It’s been some time since the last Signals newsletter, so it’s high time for a new edition. This is where I bring you the slower trends, broader shifts, and cultural currents that I’ve been keeping an eye on. Next to the more regular China Trend Watch & deeper dives, this is meant to give you a fuller picture of ongoing conversations and themes in Chinese society and the digital landscape. I hope you find it insightful!

📶 SHORT SIGNALS
 

🎬 This year has seen mind-blowing changes in the production and consumption of Chinese short dramas. Now, so many popular short dramas are AI-generated (19 out of 20 microdramas on a recent Hongguo hot list made by AI) that Chinese netizens are wondering if short-drama actors might be disappearing altogether.

💰 70% of households in China have less than 100,000 yuan (about US$14,900) in savings, according to Chinese media reports, which state that the median household savings stand at 87,000 yuan ($13,000). Only 6% – the “lucky few” (人上人) – have 300,000 ($44,800) yuan or more in liquid assets.

🐕 In main urban districts of Hangzhou, people aren’t allowed to walk their dogs during the day, and some netizens hope these strict dog-control rules will set an example for the rest of China. The local rule only allows owners of small dogs – larger breeds aren’t allowed – to walk their furry friends between 7 PM-7AM. The strict rule is supported by many, who hope other…

Originally published in the Eye on Digital China newsletter on Sunday, October 4, 2026.

🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS

🇯🇵 The National Day holiday has begun, but nobody’s going to Japan. Although Japan was the number one outbound destination for Chinese travelers during last year’s October holiday, it has now dropped out of the top ten destinations entirely. According to data from Chinese tour operator Tuniu (途牛), Indonesia, Turkey, and South Korea are among this year’s most-booked overseas destinations.

🚲 Chinese fitness influencer “Abeeeer” was caught cheating during the Berlin Marathon after she posted about running her “personal best.” The sport-blogger (530k+ followers on Xiaohongshu) was photographed riding on the back of a bicycle around the 38-kilometer mark. On Saturday, she publicly apologized and admitted that she had broken the rules and that she was “feeling unwell.”

The sports influencer was caught hitching a ride to the finish line.

🏳️‍🌈 Japanese volleyball player Rui Takahashi came out as gay on Tuesday, saying he wanted to help others struggling with their sexuality by coming out publicly. On Douyin, many Chinese fans and commenters praised Rui for his bravery.

🤖 Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡锡进) published a National Day essay praising the country’s achievements but forgot to delete the AI chatbot’s closing follow-up question (”Would you like me to read through the whole text again and check it for omissions?”). Hu quickly deleted the AI prompt, but “Hu Xijin’s National Day AI ghostwriting fail” had already gone trending.

⚽ Chinese football produced its best and worst result of the year nineteen hours apart. On Friday, the senior men’s national team lost 0–5 to Palestine – a first-ever loss to that opponent – in a friendly in Chongqing. On Saturday, the under-23 team China took the men’s football bronze medal at the 2026 Asian Games, beating Uzbekistan 4-3 on penalties.

🎵 One of China’s most influential singers, composers and music educators has passed away. Liu Huan (刘欢) died of illness in Shanghai on September 25. Internationally, he is best remembered for singing “You and Me,” the official theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

📱 Chinese internet users now spend more time watching mini-dramas than scrolling social media. Bytedance’s Hongguo app, the short-drama platform, reports 168 million daily active users and an average of 125 minutes per user per day, exceeding Douyin (which itself overtook WeChat for the first time in July).

👁️ ZOOMING IN

Starbucks Goes Xinjiang: When Localization Gets Political

Just ahead of the National Day holiday, Starbucks opened in Xinjiang. The opening of the two stores in the capital, Urumqi, became a big topic of discussion both in China and across English-language social media, but for very different reasons, and viewed through very different lenses.

The brand’s Urumqi debut marks its first expansion into the region since entering the Chinese market over 26 years ago. Back then, Starbucks mostly targeted white-collar workers, focused on first- and second-tier cities, and, for many, symbolized cosmopolitan, urban life.

Starbucks’ move into Xinjiang comes as part of the company’s new Chinese investment and ownership structure: in April of this year, Chinese company Boyu Capital (博裕资本) became 60% owner of Starbucks’ China operations.

Starbucks Becomes ‘Starbazaar’

On Chinese social media, on the opening days of September 28–29 and in the days that followed, conversations were largely consumer-focused. The new stores, long queues, special menu, and merchandise created online excitement surrounding Starbucks’ Xinjiang debut.

The promotion of the new stores — particularly the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar flagship store (the second store is located at Tianshan International Airport) — has also taken a distinctly local approach. Rather than emphasizing the arrival of a foreign brand in a new frontier market, Starbucks has presented itself as a brand adapting to, and becoming part of, its new local surroundings.

