https://www.scmp.com/rss/11941/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com In 2009, China’s State Council announced ambi­tious plans to elevate the tropical island province of Hainan into a world-class international tourism destination by 2020. A 2011 report by the World Travel & Tourism Council gushed: “Hainan is blessed with an abundance of natural resources – from its sun-kissed, palm-lined beaches, waterfalls and hot springs, to its extinct volcano crater and tropical mangrove and rain forests […] “It is not surprising that Hainan has already been dubbed the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3103802/chinas-hainan-was-supposed-be-world-class-beach?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3103802/chinas-hainan-was-supposed-be-world-class-beach?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Oct 2020 02:15:17 +0000 Facing the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing globally, luxury businesses have been forced to make a significant shift to online to survive the crisis. Way before the outbreak, however, the e-commerce trend was the most revolutionary of the many ways in which China has pushed the global luxury industry to change. So what can brands learn from this evolution in order to surmount the economic ordeal? Still regarded warily in the West, selling luxury online has come of age in China. Top... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3082834/chinas-luxury-e-commerce-revolution-what-can-west-learn?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3082834/chinas-luxury-e-commerce-revolution-what-can-west-learn?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 May 2020 18:00:14 +0000 To keep up with 20 per cent annual growth in the Chinese luxury goods market, top-flight brands are working hard to train staff in London and Paris. Yet amid booming sales, stores in Beijing and Shanghai seemed empty long before coronavirus drove shoppers away from malls. The explanation behind these paradoxes, of course, is that Chinese overwhelmingly buy their luxury on trips abroad. In April 2019, Gartner reported that high taxes make pure luxury fashion brands on average one third more... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3052717/why-stores-beijing-and-shanghai-are-empty-and-its-not-just?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3052717/why-stores-beijing-and-shanghai-are-empty-and-its-not-just?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:00:17 +0000 Steven Ribet Steven Ribet When Guillaume Rué de Bernadac, founder of the etiquette coaching institution Academie de Bernadac, started teaching French etiquette to young women in Shanghai, in 2014, the lesson the students found hardest to grasp was how to pose for photographs. Academié de Bernadac follows the formal “red carpet” Western style, unlike the more casual Asian way of striking a pose, which usually involves specific hand and/or facial gestures. “Often, after classes finished, our students would pose in a ‘cute’... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3049155/why-rich-chinese-millennial-women-are-turning-etiquette?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3049155/why-rich-chinese-millennial-women-are-turning-etiquette?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:00:06 +0000 Any China reporter or exchange student would have known not to make this mistake. In July, Versace, Coach and Givenchy released remarkably similar – and flawed – T-shirts, with designs variously implying Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were not part of China. A year earlier, China’s central government had warned international airlines against the same mistake. To add to the injury, the garments went on sale at a time when rioters in Hong Kong were calling for “liberation”. How did the face mask - a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3046174/after-coach-and-versaces-china-blunders-how-brands-can-avoid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3046174/after-coach-and-versaces-china-blunders-how-brands-can-avoid?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jan 2020 07:00:08 +0000 Private jet travel is booming, but private jet ownership is actually falling. “Your golfing partner has a private jet and you don’t want to lose face. So in Asia, at the beginning, we saw people going out and buying the biggest, shiniest new aircraft,” says James Royds-Jones, Air Charter Service’s director of executive jets for Asia-Pacific. “Then they realised the cost involved is astronomical; a lot more than they anticipated.” We review Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Upper Class’ on its new A350 luxury... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3041583/private-jet-ownership-falling-why-are-billionaires-signing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3041583/private-jet-ownership-falling-why-are-billionaires-signing?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Dec 2019 18:00:14 +0000 Louis Vuitton has been called one of the world’s leading patrons of the arts, and for good reason. The luxury house’s new flagship Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul store brings together two celebrated international architects, some of the best living artists and designers and one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century for its inaugural gallery exhibition. Jaden Smith rocks up for the Louis Vuitton X exhibition The store was opened with a ceremony on October 30 attended by international... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3038616/frank-gehry-designed-it-korean-actor-gong-yoo-attended-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3038616/frank-gehry-designed-it-korean-actor-gong-yoo-attended-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Nov 2019 02:00:07 +0000 Given the eye-popping numbers involved, Alibaba Group Holding's “Double 11” e-commerce campaign, which takes place annually as the Singles' Day shopping festival on November 11, has become a golden opportunity for global brands to make a quick profit. The GMV (gross merchandising volume) of the one-day event in 2018 – US$30.8 billion – was about the same as Italy’s e-commerce market for the whole year. When the GMV of other Chinese online marketplaces such as JD.com are included, last year’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3037213/how-alibabas-singles-day-became-global-billion-dollar?