分类： society

On April 20, a diverse delegation of international social media influencers hailing from nations across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Africa – including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Mexico, and Nigeria – kicked off a curated cultural tour of East China’s Anhui Province, centering their exploration on the culturally rich city of Huangshan.

The group launched their journey at Tunxi Old Street, a centuries-old pedestrian thoroughfare that stands as one of the most well-preserved hubs of traditional Huizhou culture, the historic regional civilization that gives Huangshan its deep cultural roots. Walking past wooden storefronts that have stood for hundreds of years, the influencers wove through bustling lanes to unpack the layered, vibrant cultural tapestry that has defined the region for millennia.

Two participants, UK-based creator Joe Burns and Nigerian influencer Oluwabunmi Jimoh, dove deeper into hands-on cultural experiences during the tour. The pair first sampled a full spread of authentic Huizhou cuisine, sampling iconic local dishes that reflect the region’s emphasis on fresh, seasonal ingredients and meticulous cooking techniques passed down through generations. They also gained exclusive, first-hand insight into the ancient craftsmanship behind Huangshan’s most famous cultural treasures, from intricately carved hand-made lacquerware to the sought-after traditional Huizhou writing brushes and highly prized She inkstones – core tools of Chinese calligraphy with centuries of history rooted in this region.

Beyond handicrafts and cuisine, the two influencers also explored the distinct practices of Xin’an medicine, a specialized branch of traditional Chinese medicine that developed indigenously in the region, shaped by Huangshan’s unique geography and centuries of local medical knowledge. This on-the-ground visit gave the international creators an opportunity to connect with living cultural traditions that remain vibrant in Huangshan today, far beyond the better-known fame of the region’s iconic mountain scenery.

As the delegation continues their tour, their firsthand experiences and social media content are set to share the lesser-known cultural depth of Huangshan and Huizhou with global audiences, building new people-to-people connections between China and communities around the world.

To mark the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, the service opened its military barracks and active-duty naval vessels to members of the general public in Shanghai on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. The public open day event, reported by China’s official news agency Xinhua in an update published April 22, offered ordinary citizens a rare, up-close opportunity to tour operating naval platforms, including the PLA Navy frigate Fuyang. Photographs from the event captured members of the public exploring the vessel, as the Navy sought to bridge the gap between military personnel and civilian communities and build public understanding of its mission. This anniversary event forms part of a broader regular initiative by the PLA to increase transparency around its work and foster national pride among the Chinese public by opening military facilities to civilian visitors. The 77th anniversary commemoration comes as the PLA Navy continues to evolve as a modern, blue-water naval force, and the open house event creates an accessible space for citizens to connect with the service’s 77-year history and contemporary operations.

BEIJING – As consecutive rounds of extreme rainfall continue to batter southern China, national emergency management authorities have formally deployed comprehensive flood prevention, emergency response, and disaster relief operations across high-risk key regions, the Ministry of Emergency Management announced Tuesday.

Preliminary meteorological data shows recent downpours across parts of Hunan, Guizhou, and Jiangxi provinces have already shattered historical rainfall records for this time of year. Following the first widespread intense rainfall event that swept through the region starting April 20, a second wave of heavy precipitation is projected to hit southern China beginning April 26, according to the joint meeting co-hosted by the Ministry of Emergency Management and the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Meeting participants highlighted that prolonged continuous rainfall has left soil in multiple affected areas completely saturated, drastically increasing the likelihood of flash floods and catastrophic geological disasters including landslides and mudslides.

To mitigate emerging risks, the joint meeting outlined a series of priority action items for local and regional authorities. First, officials are directed to strengthen real-time monitoring, meteorological forecasting, and early warning systems, leveraging multi-source data to boost the accuracy of short-term rainfall and hazard projections, expand the reach of early alert networks, and guarantee that warnings reach individual households, villages, and grassroots townships without delay.

Second, the meeting stressed that special attention must be paid to flood safety at high-risk populated sites, ordering authorities to prioritize flood prevention and contingency planning at elderly care centers, active construction sites, and popular tourist attractions where large groups of people may gather.

Finally, the meeting called for systematic full inspections of critical water infrastructure, including reservoirs, river dikes, and major hydropower and water conservancy projects, with targeted reinforcement measures to address existing structural vulnerabilities. It also ordered the pre-positioning of disaster relief supplies and emergency response equipment in high-risk zones to enable rapid deployment when disasters strike.