The flagship store incorporates Xinjiang elements throughout its design and marketing, from local patterns and music to a special menu featuring items such as baklava and lamb pastries, along with limited-edition merchandise. Its mascot is a Starbucks bear dressed in stylized Uyghur traditional attire.

Promotional visuals by Starbucks

The Urumqi Starbucks even has a unique store name: “Star-Bazaar” (星巴扎, Xīng Bāzhā), a play on Starbucks’ Chinese name, 星巴克 (Xīngbākè), and 巴扎 (bāzhā), “bazaar.” The nickname captures this broader marketing approach: not simply bringing Starbucks to Xinjiang, but giving Starbucks a distinctly Xinjiang identity.

This distinct approach resonates with Chinese consumers, who have been posting photos of the enormous lines in front of the stores and showing off their online “check-ins” at the new local hotspot.

Over the past years, Xinjiang has acquired positive associations in various Chinese consumption contexts. At one point, “made with Xinjiang cotton” even generated a buycott and became a popular slogan among online sellers sourcing cotton from the region.

Starbucks in China apparently has a lot of confidence in the positive appeal of Xinjiang-themed products: for the National Day holiday, it is rolling out Xinjiang-themed menu items to more than 2,700 Starbucks stores across 41 Chinese cities.

From Coffee to Controversy

On X and in Western media, however, reactions to the Xinjiang Starbucks have been far less positive. The opening was framed primarily as a political and human-rights story and faced much criticism.

Among these critical voices is US Congressman John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China. He called it a “morally bankrupt decision” to open stores in Xinjiang amid ongoing concerns about human rights abuses in the region, and called on Starbucks to close the cafes, arguing that “every cup sold in these stores ties an iconic American brand to the CCP’s brutal campaign against the Uyghurs.”

“There is no justifiable reason for an American company to do business in a region where the Chinese Communist Party has detained more than a million Uyghurs and is stripping them of their faith, language and culture,” he said.

Image spread by US lawmakers

American criticism of Starbucks in Xinjiang soon reached Chinese social media, becoming a number-one trending topic on Weibo on Sunday, October 4.

“Xinjiang” used to be a highly sensitive and heavily censored word on Chinese social media, but since around 2018–2021, when the region increasingly became part of the ordinary national development agenda, online discussions have been allowed and steered in different directions.

The controversial internment camps widely reported on in Western media were officially described as “vocational skills education and training centers” (职业技能教育培训中心): “people-oriented” facilities intended to “fundamentally eliminate the environment and soil that breeds terrorism and religious extremism.”

Following the 2021 sanctions on Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses and the Xinjiang cotton controversy — when Western brands distanced themselves from Xinjiang cotton over forced-labor concerns — Chinese online narratives surrounding the region shifted further.

A major “support Xinjiang cotton” social media campaign, launched by state media and official channels, symbolized a defense of China’s sovereignty against Western interference. International criticism was cast as an attack on China’s dignity, rallying the public around national pride. Since then, foreign criticism of policies in Xinjiang has often not been censored, but instead published and reframed as another attack on China.

This time, too, these dynamics unfolded, although in a different form. The criticism was discussed in the context of America, once again, “digging up its tired old lies about Xinjiang” (#美方又翻出老掉牙的涉疆谎言#). China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that US institutions habitually fabricate accusations and attack and smear China for political purposes, “without any credibility whatsoever.”

Netizens blamed critics for being hypocritical and for “denying the people of Xinjiang the chance to drink Starbucks.” Many others also pointed out that ‘Starbucks China’ is no longer quite the same thing as ‘Starbucks.’

Meanwhile, netizens also seem to appreciate the fact that Starbucks had not responded to the controversy — at least, not at the time of writing. Instead, its response has simply been to keep posting promotional material and videos about the Xinjiang stores, an approach some described as “defiant.”

The Starbucks opening in Xinjiang brings two very different sides of the same discussion into view. On one side, there is a consumer perspective; on the other, a human-rights angle. One emphasizes local culture, while the other focuses on international politics. And while one side stresses the responsibility of a Western multinational operating in Xinjiang, the other appreciates precisely how much this foreign company is localizing itself.

It also shows how Western rejection of Xinjiang-linked business can actually increase the symbolic value of Xinjiang-linked consumption in China. People may appreciate the local flavors, ethnic elements, colors, and design, but there is another layer to it, too: consuming Xinjiang can become an expression of national solidarity, especially when foreign criticism turns an otherwise ordinary consumer choice into something political.

In the end, perhaps the most striking thing is the shift in how Starbucks itself is perceived. When Starbucks first entered China, part of its appeal was precisely how foreign it was, offering access to an imagined Western, cosmopolitan way of life. More than two decades later, in Urumqi, Starbucks is being appreciated for almost the opposite reason: for how local it is becoming, selling an imagined Xinjiang experience back to Chinese consumers.

📱ON THE FEEDS

The Kardashians in China: “Manifesting” and Magic Mushrooms

The Kardashians have been on my feeds this week due to their recent China visit.

