are building something completely different.
The Last Trendy Shop Has Closed, and Shanghai's Changle Road, Once Full of Imagination, Is Finally Empty
There is no next chapter.
This Is Shenxiang Village, a Microcosm of Industrial Suzhou
Suzhou is usually thought of as a city of gardens, and its industrial side gets overlooked. Through three stories we record a place called Shenxiang Village — a microcosm of industrial Suzhou.
A Co-Founder of the Digital Rights Group EFF Has Died, and Every Big Problem He Started Worrying About 28 Years Ago Is Getting Worse
State surveillance, digital privacy, a closed-off internet… the problems he worried about have all come to pass.
Who Is Selling Stan Lai — and the Play That Runs Eight Hours?
"Of course China has masters too, but for now there's only one. As for a second, my eyes just aren't sharp enough to have found him yet. But you'll see — the next generation definitely has hope. They carry no baggage, and they're full of love for the world."
AcFun Hasn't Officially Been Declared Dead, But How It Got Here Is No Mystery
The better question may be the opposite one: with management this chaotic, how did AcFun survive as long as it did?
Nine Months, Four Rounds of Caps and Crackdowns: Alipay's Banking Dream Is Over
2013.6 - 2018.1: Alipay's banking business began with Yu'ebao, and it ended with Yu'ebao too.
The Tesla Roadster Now Floating Through Space Is Space Exploration's Latest Milestone
While the capital markets play their numbers game, SpaceX has moved a little closer to Mars
US Stocks Crashed, Then Rebounded, Swinging a Trillion Dollars a Day. How Is This Huge Panic Different From 2008?
Nobody can quite explain the cause yet, but panic and confidence seem to be living side by side.
Ten Years of Beijing's Vanished Street Life, Packed Into These Dense Illustrations | 100 People With Ideas
Beijing's past, its present, and one possible future — plus the vivid life tucked into the city's corners — are all there in their drawings.
Two Months After a Wet Market Was Cleared Out: Its Former Vendors and Customers
This is the last piece in our 2017 Stories series.
America's Annual Ad Showcase: How Many Bright Spots Did This Year's Super Bowl Have?
"You have to be memorable, you have to be clever, and you have to say something that actually drives product sales — and do it in a way that isn't stupid."
A Designer's Six Memory Clues From the Street He Knows Best — Some Already Gone
This is the fourth installment in the series [Why Changle Road Matters].
The iPhone X Gave Apple a Record Quarter — and Apple Is Increasingly Doing What Wall Street Wants
All those reports about iPhone X production cuts look wrong.
"Shanghai Has No CBD" — and That May Be Exactly Right
Next to Beijing, Shanghai never had much of a CBD character to begin with. Now the pull away from the center is getting stronger.
Saving Hollywood With One Hand, Kicking It While It's Down With the Other: How Netflix Remade Entertainment With Global Distribution
Netflix has told a lot of stories about technology, but what matters most is distribution.
Trapped in the House His Father Bought With Gold Bars, He Won't Even Discuss the Demolition: "Talking Would Just Cause More Trouble" | Housing and Our Lives #15
The third report in the series, following *Why Does Changle Road Matter So Much?*
Fear and Greed: The New Era of Chinese Business Nobody Understands
Wanda is racing to sell everything; Tencent is racing to buy everything.
A Man Who Truly Changed the World Has Died. Goodbye, IK, Founder of IKEA
He solved a worldwide problem: the gap between poor domestic circumstances and good taste in living.
Carrefour Takes Investment From Tencent and Yonghui: What's Left in the Hands of a Company in Retreat Across China?
We count six things it still has — but everything depends on how they get used.
Why Cloning Is Not Cause for Optimism, and Why We Should Stay Wary: 7 Questions
It touches on kinship, morality and technical barriers
Four Years Ago, a Policy to Push Down Housing Prices. Today, Two Classes in One Compound.
In a market that runs on market rules, how many mistakes can one flawed policy that ignores the market set off?
Shuhei Aoyama, the "Internet-Famous Architect," Is Puzzled: "What Even Is an Internet-Famous Architect?" | 100 People With Ideas
He doesn't think it's a good term. He doesn't like it, but he accepts it.
On Changle Road, Where He Was Born, Wu Liang Became a "Superfluous Man" | Housing and Our Lives ⑭
The second report in this series, following *Why Does Changle Road Matter So Much?*
Why Does Changle Road Matter So Much?
Each person's fate is also the fate of this road.
Ten Years In, How Does “the World's Most Hippie Interior Design Magazine” Show Off the Messy Good Life?
No staged shoots, no renovation bibles, no shopping lists. What matters most is how the editors and their subjects express their own taste.
For the First Time in America, Hip-Hop Has Taken the Pop Crown From Rock. Where Does Its Staying Power Come From?
For a music genre, staying vigorous for more than 40 years is no small feat. Rock came out of the 1940s and 1950s, and counting from the 1960s, when it entered its golden age, its prime lasted about 30 years.
Will the Future Belong to the Big Automakers, or to Upstarts Like Tesla? Electric Cars at a Crossroads | 2017's Biggest Business Stories ⑦
Growth and bubbles driven by enormous amounts of capital, the wealth and the problems that piled up along the way, and political winds no one can predict — after more than 20 years of prosperity, all three tangled together in business this year. There was no shortage of hot topics, but look closely and business logic was not what decided which companies won and which lost. This is the seventh piece in our review of 2017's biggest business news.
