5 min read

Straight Out of Dune, Visit the Arrakis of China

Straight Out of Dune, Visit the Arrakis of China

Too busy to get your daily dose of RADII? We got you every Tuesday with a summary of all the freshest takes on China’s youth culture in the last week.

  • It's lonely out here in West China, but it's beautiful. From the stretches of uninhabited desert at Ningxia to the picturesque plateau of Gansu, you'll find some of the most captivating views in the world.
  • This song laments the speed of the modern world and recalls a time when China's capital was "cool".
  • Following the massive success of Immortal Studios' inaugural comic book, "The Adept," in late 2019, the leading wuxia storytellers are back with the second issue — "The Adept #2" — and an accompanying kickstarter campaign.
  • Netflix has launched social media accounts for its new channel celebrating the Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community — Netflix Golden.
  • Suspense drama Reset has received lots of positive feedback since its premiere.

Intrigued? Keep scrolling, my friend.

Awe and Solitude in China's Vast, Empty West

Here is something for the cartography nerds out there: If you take a map of China and draw a straight line from Heilongjiang province in the Northeast (on the border with Russia) across to northern Myanmar, you will have cut the country essentially in half geographically.

Now, most of what we think of as China is to the east of this line: my house in Shanghai, soup dumplings, bustling megacities from Beijing to Shenzhen, that delicious lamb noodle shop in Deqing I go to sometimes — all of it. East of this line lives over 1.2 billion people. This is the Hu Line, or the Hu Huanyong Line (胡焕庸线).

Explore the region of China that is separated from the east by the Hu Line with Graeme Kennedy.

Following the massive success of Immortal Studios’ inaugural comic book, The Adept, in late 2019, the leading wuxia storytellers are back with the second issue — The Adept#2 — and an accompanying Kickstarter campaign.

Written by Tasha Huo and Charlie Stickney, with illustrations by Yishan Li, The Adept tells the story of Amy, a young Chinese-American woman with a dark past. In her dreams, Amy meets a Shaolin kung fu master who trains her and prepares her to face evils in real life.

Amy’s saga continues in the highly anticipated follow-up: Reunited with her estranged sister Ali, the pair are left to deal with the aftermath of the attempted kidnapping of a famous pop star, Sasha True.

Fans still have 25 days to support the project, until February 25, with various rewards — from digital bundles to limited-edition cover art — awaiting project backers.

Ice Ice Lady: Meet the Woman Bringing Ice Hockey to Wuhan's Youth

“I want to pass what my coach taught me to my students,” says Liu Yufei, a 23-year-old former professional ice hockey player who now coaches in Wuhan. “It’s like passing down inheritance from generation to generation.”

With a team of 13 kids, Liu has essentially created the first children’s hockey team at Weiga Ice Rink in Wuhan — the Snow Wolves. She even designed their first uniform and logo. Her ultimate goal: to create an all-girls hockey team.

Though there are only four girls on her team right now, Liu says she has witnessed a growing interest in ice hockey amongst kids and parents in Wuhan.

Most kids, girls especially, come to the ice rink to learn figure skating, but some have seen her and other kids working on ice hockey drills and become interested in that instead.

The Nomad Surfers Killing the Waves of South China

To honor this Year of the Tiger, we've teamed up with Peddlers Gin to bring you ‘Spirit of the Tiger’ — a selection of inspiring stories from fascinating tigers across China.

“When you are surfing, everything else is much less important; you are alone in the sea, with nothing but your board, coping with all the uncertainties by yourself.”

It was no surprise when these two powerhouses of energy were born in the Year of the Tiger. Part of the growing surf culture in South China, 24-year-old Shayun and Jiang’s passion for the ocean has led them to Hainan to chase waves.

  • Hurun Research Institute reveals the brand preferences, consumption habits, and lifestyle trends of China’s wealthiest people.
  • The first rule of Fight Club: You don’t talk about Fight Club. The second rule, per the film’s recent Chinese release: The cops must win in the end.
  • In response to the news, some Weibo users have speculated that Chinese authorities want fewer people to be educated in order to have more manual laborers in China.
  • Mega-popular time-loop drama "Reset" achieves 1 billion views. The show is adapted from an online novel of the same name and tells the story of two young people trapped in a time loop where they die in a bus bombing over and over again. To save themselves and others on the bus, Li and Bai partner up to try to locate the bomb by unraveling the clues in each loop.
  • While we believe every one of China’s ONE Championship fighters deserves the attention of combat and MMA aficionados worldwide, we’ve narrowed the list to 10 athletes that you should watch for in the months and years ahead.

Are you a gifted meme maker? Or a storyteller crazy about Chinese youth culture? Take a look below, because we’re currently hiring for the following positions:

Find us on our main site, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and WeChat (@radiichina)