First: the Kardashians in the US are not what they are in China. Many people in China have never heard about them, but they did reach many people in corners of the internet due to fan-subtitled uploads of Keeping Up With the Kardashians or through clips cirulating online. What also matters: Kim Kardashian was one of the first major Western celebrities to open an official Xiaohongshu account back in 2018, and also one of the first to sell products directly from there.

What attracted attention in their China visit is that, after doing sightseeing and visiting the Great Wall, Kim Kardashian – who came to China for the NikeSKIMS sportswear event in Shanghai – went for dinner with her entire entourage at the well-known Yunnan restaurant In & Out (Yī zuò Yī wàng 一坐一忘).

That is the same restaurant where US secretary Yellen had her “magic mushrooms” back in 2023. The Kardashians had those same mushrooms with their orders.

They are called jiànshǒuqīng (见手青), which literally means “see hand blue”, in reference to turning blue when handled. It is the lanmaoa asiatica mushroom species that grows in China’s Yunnan region and is considered hallucinogenic (nothing happens when properly prepared though).

The restaurant quickly tapped into the buzz by launching a “let’s manifest” or “Let’s 显化” set menu containing the dishes they had.

The Kardashians, but mostly mum Kris Jenner, is famous among netizens as a lucky charm for wealth. Jenner believes in the power of manifestation: focusing on what you want through visuals and prayer in order to actually get what you want.

Some of the images used by Chinese netizens to “manifest” good luck through Kris Jenner visuals

The fact that mum Kris Jenner, more than Kim herself, became popular in China has to do with the perception of her as the driving force behind the family’s success, pushing everyone to where they are today and coordinating their careers. In doing so, she is the one who’s seen as the “symbol of wealth” and — through her own belief in the power of manifestation — became the perfect image for Chinese netizens to make their own wishes visible, like a digital good luck charm.

Kris wore a blue Tang suit (唐装, tángzhuāng) to the Shanghai launch event, which Chinese commentators read as a friendly gesture toward the Chinese market.

For In & Out, the “manifesting” formula seems to work. Their “Let’s Manifest” menu is popular and resonates online, where people mostly find it funny to see the restaurant capitalizing on its VIP guests so quickly.

🀄 WORD OF THE WEEK

Sucker’s Souvenirs Starter Pack: The Three Things Everyone Sells and Nobody Wants

景区”冤种三件套” jǐngqū yuānzhǒng sānjiàntào

Lit.: Scenic Area Sucker’s Three-Piece Set

Meaning: The “Tourist-Trap Trio”: generic souvenirs you see everywhere

During this National Day holiday, when so many Chinese are traveling all over the country, one phenomenon being discussed (also on Zhihu) is the scenic site’s 冤种三件套 (yuānzhǒng sānjiàntào), roughly “the sucker’s three-piece set,” or more loosely, the “tourist-trap trio.”

This refers to those three things that every Chinese tourist site sells nowadays, yet nobody really wants: scenic-spot hand creams, fridge magnets, and cultural-themed ice cream.

The formula is the same everywhere, repeated in the same kinds of shops, and is part of China’s wénchuàng (文创 – culturally creative) boom that started in the 2010s, where local cultural elements and symbols are turned into commercially attractive products that aren’t even produced locally. Even though the landmarks and texts may change, they all follow the same cookie-cutter model reproduced across the country.

Examples of the same souvenirs sold at every scenic site.

But these kinds of common tourist-attraction purchases are becoming less popular among younger Chinese. One reason is that they are more critical of overconsumption and unwilling to buy overpriced stuff they don’t need anyway. They are willing to spend money on more genuine, locally made items, like pottery or DIY products.

Another reason is that these products have also become the ultimate sign of the lamentable homogenization of Chinese tourist sites (景区同质化), where you’ll find the same shops, foods, signs, and souvenirs whether you’re up north or down south.

Another reason is that online shopping has become so mainstream that most shoppers now recognize they can buy the same products for much less on sites like Taobao.

Tourist hand cream sold on Taobao.

💬 On Xiaohongshu, one commenter wrote: “A fridge magnet that costs 9.9 yuan with free shipping online suddenly sells for 28 yuan once you’re inside a tourist attraction. And the ice cream is the funniest one: five seconds to take a photo, ten seconds to melt, and whether it actually tastes good is anyone’s guess.”

💬 Another commenter on Zhihu wrote: “Really good cultural-creative products should try to put the place into the product, rather than simply putting the name of the place onto the product. Because what people really want to take home when they travel is some small connection that existed between themselves and that place. When your product can achieve that, then it truly becomes a souvenir.”

That’s a wrap!

Best,

Manya

🔚

Eye on Digital China, by Manya Koetse, is co-published on Substack and What’s on Weibo. Both feature the same new content — so you can read and subscribe wherever you prefer. Substack offers community features, while What’s on Weibo provides full archive access.

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