Bringing Jin Yong to ordinary English readers started with her urge to explore the world
The West is increasingly drawn to the episodic storytelling of television — a form that has a lot in common with the chapter-by-chapter structure of Jin Yong's novels.
Writer Zhang Yueran: The "Post-80s" Label Sticks and Won't Come Off | 100 People With Ideas
Back then the post-80s generation seized the microphone for a moment, then were overtaken and mocked by a younger generation... The whole generation has had to look at itself again — a little forlorn, a little inferior, under enormous pressure.
Multinationals Keep Walking Away From China. How Did 20 Years of Prosperity End Like This? | 2017's Biggest Business Stories, No. 6
Growth and bubbles driven by enormous capital, the wealth and the problems piled up along the way, and a political direction no one can predict — after more than 20 years of prosperity, all three tangled together in this year's business world. There was no shortage of hot stories, but look closely and business logic was not what decided which companies won and which lost. This is the sixth piece in our series on 2017's biggest business stories.
At 94, Yona Friedman May Be the Boldest Architect Alive: His Designs Have No "Walls" at All
Yona Friedman offers a way of thinking, and that is worth more than any space you could actually live in.
China Unicom Got Its "Mixed-Ownership Reform" Money. Its Financing History Mirrors the Advances and Retreats of China's State-Owned Enterprise Reform | 2017 Big Business Stories ⑤
As the year runs out, we're using 10 articles to sum up its most important business news — stories that often signaled a shift in an industry's balance of power, or were the result of one.
At the World's Biggest Consumer Electronics Show, These 34 Products Had Something New | CES 2018 On-Site Report
Color-changing walls, robots, a suitcase that runs...
How Did China's Entertainment Moguls Hand Their Booming Film Market to the Small Companies?
Call it a textbook case of Schumpeter's theory of "creative destruction."
Topshop's Chinese Agent, Shangpin.com, Has Been Acquired. What Kind of Deal Is This?
Shangpin.com promised to open “100 stores in five years” for Topshop, but it had neither retail experience nor capital. Hemei Group's acquisition solves both problems. What it cannot answer is how much room Topshop still has in China.
Why Are There More and More Voices, and Less and Less Truth? | 2017 Book Picks, Part 5
On "ways to think through some of today's problems," two new books: Page One and Climate of Hope. Plus a few older ones.
A Lawsuit Not Meant to Be Won, and a Few Gay People Who Refuse to Be Stigmatized
"I didn't think that hard about taking this case. Every group deserves to be understood."
A Shanghai Educated Youth's 40-Plus Years in Maanshan, Where the State-Owned Enterprise Was His Whole Life | Housing and Our Lives 13
A city held up by a single steel plant
More Creative Directors, Less Creativity: What Does That Mean for the Ad Industry? | 2017 Annual Report
In 2017, the ad industry looked like a year in which creatives working outside the 4A agencies won wider attention through their "viral campaigns," with their influence reaching all the way up to clients. But beyond the buzzwords — "phenomenon-level," "reach," "going viral" — what else is worth examining?
Why Is Nationalism Always So Unsettling? | 2017 Book Picks, Part 4
On "the big questions of our world," two new books: A Secular Age and Blood and Belonging. Plus a few older ones.
Jia Zhangke Has a New Book. He Says He Has Always Been Facing and Solving "Entrenched Problems"
*Jia's Thoughts II* is his notebook on film from 2008 to 2016.
The World's Biggest Consumer Electronics Show Opens Next Week. What's Worth Watching? | CES 2018
Cars, VR, TVs, drones — every one of these industries has changed this year, some more than others.
How Did Those Nordic and Japanese Ideas About Living Turn Into a "Middle-Class Philosophy of Life"? | QDaily Research Lab
Life is hard and everyone needs a little comfort — so comfort became something you buy.
Whose Israel Is It? | A Brief History of Things
Over time, these different founding intentions and visions — and the people who held them and the people who inherited them — shaped the course of Israel's history in all sorts of ways, and they are still at work on Israel's present and its future.
Why Inequality Between Generations Is More Frightening Than Inequality Within One Generation | 2017 Book Recommendations, Part 3
On the question of "what's wrong with society," we recommend two new books — The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society and Our Kids. Plus a few older ones.
After giving up architecture, he turned a batch of Shanghai's idle homes into fashionable event spaces
MeetBest's basic model works like this: find idle spaces around the city, partner with the owners or rent the place outright, renovate it to suit what the property actually is, turn it into a shared social venue or a commercial event space, and rent it out by the hour to whoever needs it.
Disrupted Company of the Year 2017: Wanda's 40-Year Property Windfall Is Over — Policy Made It, Policy Broke It
Forty years of windfall, always one step ahead of everyone else. The reversal took a single year.
What Does Turning 36 Mean? Wang Chong Hit Obstacles at the Height of His Creative Powers | Interviews ⑮
"I want to shed my cheap clothes, leap into the waves, and rebuild this world in the seawater."
Has the Messy Boom of the Past Few Years Made More Room for Niche Cinema? | 2017 Annual Report
More money and more talent pouring in is, on the whole, a good thing.
Starting in January, New Rules in at Least Seven Areas Could Change Your Life
They all take effect in January.
The Microwave Oven at 50: It Has Barely Changed, But It Changed the Food Industry and How We Eat | QDaily Business History
In 50 years, the biggest change in the microwave oven has been its price.