Five 'chubby' young men in China have quit their day jobs to form the nation’s first plus-sized boy band called Produce Pandas. Instead of the skinny boy band look made famous by groups like South Korea’s BTS, members of this outfit are more 'chubby' and cuddly. Selected from about 300 candidates by DMDF Entertainment’s artists and repertoire division, the outfit made their debut in July 2020 with the single La La La. They have been spending nearly all of their time together, living in the same space and doing intense rehearsals and physical training in a bid to become China’s number one boy band, and “an idol group of ordinary people”. 

Hundreds of low-income workers gather at a roadside in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at 4am each morning, waiting for employers to come and offer them odd jobs. Most are looking for construction work. But eight months after the city lifted lockdown measures put in place to stop the spread of Covid-19, many workers at the morning job market say there are still very few jobs, and they are struggling to make a living.

A legendary music venue in Wuhan known as the home of the Chinese city’s vibrant indie music scene is roaring back to life after it fell victim to a strict lockdown in early 2020 to fight the spread of Covid-19. Even after restrictions were eased in April, the Vox Livehouse was unable to welcome back performers and fans until September. But since then, as Wuhan manages to keep the coronavirus in check, Vox has been able to safely unleash the energy of live performances before enthusiastic crowds.

Lockdown measures in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, were lifted in early April 2020. But eight months later, small business owners say they are still facing tough times. In the final month of the year, owners of restaurants and shops as well as taxi drivers say economic conditions are far from back to normal, as people remain at home and spend less than they did before the pandemic.

Chinese football fans have been visiting the embassy of Argentina in Beijing, where a memorial has been set up for them to pay their respects to the late football superstar, Diego Maradona. Maradona, who died of a heart attack on November 25, will be remembered as the king of football by many Chinese fans who remember his exploits on the pitch in the 1980s and 90s.

Demand for professional home cleaning services has been increasing rapidly among members of China’s growing middle class. The value of the home service industry in China surpassed 800 billion yuan (US$119 billion) in 2018, and Xin Heng is among those working in the sector who believe it could soon be worth over 1 trillion yuan (US$149 billion). Xin founded a professional home cleaning company in Beijing in 2016, and he now is making plans to expand his company so it can offer cleaning services to more than 20 cities in China by 2021.

As the world’s largest online shopping festival, China’s Singles’ Day is known for its steep discounts on everything from daily necessities to luxury items and even apartments. Chinese e-commerce platforms have reported strong sales since this year’s Singles’ Day kicked off early on November 1. Packages have been leaving warehouses of JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce platform, delivery workers have been working around the clock to send goods to customers.

Joe Biden’s US presidential election win over Donald Trump has been a hot topic on the streets in China. The SCMP spoke with people in the Chinese capital Beijing to see what they think about the man expected to become the 46th US president and their views about the legacy of the man he will replace in the White House.

Chinese internet companies have created millions of new blue-collar jobs ranging from delivery workers for online takeaway platforms and drivers for car-hailing apps, to home cleaners and people maintaining shared bikes or cars. China has prioritised such jobs as a way of maintaining high employment as the county’s manufacturing sector slows down. But many workers in the new sectors have complained about the high pressure and anxiety that comes with such jobs, and are urging companies to pay more attention to their well-being and offer more-flexible working environments.

Chinese search engine giant Baidu has become a leader in automated driving technology research. The company has been conducting automated driving tests in multiple locations across China, and opened robotaxi services in several cities. Baidu is now speeding up work to deploy its automated driving technology around the country. The company’s CEO Robin Li recently said he predicts the autonomous driving industry will “enter the stage of full commercialisation in 2025”.

Online shopping has surged worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic, meeting the demand for people who are confined to their homes under rules meant to halt the spread of the coronavirus. In China, business is booming for e-commerce giants, including JD.com, which has been innovating to keep up with the increase in orders. The company developed an automated smart sorting system that it says has greatly improved efficiency and reduced costs at logistics fulfillment centers.

Wang Fuman, who in 2018 became known as China’s “ice boy”, has seen a steady improvement in the quality of life for himself and his family. Not only do they have a new home and are raising livestock, but Fuman and his sister have also formed a long-distance friendship with children in the US. The families are now using mobile phones for regular language exchange chats.

Food delivery services are booming in China as people avoid going out to restaurants and to shop for food during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many people are relying on platforms like Meituan or Ele.me to deliver meals to their workplaces or homes. But the food delivery business had already been booming before the outbreak, and in the process creating vast amounts of discarded plastic containers and wrapping materials. The unwanted side effect of the food delivery boom is undercutting China’s recent efforts to reduce such waste.

China’s cinemas are starting to reopen after being closed for nearly six months because of the coronavirus pandemic. But strict measures remain in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and there were only 130,000 tickets sold across the country when they opened on July 20, 2020. China has grown to become the world's second-largest movie market, and in 2019, the national box office earnings set a record of 64.3 billion yuan (US$9 billion). But as the initial epicentre of the pandemic, Chinese cinemas were the first in the world to bear the brunt of the pandemic, and many have already been forced out of business. Over 13,170 companies related to the cinema industry in China have been closed during the pandemic.

The city of Jingdezhen, known as China's porcelain capital, had already been hit hard in 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic that ground production and sales to a halt. But only a few months after dealing with the coronavirus, the town in the eastern province of Jiangxi saw massive flooding as the Yangtze River overflowed its banks. The disasters delivered a one-two punch that has left people in the city struggling to get by.