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3037213/how-alibabas-singles-day-became-global-billion-dollar?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Nov 2019 08:58:29 +0000 Chinese animation has grown up. Now it wants to grow out. After Ne Zha broke domestic box office records this summer, a cohort of Chinese animation studios set their sights on the global market. The studios say they think they can create the kind of world-class productions that could turn around China’s underperforming industry. “As an industry we’ve become more confident telling stories to the domestic market. Now we’re going to tell stories to the world,” says Chris Bremble, the founder and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3036503/will-chinas-animation-led-record-breaking-film-ne-zha-soon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3036503/will-chinas-animation-led-record-breaking-film-ne-zha-soon?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 06 Nov 2019 04:00:11 +0000 Singapore’s Changi has been called one of the world’s best airports for the past seven years. In April, it upped its game with the new nature-themed entertainment and retail complex, Jewel. At the end of September, China’s flagship, Daxing International Airport, opened in Beijing. It boasts the world’s largest free-standing terminal and is expected to become the world’s busiest. It will welcome some 5 million passengers next year, a small fraction of the yearly 100 million expected by 2040. So... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3036365/changi-singapore-or-daxing-china-which-asias-best-airport?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/leisure/article/3036365/changi-singapore-or-daxing-china-which-asias-best-airport?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Nov 2019 07:00:12 +0000 Chanel is bringing its Mademoiselle Privé exhibition to Tokyo this autumn. The project had its first showing in London four years ago, then moved to Seoul, Hong Kong and, this year, Shanghai. For its fifth incarnation, the brand enlisted Oscar-winning director Sofia Coppola. Her two-and-a-half minute video collage – In Homage to Mademoiselle – can be seen on YouTube. Which fashion collection shone the brightest at Paris Couture Week? More than just a display of media and memorabilia, the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3034171/chanel-enlists-oscar-winning-director-sofia-coppola-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3034171/chanel-enlists-oscar-winning-director-sofia-coppola-its?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Oct 2019 18:00:12 +0000 The Rolex Day-Date has enjoyed a much sought-after status since its launch in 1956. Made only in gold or platinum, it was the first wristwatch to display both date and day of the week, spelt out in full in windows on the dial. A hallmark of the watch is the semicircular, three-piece link “president” bracelet that was created for it. It received its name in 1965, when US President Lyndon B Johnson wore a yellow gold Day-Date. Thereafter it was dubbed “the president’s watch”. Why celebrity... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/watches/article/3033597/why-rolex-day-date-called-presidents-watch-and-where-you?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/watches/article/3033597/why-rolex-day-date-called-presidents-watch-and-where-you?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Oct 2019 04:00:12 +0000 Global companies with interests in China have long trodden carefully on the subjects of Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen Square. On these issues of sovereignty, both the Chinese government and Chinese consumers have punished disagreement with the official line. There is much at stake. China has become the world’s largest market for luxury goods. This year, according to researchers eMarketer, it will overtake the US as the world’s largest market for all kinds of consumer goods combined. Hong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032516/apple-nba-brands-have-bowed-china-amid-hong-kong-pro?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032516/apple-nba-brands-have-bowed-china-amid-hong-kong-pro?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Oct 2019 06:31:58 +0000 The term “non-binary” has been tossed around quite a bit lately – meaning people who do not necessarily identify as masculine or feminine – but the concept is far from new. In the 1980s, the word “genderqueer” – which had the same meaning – was used, a term coined by queer zines at the time. Decades of debate on this issue came to the conclusion that society should not dictate what people should identify as, but, rather, individuals should be the ones to say where they stood. And more and more... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032341/shiloh-jolie-pitt-willow-smith-and-leah-dou-6-lgbtq?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032341/shiloh-jolie-pitt-willow-smith-and-leah-dou-6-lgbtq?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Oct 2019 04:00:15 +0000 In September 1860, during the second opium war, envoys of the British and French expeditionary forces were sent under a flag of truce to negotiate with representatives of the Qing dynasty’s Xianfeng Emperor in Beijing. They were captured and tortured, and 20 of them died. When their battered, unrecognisable bodies were returned two weeks later, the stage was set for the biggest single act of vandalism in modern Chinese history. The British high commissioner to China at the time was the 8th Earl... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2181613/beijings-old-summer-palace-computer-modelling?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2181613/beijings-old-summer-palace-computer-modelling?