Manya Koetse

Inside Chunwan 2026: China’s Spring Festival Gala Watch the CGM Spring Festival Gala with us. It’s that special annual evening show that captures millions of viewers on the night of the Chinese New Year. Loved by many, hated by some, it always genera...

Wondering where to watch the CMG Spring Festival Gala? Join me live in 1.5 hours as I follow the show and share real-time updates - the highs and the lows. No paywall, no registration required.
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Me too!

Hello, is it me you're looking for? Yes! Lionel Richie is joining the CMG Spring Festival Gala tonight, together with Jackie Chan. This is already iconic. #CMGChunwan

Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years. It's frontpage news on China Daily, and the Weibo hashtag is there (#黎智英被判20年#), but Weibo apologizes: "the topic's contents cannot be displayed."

I haven't paid much attention to him since he started flirting with election denial in 2020 (x.com/StephenMcDon...), but @manyapan.bsky.social's argument against characterising his recent statements as a straightforward "pro-Beijing turn" seems persuasive: x.com/manyapan/sta...

Samuel! I feel we're drifting around different islands, and we're meeting at this buoy now 😂 I miss old Twitter. I'll try to swim by more often.

PS What’s also unchanged: me behind my laptop, covering China’s changing online world & its offline effects, from What’s on Weibo to what’s now Eye on Digital China. Now also on Substack, subscribe 👉 eyeondigitalchina.substack.com

Amid all the changes China has seen over the past decade, I’m grateful for one constant on the street: the dancing grannies. 2016 or 2026, same energy. The speakers are louder now, but the moves remain timeless.😅

Virtually in all my photos of that year, I can see the impact of mobile economy/digitalization, but without kids being hooked on tablets yet, without people mindlessly scrolling through short videos. It was the year that TikTok/Douyin was born, but had not yet gone mainstream.

Why have people become nostalgic about 2016? Perhaps because it was a crossroads we passed without noticing. Looking at this simple scene, what do you notice? People are carrying mobile phones, but they are not yet glued to their screens. (The last guy does give a glimpse of what it would become.)

I also remember headlines about elevator accidents and failing safety tests. (The Beijinger even had a typo claiming that 94% of the city’s elevators were potentially unsafe 😓, it was closer to 7%.) So despite all the innovation and development, safety enforcement was very much a hot topic.

..but soon the first excavators arrived. And everything would change

It was the start of the so-called "Great Brickening," or the period of dramatic local urban renewals around Beijing. Sanlitun still had everything it was known for (Lugas! Aperativo! First floor!),..

It was also a moment when political concepts and ideological messaging, centered around Xi Jinping, began to surface more prominently both online and offline.

At the same time, the rural-urban digital divide was much bigger than it is today. Much lower smartphone penetration, especially among elderly users. At the same time, it was a turning point, and "Taobao Villages" started to pop up over the country.

There were fun, new startups & businesses. Like this fully digitalized 24/7 self-serve hotpot place in Beijing where you'd order your hotpot-soup-base on-screen, get your food from their shop, and rent a table per hour - while paying by WeChat. It felt futuristic.

E-commerce changed thanks to the massive rollout of centralized parcel pickup points at campuses and residential buildings. (I found it so innovative that I made the video below - it WAS really new, and in Europe I never saw it until years later)

That year, it became strikingly clear to me -in everyday street life- just how fast innovation and digitalization were moving compared to the West. Mobile payments had gone mainstream, food delivery services like Ele.me had become part of daily urban life in China & QR codes everywhere.

Since looking back on 2016 seems to be the thing people are doing right now, it feels like a good moment to dive back into my photo archives. 2016 was a special time for China. 🧵👇

One to add to the list of "the prettiest KFC I've ever seen"

It was an early morning train and I wasn't quite awake yet, but conversations with this nice guy from Fengjie woke me up a bit – especially when he asked me if I was from Xinjiang (this actually happens quite frequently..)

On way home after hutong walk with Beijing friend, I mentioned I needed a powerbank before leaving. "Let’s order one," he said. "Can't, need it within 1 hour." Got laughed at. Powerbank was waiting on doormat by time we got back. Barely took 20 minutes. Thanks Xiaomi & Meituan, sorry to doubt you😅

For context, here's the story summarized in X thread x.com/manyapan/sta... or read here: www.whatsonweibo.com/behind-the-m...

Happy to randomly run into little Wukong here in Beijing. It's undeniably the cat that made the most impact in China news this year. I hope the art dedicated to her will stay around for a while 🐾

The Xiaohongshu-for-foreigners bubble has burst. Months after the hype, when Americans flocked to RedNote, the app's now riddled with loopholes: accounts flagged as “security risks”, need to submit passport, face+ID photo, phone verification, only for the process to fail. Exit for foreign creators?

Jeffrey Wasserstrom on China, Protest and Asia’s Struggle against Autocracy - Leiden Asia Centre China is changing the world—and the world is responding. In just a few decades, China has gone from isolated state to global powerhouse, reshaping politics, culture, and the fight for democracy across...

My first ever talks in Holland coming up soon/Leiden Oct 22, this in The Hague on Oct 23 leidenasiacentre.nl/event/jeffre... & Nowhere bookstore in The Hague on Oct 24. (Btw, I’ve long found lots of value in What’s on Weibo by @manyapan.bsky.social so delighted to see the 23rd talk mentioned by her)

An Unfortunate Misunderstanding

To dive into all of that — and stay in tune with what people are talking about in China — subscribe to What’s on Weibo. It’s a 100% independent, reader-supported publication, and every subscriber truly helps me keep it going. Link to latest newsletter: www.whatsonweibo.com/newsletter/n...

China’s latest viral meme, “丝瓜汤” (sīguā tāng), comes from Douyin creator Lei Zi’s family skits, where a mom insists her grown son drink loofah soup to “reduce liver fire.” It's come to represent something much bigger than that.

🫏 China’s donkey population is far below market demand. The country’s donkey population has plunged nearly 90% to just 1.46 million today, and the prices of donkey-related products continue to rise. What made this story go viral, though, wasn’t just the numbers. www.whatsonweibo.com/china-faces-...

🍟🐒 McDonald’s China has teamed up with hit game 'Black Myth: Wukong' for a limited collab featuring themed meals, merch & a ¥68 board game. There've been mixed reviews on taste, but fans are overall loving the collectibles, signalling a new focus for global chains on domestic IPs.