Articles that cut to the core of contemporary China. In-depth, informed, and carefully crafted, every piece is carried by the voices of the story’s participants.

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DeepTones

Work It Out: Why More Chinese Students Pick Skills Over Degrees

As families across China calculate cost, time, and job prospects, vocational colleges are becoming a deliberate choice rather than a fallback.

Fan Yiying

Chen Xiashiyu

In Wuhan, A Race to Study a 3,500-Year-Old City Between Seasons

At Panlongcheng, archaeologists race against seasonal rains and hostile soil to recover a 3,500-year-old city that reshaped understanding of early Chinese civilization, knowing much of it may remain forever underwater.

Wu Haiyun

The Making and Unmaking of China’s Backpacker Hostels

As China’s early independent travelers age and costs climb, the youth hostel model that once offered cheap beds and shared life is thinning out, leaving scattered holdouts and fading memories.

Chen Yiru

How a Bullied Teenager Built China’s Unlikeliest Music Festival

You and Me, a free experimental music festival in Beijing, grew from one teenager’s search for refuge. Now it faces demolition, debt, and an uncertain future.

Wang Juyi

Ancient Chinese Incense, Rekindled

Despite being a cornerstone of ancient Chinese culture, the art of incense fell out of everyday use as mass production and industry took hold. Now, the ancient art is seeing renewed interest as young Chinese seek more refined experiences.

Pain, Hunger, Viral Fame: Inside China’s Wildest Survival Show

In Hunan province’s mountains, a bare-bones survival show pushes ordinary people to the edge while millions watch, searching for something real in an increasingly curated digital world.

Li Xin

Stuck in the Mud: Climate Chaos Deepens Divide on China’s Farmlands

Climate change is accelerating an uneven reshuffling of rural China, pushing smallholders out while only scaled-up farms can weather the uncertainty.

Jiang Xinyi

A Coffee of Exile and Memory Comes Home to Hainan

Created by Hainanese migrants in Southeast Asia, the brew returned with re-migrants in the 1950s. Now, a new generation is pushing it into the future.

Coral Yang

Crowd Control: Why China’s Marathon Boom Has Suddenly Hit the Brakes

Marathon organizers and runners across China face abrupt cancellations and new curbs, as officials rush to rein in a sport that expanded faster than it could be managed.

He Qitong

‘Huge Lesson’: A Beijing Farmer Learns to Live in Climate Extremes

As climate extremes grow across China, one farmer’s flooded fields outside Beijing show how quickly the country’s weather, and way of life, are being rewritten.