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:30:15 +0000 In the 1950s and 60s, when the artisans of Beijing’s last seven bow-making workshops were reassigned to state collectives, a craft that had been practised for more than 3,000 years came to a sudden halt. By the mid-90s, all remaining bowyers had passed away, with the exception of Yang Wentong. Come his death, it was believed, all knowledge of traditional Han Chinese ox-horn bow making would be lost forever. “My father was the youngest in that generation. None of their children had made the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2166994/traditional-chinese-archery-bow-makers-target?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2166994/traditional-chinese-archery-bow-makers-target?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Oct 2018 07:00:15 +0000 Beijing has resumed approving new subway projects as part of its investment push to stimulate economic growth amid the trade war with the United States. But this time, it wants to be more strict and discerning to avoid the excesses of the past. This more cautious approach to authorising new subway construction underscores a major difference between the current government effort to boost growth and previous efforts: the “anything goes” approach of the past has been abandoned, so that the stimulus... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2166944/china-cautious-about-new-subway-projects-latest-investment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2166944/china-cautious-about-new-subway-projects-latest-investment?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Oct 2018 07:34:11 +0000 Deep within the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, Zigong is home to monsters. A juvenile tyranno­saurus threatens passengers in the city’s long-distance bus station; sauropods snake along slip roads of the main highway; a stout stego­saurus and a truculent triceratops lurk at Gaoxin Industrial Park; and, upon reaching the unit that houses the workshops of Gengu Longteng Science & Technology, visitors are greeted by a dignified diplodocus at the front gate. Beside the warehouse rests a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2162125/chinas-dinosaur-factory-behind-scenes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2162125/chinas-dinosaur-factory-behind-scenes?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Sep 2018 07:30:30 +0000 At first sight, the city of Datong, in Shanxi province, seems to have little to set it apart from other burgeoning, third-tier cities in the mainland's vast interior. Its downtown skyline is crisscrossed with construction cranes swinging back and forth. The streets below teem with compact, domestic-brand cars. Electric scooters jostle with hawkers' carts stacked with fried dumplings and peeled pineapples. A closer look at those construction projects, however, reveals how this northern city... https://www.scmp.com/article/729772/history-making?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/729772/history-making?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Chuang will never forget the first time she met her husband: the kind man who offered her a lift on a rainy day, back to her hometown, outside Xian, Shaanxi province. During the ride she found out they hailed from the same village and she was impressed by his thoughtful, attentive manner. Chuang thanked him by text message. When he called at her parents' home the next day, she took it as a sign of an honest courting. The man turned out to be a maestro in the kitchen. His dress sense... https://www.scmp.com/article/710471/boyfriend-trouble?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/710471/boyfriend-trouble?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:00:00 +0000 A SHANXI CHILDHOOD When I was a child, our family owned half an acre of land on the hillside overlooking our village [Xiashuixi], where my brother and me used to spend days in the summer. Xuping is five years younger than me and in the school holidays we were together every day. I was the only one he would listen to. He was only 15 when he was [first] sent to prison, in 2005. He had been acting as lookout for a gang of thieves and in total they stole perhaps 400 yuan [HK$450]. People in our... https://www.scmp.com/article/706521/zhang-huping?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/706521/zhang-huping?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000 It's early morning and Wang Hou'e is making breakfast in her brick home in a dusty back lane of the suburban village of Xiashuixi, Shanxi province. Wang is 48 years old but her sunken cheeks and wispy hair give her the look of a woman well into her 60s. Her knitted cotton top is stretched out of shape and hangs loosely from her small angular frame She pours tea into two enamel mugs and places them next to a tin bowl of plain steamed bread. Then she pulls up a plastic chair and produces a... https://www.scmp.com/article/703199/death-tyrant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/703199/death-tyrant?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:00:00 +0000 It's a busy day in the Dongguan suburb of Wanjiang. Three- wheeled motorcycle taxis jostle for space with market barrows along a narrow road packed with eateries selling cold noodles and steamed dumplings. Next to a counter stacked with wicker steaming cages a narrow stairway leads up to the 10-square-metre room that is home to Xu Jiancheng and his wife. Xu is dressed in shorts and a cap-sleeved T-shirt. He and his pale, slight wife are sitting on a thin, metal-framed bed surrounded by ... https://www.scmp.com/article/688577/crying-help?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/688577/crying-help?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Pu Mengqi was just one month away from graduation at college in Suzhou - 50km inland from Shanghai - when she was diagnosed with leukaemia, in May 2006. She underwent the first round of treatment before moving to Beijing with her parents for better care at the capital's prestigious Daopei Hospital. Chemotherapy made her lose her hair and appetite but doctors said her chances of recovery were good. Then, on June 28 last year, she was given a spinal injection of tainted medicine that caused her... https://www.scmp.com/article/627423/needle-and-damage-done?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/627423/needle-and-damage-done?