China Books & Literature
Groundbreaking: “Explicit” Sexual Education Textbook Causes Stir in China
“How can you teach children sexual education without talking about sex?”
China Arts & Entertainment
The Reunification with Taiwan is Hitting Chinese Cinemas This Summer
A new state-backed epic about the Qing conquest of Taiwan is stirring debate. Plus: the Shanxi mine disaster, a controversial prison film, hukou reform, and China’s top 5 rising books.
China Arts & Entertainment
Su Chao Fever, Mo Yan’s “Scrollable” Book, and Why Li Xiaoran is China’s New Office Icon
This week in China: Grassroots football fever, a Nobel laureate writes for the TikTok era, France’s cultural relic bill, and a 19-year-old’s blind box obsession bankrupts her father’s company.
🔥 China Trend Watch (week 16/17 | 2026) Part of Eye on Digital China by Manya Koetse, China Trend Watch is an overview of what’s trending and being discussed on Chinese social media.
Dear reader,
Hope you’re having a good week. Time for an update on what’s been trending.
In this newsletter:
👉Victor Hugo’s day has come
👉China’s grassroots football couldn’t get more viral
👉A scrollable new book by Mo Yan
👉The Chinese office meme of the moment
..and more.
Let’s dive in.
Quick Scroll
-
- 📱 China’s National Security Ministry has joined Chinese Tiktok app Douyin. The high-profile Douyin debut is part of a broader trend of Chinese government agencies and security bodies joining the app.
- 🐺 A feel-good wildlife story from Inner Mongolia: a pregnant wild wolf descended from the mountains to give birth at a wildlife conservation station where she had been previously fed. The noteworthy move shows she had apparently developed trust in the station workers, and felt safe there.
- 🐖 Pork prices hit historic lows but spare ribs still cost 20 yuan (US$3) – this became a topic of discussion this week. Despite the drop in pig prices, retail pork still feels expensive because added costs across the supply chain haven’t changed.
- 🍿 Movie alert. The May Day (五一) cinema content explosion is incoming. Seventeen films have already been slotted for the Golden Week holiday window.
- 🚔 A 31-year-old man from Guangzhou has been detained under anti-cyberbullying regulations after repeatedly posting insulting comments targeting Olympic champion diver Quan Hongchan (全红婵) on WeChat.
- 🤖 Unitree’s humanoid robot is almost as fast as Usain Bolt. The company announced that the H1 humanoid robot achieved a peak sprint speed of 10 meters per second during a 100-meter test.
- ⚡️ Another robot, “Lightning” (闪电) by Honor, also went viral because he won the Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon on Sunday, April 19, running a half-marathon distance faster than any human ever has, completing it in 50 minutes and 26 seconds (the human record: 56:42). (See video here).
- 🎁 A 19-year-old woman from Zhengzhou has made headlines for allegedly embezzling around 17 million yuan (nearly $2.5 million) from her father’s company, spending it on blind boxes and livestream tipping (dashang 打赏). Her father, now bankrupt, ended up taking his daughter to the police himself.
What Really Stood Out
The Jiangsu Super League (Su Chao) Fever
The Jiangsu…
Eye on Digital China is a reader-supported publication by
Manya Koetse (@manyapan) and powered by What’s on Weibo.
It offers independent analysis of China’s online culture, media, and social trends.
To receive the newsletter and support this work, consider
becoming a paid subscriber.
China Trend Watch: Digital Dementia and Why Everyone Says ‘Li Na’
Mbappé, Mao & the Backlash on Chinese Social Media
Mbappé, Mao, and the Joke That Shall Not Be Named
The French Protests, Viewed from China: Five Narratives on Chinese Social Media
What Does 20 Yuan ($3) Mean Anymore? China’s Disappearing Living Rooms & the Great Laundry Debate
Why Japan Has So Many Surnames, China’s Back-to-School Shifts & Taiwan Pavilion Trouble
The Power of Ugly: Why Niu Lai Became China’s Unlikeliest Box-Office Hit
The Rise of “Shuaqi-ism,” Taking Starbucks to the Fields, and Pretending to Go to Work
AI Actress Ad Pulled, Baihaitun Disrupts Shanghai and Cicada Meme Bugs Huawei
Blame Games & Bad Signs: Nepal–Tibet Floods, Huawei’s Toilet Trouble, “Screwed” Graduates
-
Chinese New Year9 months agoInside Chunwan 2026: China’s Spring Festival Gala
-
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers12 months agoHasan Piker’s China Trip & the Unexpected Journey of a Chinese School Uniform to Angola
-
Chapter Dive8 months agoInside the Great Chinese Debate Over the Iran War
-
China Trend Watch12 months agoJapan Tensions, Nexperia Fallout, Yunnan’s ‘Wild Child,’ & “Modern Opium”
Matthias Lehmann
March 20, 2017 at 8:46 am
Thanks for the interesting article. Here are a few translated comments (shortened) from German netizens after tagesschau.de reported about the book.
“Talking with children about sex… makes me ask… what for? Is that species-appropriate? … It doesn’t make any sense at all to confront younger children with a topic that doesn’t correspond with their physical development.”
“Only parents should be allowed to talk [about sex] with primary school-age children. … I’m against brochures and similar standardized texts.”
“Children should learn that there aren’t any taboos and that you can talk about all matters, even if they are uncomfortable at first. … Knowledge protects [children] from abuse and health risks during sex.”
“As adults, we don’t have the right to equate our sexuality with that of children. But to derive from that that children’s sexuality should remain a taboo is a societal systemic error.”
“Sexual intercourse should maybe be dealt with in or around the 5th grade. Homosexuality etc. maybe even a bit later since that’s just a marginal issue, blown up by the media.”
“I see China’s advance [in that matter] as a positive approach.
“When you can use a brochure in schools that deals with homosexuality without negative connotations without hundreds of people launching a protest against children allegedly being ‘made gay’, then China is clearly ahead of us in that regard.”
Source: http://meta.tagesschau.de/id/121515/kinderbuch-in-china-schluss-mit-den-sex-tabus
Oliv
October 3, 2018 at 10:40 am
Hello Matthias
Agree with you Only parents should be allowed to talk
As adults, we don’t have the right to equate our sexuality with that of children. But to derive from that that children’s sexuality should remain a taboo is a societal systemic error
This Didi’ book it is China paradox, I guess… sexual education for children is a problem, but COME ONE not at elementary school .
Ok for learn internal structure of male and female reproductive but ..just this basicly…