Originally published in the Eye on Digital China newsletter on Sunday, September 6, 2026.

Hello from rainy Yokohama. This week, I am doing some traveling around Japan, partly for work, partly for leisure, and having some time to visit historic sights and meet old friends. It’s been eight years since I last visited Japan, the country where I spent part of my high school days.

Since I’m writing to you from Japan, this edition is more Japan-focused than usual, with a particularly interesting contribution from Unseen Japan, the independent website and newsletter that I’ve followed and appreciated for years due to its deep dives and cultural analysis on modern Japan, often covering stories that mainstream English-language media overlooks. Give their newsletter a follow here.

🔎 This time in Tokyo, the lack of Chinese tourists was clear – something that was confirmed by Mr. Zhu, the friendly driver who met me at Narita Airport. He turned out to be a 40-something-year-old Chinese man from Harbin who once studied in Tokyo and then stayed here as a post-graduate.

Yicai reported earlier this week that during August, the second half of the summer travel season, 18 China–Japan air routes canceled all of their scheduled flights – a total of 1,120 flights from mainland China to Japan, a cancellation rate of 30% for a number of flights to Japan that was already down 53% compared to the year before.

According to my driver, the lack of Chinese visitors is partly because the current economy and more cautious spending are making Chinese tourists turn elsewhere, from domestic travel to other Southeast Asian destinations, from Vietnam to Malaysia, that have become more popular and affordable. The upcoming National…

In this edition:

• Teachers get shamed for their students’ bad grades
• Why the Nepal–Tibet floods sparked arguments about blame, BBC reporting, and Chinese censorship
• Huawei doesn’t appreciate viral toilet humor
• Dads are carrying mattresses into Peking University
• Chinese graduates are getting “screwed” by a million-dollar company

🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS

🧑‍🏫 A teacher “shame photo” taken at a local education meeting in Liangshan, Sichuan, has sparked nationwide outrage. A group of primary school teachers was forced to pose in front of a giant “SHAME” sign because their classes’ average final exam scores were below 30. “This isn’t merely ‘shame’—it’s outright public humiliation,” one commenter wrote. Liangshan’s education bureau confirmed the photo was real and said it was “puzzled” by the practice; the Leibo County government has apologized and launched an investigation.

Teachers lined up in front of a big screen that says: “Group photo of primary-school teachers whose classes averaged below 30 points in the 2025–2026 end-of-year examinations”

🥬 “Chemical cabbages” (药水白菜) or “formaldehyde cabbages” (甲醛白菜) have been a major topic on Chinese social media after a Chinese investigative vlogger captured workers in Kangbao, Hebei, dipping cabbages into formaldehyde solution before loading them onto trucks. This procedure, which allegedly adds 2–3 extra days of shelf life, is illegal: formaldehyde is a Group 1 carcinogen.

🍫 It’s been a bad week for Mars-owned chocolate brand Dove. A marketing campaign suggesting that a girl received a box of chocolates from a man she was flirting with while her boyfriend was away (“趁男友不在”) drew anger online. Then the brand’s apology also became a massive failure: when it was flagged as 100% AI-generated, Chinese netizens had little sympathy left for the brand.

💸 A “century-old” shark fin soup served by a Shanghai restaurant for no less than 4,800 yuan (US$715) per bowl (!) has gone viral for its exorbitant price and claims that it has been “simmering for more than 100 years,” since the late Qing dynasty. There was plenty of skepticism about the soup, but also disbelief that anyone would spend an ordinary person’s entire monthly living budget on a single bowl of soup.

👩‍💻 An eighth-grader from Shanghai earned 18,000 yuan (US$2,678) in three days using AI. Despite her limited programming experience, the 13-year-old placed third in a marketing hackathon, where teams had 48 hours to develop and market an entire AI product. She launched a study-companion app called “Being There” (在场) that 92 people bought. Although Chinese media praised her, commenters were critical, suggesting she received help from her mother, an influencer on Douyin.

💍 In an aging society where marriage rates have AGAIN dropped, more and more places are making it easier than ever to tie the knot. Registration services are popping up in…