WeChat started in January 2011 as a messaging app. It now includes WeChat Pay, official accounts, mini programs and the short video platform Channels. Chinese Wikipedia calls it a super app, because users can handle daily life and work through its mini programs without downloading other apps.
Mini programs were launched on January 9, 2017. In October 2024, they had 949 million users. Life services, shopping and finance each had more than 860 million monthly active users.
Meituan began in March 2010 as a group-buying site. From 2012 it added hotels, film tickets and food delivery. In 2017 it started a taxi service, and in 2018 it bought the bike-sharing company Mobike. Its businesses now cover food, delivery, housekeeping, transport, accommodation and travel.
In the App Store, Meituan describes itself as chi he wan le quan dou you: eating, drinking and having fun, all in one place.
In 2022, the Li Auto L9 was the first car in its price class with a built-in fridge. Together with large seats and a large screen, it opened what a 2025 commentary calls the era of bingxiang caidian da shafa: fridge, color TV, big sofa.
The same commentary noted that rivals advertising their cars as a “mobile home” added the same features. So did some sports sedans with little connection to family use.
In northeast China, people sleep on the kang. In summer they sleep at its far end, in winter at the warm end.
At festivals, families set out a table of food on the kang and sit close together. Casual visitors sit on its edge. For close friends, the low kang table is set out for drinking. In the slack farming season, women gather on it to sew quilts and padded clothes.
The Chinese kitchen knife, caidao, is a rectangular knife for meat, fish and vegetables. It slices, shreds and minces, and it also chops thin, soft bones such as fish and poultry. Its broad blade also scoops up chopped food and carries it to the wok or the bowl. Skilled cooks use it even for carving and fine work.
The wok, chaoguo, is mainly for frying and stir-frying. It is also used for steaming, stewing and deep-frying. Chinese Wikipedia calls it the main cooking tool of Greater China and Southeast Asia.
Peking opera had separate female role types, among them qingyi, huadan and daomadan. Wang Yaoqing (1881 to 1954) combined the strengths of all three in a new role type, the huashan, which gives equal weight to singing, speech, acting and combat.
The critic Xu Lingxiao praised Wang’s creation as “neither qingyi nor huadan, a school of its own.” Yu Ji in Farewell My Concubine is a huashan role.
Since February 12, 1983, CCTV has broadcast a gala every Lunar New Year’s Eve, from 8 p.m. until about half past midnight. One evening carries pop songs, Chinese opera, dance, crosstalk, comedy sketches and magic. It also carries political messages.
The baxianzhuo is a wide square table that seats two people on each side, eight in all. Its other name, baizhuo, means worship table. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, even poor and humble households used it, and in many families it was the only large piece of furniture.
多面手 A many-sided hand. A person skilled in many crafts.
十八般武艺 The eighteen martial arts. Originally the skill to use eighteen kinds of weapons. Figuratively, a wide range of abilities. A Yuan drama has the line: “Relying on my eighteen martial arts…”
万金油 Ten-thousand-gold oil. A balm of menthol and camphor for headaches and minor burns. It has many uses but cannot cure a serious illness. Figuratively, a person who knows a little of everything and has no specialty.
The balm’s name marks the limit. Breadth without any depth earns a mild insult.