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Today, Beijing-based VanceInfo Technologies lists on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first Chinese outsourcing company to float in the United States. Sophia Wong, head of marketing at VanceInfo competitor Beyondsoft, said her company had entered the 'quiet period' that bans it from promoting itself before filing for a US listing. A third Beijing firm called hiSoft also plans to go public some time next year. Five years after consultancies such as Gartner started hyping China as the... https://www.scmp.com/article/619197/outsourcing-lead-eludes-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/619197/outsourcing-lead-eludes-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Although lists of the most liveable cities have a long history in some other countries, they are a new thing in China. At a forum on town planning held in Beijing this month, the capital's International Institute for Urban Development released its 2005 'Rankings for Quality of Life in Chinese Cities'. The institute claims that its chart is the first such one compiled in the country, and hopes its annual reviews will serve as the benchmark for assessing China's urban centres. The report... https://www.scmp.com/article/517811/quality-counts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/517811/quality-counts?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The mainland's notorious 'policeman beats policeman to death' criminal case reached its climax in Taiyuan , Shanxi province recently. But not before taking an unexpected twist. Readers of this column will know the story. During the May holiday week this year in Taiyuan, an off-duty policeman got into a traffic dispute with another (also out-of-uniform) policeman on holiday from the capital. He followed the Beijing officer back to his hotel while using his mobile phone to muster a gang of thugs... https://www.scmp.com/article/515884/thin-blue-line?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/515884/thin-blue-line?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 In a dusty back street near my flat in northern Beijing at closing time every evening, the staff of the Yellow Fruit Tree restaurant bed down on the cement floor of their shop, to spend the night sleeping beside the tables. The next morning, when I walk across potholes and past a long row of grimy brick shacks to get to the restaurant, they are usually taking turns washing their clothes in the cupboard-sized restroom at the back. The Yellow Fruit Tree's owner, Liu Bocheng, pays his staff 400... https://www.scmp.com/article/513976/recipe-good-relations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/513976/recipe-good-relations?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Well known as Beijingers are for flocking in hordes to new leisure activities, the latest commercial response to the city's love affair with skiing could well be one gamble too far. This weekend, the Qiaobo Ice and Snow World opened its doors: an indoor (yes, indoor) skiing facility 30km northeast of the city centre. June was marked by baking days when the thermometer touched 37 degrees Celsius, followed by a sweaty July and then a soaking from Typhoon Matsa. Not so inside the all-year... https://www.scmp.com/article/512212/slippery-slope?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/512212/slippery-slope?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 If the Bowen Road dog poisoner has been out of the news in Hong Kong since April, that could well be because he has taken his nefarious ways and moved to Beijing. Ten dogs died in two days after eating poisoned meat left on the street, last month, on the Fangxingyuan housing estate in the city's southern suburb of Fengtai. A report in the local Legal Mirror on July 20 featured a picture of a grief-stricken resident clutching the stiff body of her little Shih Tzu, Yangyang, before lowering it... https://www.scmp.com/article/510485/poisoned-pets?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/510485/poisoned-pets?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 Jul 2005 16:00:00 +0000 At Tsinghua University, in northwestern Beijing, a rising moon is reflected on the campus lake. From across a sea of water lilies, ghostly music comes drifting through the weeping willows. Its source is the square behind a Qing dynasty-style pavilion at the water's edge, where a mass of waltzing couples revolve to the music of a Chinese ballad. The landscaped grounds of the capital's most prestigious seat of learning form a more pleasant surrounding than most. But across the city, the scene is... https://www.scmp.com/article/508689/song-and-dance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/508689/song-and-dance?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Jul 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Impatient motorists speed along the wrong side of the road or even mount the pavement to avoid a lane of traffic at a standstill. Pedestrians step boldly out into a busy carriageway in the safe knowledge that oncoming vehicles will swerve to avoid them. Cyclists weave in and out of those on foot, seemingly without a notion of which way they are heading. A busy road junction in Beijing can make for a startling sight. Confronted by such a maelstrom when I first arrived in the capital, I would... https://www.scmp.com/article/506969/walk-wild-side?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/506969/walk-wild-side?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Jul 2005 16:00:00 +0000 When he worked as a teacher in Beijing's western suburb of Shijingshan - until three years ago - Yan Sheng did not go out when it rained. 'After just a few minutes, I'd be covered in ash from across the way,' he said. Things have changed quite a bit since then. As the capital pushes ahead with its commitment to become a 'liveable cultural and political centre' for the Olympics, smokestacks from outdated factories and coal-fired boilers have been coming down across the city. When the process is... https://www.scmp.com/article/505156/goodbye-big-smoke?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/505156/goodbye-big-smoke?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000