The great flood of 1998 devastated the town of Jiangzhou which sits on an island in the middle of China's Yangtze River. More than two decades later in the summer of 2020, the island's residents are bracing for history to repeat itself as the waterway floods again, after already bringing widespread devastation to eastern and southern China.

Dixi and six other nearby villages in China’s eastern province of Jiangxi have been inundated by floodwaters from the nearby Yangtze River after it burst its banks on the afternoon of July 8, 2020. About 20,000 residents have been left without power and drinking water in just one of many areas that have been hard-hit by floods across large areas of China. In the nation’s central and southern regions, heavy downpours and flooding have gone on for weeks, so far affecting nearly 38 million people in 27 provinces, according to official figures. The extreme weather has been moving east along the Yangtze River to Jiangxi where flooding is now being seen along the river’s tributaries.

After weeks of intense seasonal flooding in southwestern and central China, torrential rains have caused more floods along the Yangtze River. Nearly 34 million people in 27 provinces have been affected, and nearly 2 million people forced to relocate, Chinese state media says.

Massive floods have hit several provinces along China’s Yangtze River, where rainfall in the middle and lower reaches of the waterway has hit the second-highest levels recorded during the July 1 to 7 period since 1961. Extreme weather across the country has also forced some areas to postpone all-important national college entrance exams known as gaokao. A key reservoir in the eastern province of Zhejiang has opened all nine of its spillways for the first time after flood-control levels were exceeded because of heavy rain and floods further upstream in Anhui province.

Pupils at schools throughout China have had a bit more time to prepare for the 2020 gaokao, the all-important National Higher Education Entrance Examination that universities use for enrolment decisions. The test period, which has been extended from two to four days in many areas, is taking place July 7-10, 2020, after being postponed for a month because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Special measures are in place to prevent coronavirus infections among the estimated 10.71 million high school graduates who will take the tests this year. Beijing’s Zhongguancun High School serves as the biggest examination facility among 132 institutions hosting tests in the capital this year. 
 

Government-provided health insurance in China only partially covers medical expenses to people when they get sick, and private health insurance companies mainly cater to the wealthy or middle class. That's left hundreds of millions of working class and poor people unable to afford health insurance. But some Chinese internet companies have stepped in to address the gap with online mutual aid platforms that are becoming increasingly popular.

Beijing’s Fengtai district has launched “wartime-like control measures” following a spike in novel coronavirus cases centred around a major wholesale market called Xinfadi. All six confirmed Covid-19 cases reported on June 12, 2020, were in relation to the Xinfadi market. Throat swabs from 45 people, out of 517 tested at the market, had also tested positive for the virus without showing any symptoms. 

Before China introduced its new rural pension system in 2009, most farmers could not afford the cost of joining a pension system or buying commercial pension insurance. Under the current scheme, farmers who are above age 60 qualify even if they have never paid into the system. But despite 11 years of work to roll out the policy, including offers of government aid, most elderly farmers in the country say they still cannot afford to retire. The South China Morning Post talked to some older people in rural agricultural areas to find out why they feel they must continue to work.

Authorities have tightened up security measures in Beijing for its biggest annual political event, the “two sessions”. The meetings of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People's Congress (NPC) are usually held in March each year, but were postponed until May of 2020 amid the coronavirus outbreak.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to paralyse many workplaces around the world, China is getting its own outbreak under control, allowing most companies to reopen for business. But measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus that causes the disease take a great deal of effort to prepare. This is how Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is trying to keep its workplace safe from Covid-19 infections.

Many businesses in China still face grim economic prospects despite the lifting of lockdowns and restrictions to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Although some industries have shown signs of recovery, demand remains weak at venues including luxury shopping centres and wholesale clothing markets, as well as among bars and service providers.

Li Hongjie and his brother began ice-fishing on the Nen River in the Chinese city of Qiqihar five years ago. The river is in Heilongjiang province, the most northeastern part of the country, where the average winter temperature is minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22°F). Ice in the Ren River can freeze to nearly one metre (3ft) thick, making their fishing trips unbelievably tough and challenging. The brothers began posting videos of their extreme ice-fishing adventures on social media four years ago. They unexpectedly started to attract online attention and now have over a million followers on Kuaishou and Douyin, two of China’s top video-sharing platforms.

China’s economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, the first contraction in decades as the Covid-19 pandemic forced factories and businesses to close. Chinese farmers have also been hit hard by the pandemic, with the agriculture sector seeing a similar 6.8 per cent first quarter contraction. The South China Morning Post spoke to six people in villages just outside the capital Beijing to understand how their livelihoods have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Though the full lockdown in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has ended, many streets still have tall barriers set up to help stop the spread of the coronavirus which causes Covid-19. Business owners say that as they try to resume operations, the physical barriers are keeping customers away from their shops. Saying that the dividers do little to limit the spread of the virus anyway, they want officials to remove them as soon as possible.

Businesses across the central Chinese city of Wuhan are gradually resuming operations after the lifting of a lockdown on April 8, 2020, nearly two and a half months after it was imposed to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus. But few consumers are returning to restaurants and shopping centres since many are still worried about contracting Covid-19 as the outbreak continues, leaving small business owners facing an uncertain future.