All the Rage: Five Trends to Grip China in Recent Years

All the Rage: Five Trends to Grip China in Recent Years
Aug 11, 2014 By Margaux Schreurs , eChinacities.com

As the most populous nation on Earth, it should hardly come as a surprise that some of the quirkiest and unusal trends find root in China. From dogs in panty hose (no kidding!) to cartoon phone apps, we round up five trends that have  gripped  the nation in recent times.

All the Rage: Five Trends to Grip China in Recent Years
Photo: kotaku

1) Fashionable anti-pollution
With pollution levels reaching scary high levels earlier this year, in what has been nicknamed as the ‘airpocalypse’, some did not seem to understand the severity of the situation. Throughout the country, it became clear that there was only one way to protect yourself from those pesky PM2.5 particles: with extremely fashionable facemasks.

Every shop that I went to to try and buy a facemask, I ended up leaving with nothing, or with a facemask that had a bedazzled pink moustache on it, or was pink and leopard print. Of course the main place to purchase these masks was Taobao, but one can still wonder what the point is when you can’t see anything at an AQI of nearly 1,000.

All the Rage: Five Trends to Grip China in Recent Years
Photo: scmp

2) Xi Jinping’s Crackdown against corruption
Following many huge corruption scandals over the past few years, Xi Jinping’s corruption tackling is definitely not a new, but a refreshed trend. It can be said that the trend really kicked off following Bo Xilai’s trial and imprisonment.

Bo Xilai’s case was probably one of the most infamous corruption cases, casting light on the crackdown throughout the entire world. Bo was Secretary of the Chongqing Committee of the Communist Party of China between November 2007 and April 2012 and was found guilty of corruption in September 2013, after which he was stripped of all of his assets and sentenced to a life in prison. All of this while his son, nicknamed Guagua, drove around Harvard ‘s Kennedy School of Government in various luxury cars.

3) Dogs in Pantyhose
One of the oddest trends to come out of China in the past year, and one that many outside of China couldn’t just dismiss and ignore without any further comment, are dogs wearing pantyhose.

There were also some four-legged friends in high heels (on top of the pantyhose), but either way, they just looked beyond uncomfortable. The pictures went viral much faster than expected, making it to Cheezburger.com, Collegehumor.com, and the Huffington post. Huffington Post even questioned whether the trend was ‘harmless fun, or perfectly vile’. Even though the quick poll on the website shows that readers votes 51.7% for ‘sinister and vile’, as checked July 21st 2014, dogswearingpantyhose.com caused quite the stir and gave the West another reason to discuss China.

4) Durian Pizza
Last summer, the durian pizza made it from Thailand to China, taking China by (quite a smelly) storm. As durian is relatively controversial in Asia anyway (it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells, in fact, it actually tastes good but due to its smell has been banned from public transport in Singapore), it makes the perfect trendy pizza topping for the Chinese elite, and probably the only non-endangered food on top of their lists.

Various Chinese media platforms reported its popularity, starting off in Blue & Brown Café in Shanghai, whose owner reported selling an average of 70 durian pizzas a day since opening late 2012. Popularity of this dish has also boosted the domestic durian market, although the Chinese still prefer the ‘Golden Pillow’ type – grown in Thailand and known for its thinner shell.

5) MYOTee
MYOTee is a cartoon image collage app that creates a cartoon avatar for its user. All the user has to do is identify them selves as male or female, and the templates create the rest of the avatar face. Of course accessories like glasses or headgear can be added individually. Completed images can be shared on social networks like Sina Weibo or WeChat, and the app has registered over 2 million users so far, bringing it to the top of the free app chart in China’s App Store.

It will be interesting to see whether the trend persists, considering that users have no new features to play with once their avatar has been created. Experts say that apps of this kind, with few features, will bore the general public quickly, and we guess that is especially true for the Chinese app market, which moves at a remarkable speed.

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Keywords: trends in China

3 Comments

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Mixal

LOL @ Laowei's comment!

Aug 20, 2014 04:32 Report Abuse

Laowei

Dogs in pantyhose is better than in a soup pot. China is making Progress!

Aug 18, 2014 02:08 Report Abuse

carlstar

The corruption crackdown is not as corruption crack down as it seems. Rulers do this sort of thing to consolidate power, to remove any inner threats to power and to show every wise and caring person is working towards the same glorious goal. There will be only one real choice for leader next time as all others will be executed or in prison. It will be a smooth transfer that will show that Xi was a great leaders. Just don't look into them yourself, you rumor mongers.

Aug 11, 2014 09:49 Report Abuse