Tucked away in a quiet corner of a cultural and creative park in Zhengzhou, the capital of China’s central Henan Province, Daodao Guilai restaurant offers far more than authentic Taiwanese cuisine. For visitors and regulars alike, it is a warm harbor of homely comfort, and a quiet, powerful bond that brings together people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Founded in 2024 by 46-year-old Lan Wen-chuan, a native of Yilan County, Taiwan, the restaurant carries layers of personal and cross-generational meaning. Lan’s maternal roots stretch back to Luohe, Henan, where her grandparents left decades ago to build a new life and run a family restaurant in Taiwan. It was not until more than 20 years ago, when Lan moved to Zhengzhou for a work posting, that she fully grasped the depth of this family connection.

“For my family, this wasn’t leaving home—it was coming home,” Lan explained. After years of building an online business and putting down roots in Henan, Lan decided to open the restaurant when friends, both Taiwanese and local Zhengzhou residents, told her the city was missing a spot serving real, traditional Taiwanese flavors. Drawing on decades of her family’s restaurant expertise, she set out to craft a space that feels like a home away from home for anyone who misses Taiwan.

Every detail of the restaurant’s decor is curated to evoke Taiwanese cultural memory: vintage radios, retro promotional posters, and hand-painted murals line the walls, each small element adding to the warm, familiar atmosphere. “I wanted every detail to tell a story of the shared memories we hold across the Strait,” Lan said.

The menu centers on beloved Taiwanese street food and home-style dishes: Taipei-style braised pork rice, crispy oyster omelette, chewy beef noodles, aromatic three-cup chicken, and crunchy shrimp crackers. To perfect her oyster omelette recipe, Lan traveled back to Taiwan to train with more than a dozen seasoned night market vendors, refining her technique to match the authentic flavors she grew up with. For Lan, one of the greatest joys of running the restaurant is hearing small, satisfying moments: “One of my happiest moments is hearing a parent say their picky child finished a whole bowl of braised pork rice,” she shared.

Beyond serving food, the restaurant has grown into a beloved community hub for young Taiwanese people living and working in Henan. Lan makes a point of supporting new arrivals as they adapt to life on the Chinese mainland, helping with everything from applying for residence permits and enrolling in medical insurance to sharing practical career advice. She actively encourages Taiwanese people to come experience the mainland for themselves, instead of forming opinions based on secondhand reports.

“Don’t understand the world only through what you hear. Come and see it with your own eyes,” she said. Lan notes that many young Taiwanese visitors are caught off guard by how advanced daily life is on the mainland, from the ultra-convenience of mobile delivery apps to the rapid pace of development. “What they see here is completely different from what they heard back home,” she added.

Xu Chu-qiao, a 24-year-old new graduate from Kaohsiung who got a job at the restaurant after finishing her degree at Zhengzhou University, echoes this view. “For me, coming to the Chinese mainland to study and work is also a process of broadening my horizons,” Xu said. “It’s best if you come and see for yourself — that’s the only way to truly experience and understand.”

Displayed prominently on one of the restaurant’s main walls is a plaque that reads: “People on both sides of the Strait are one family.” For Hsi Yun-lung, a diner who grew up in New Taipei, that sentiment feels tangible every time he visits. “The familiar decor and flavors remind me of home,” he said. “It feels like being back in my hometown. Being able to eat these dishes in Zhengzhou is truly special.”

For Lan, food has always been the most natural, approachable bridge between people. “Many dishes from Taiwan originated on the mainland and then developed their own unique local character, much like simplified and traditional Chinese characters,” she explained. “Different in form, but the same at heart.”

Against the backdrop of evolving labor market needs and growing demand for industry-aligned professional skills, China’s expansive vocational education network is undergoing a sweeping transformation, adding unexpected niche majors from outdoor barbecuing and spicy snail noodle making to professional training for delivery riders. This shift is part of a broader overhaul of the world’s largest vocational training system, designed to bridge the gap between worker capabilities and evolving requirements from local industries and regional economies.

Xu Shuai, a 25-year-old restaurant marketing professional based in Changsha, Hunan Province, represents the growing cohort of workers turning to these specialized programs to advance their careers. After two years of working in customer acquisition and restaurant marketing, Xu hit a professional ceiling: without direct expertise in core product development and operations, sustained career growth felt out of reach. To address this skills gap, he plans to enroll in Yueyang Barbecue College later this year. What attracts him is not just learning how to perfect grilled dishes, but the program’s comprehensive training covering every layer of the barbecue business, from supply chain management and cost control to brand building and customer experience optimization.

Qiao Binbin, secretary-general of the Yueyang Barbecue Association, one of the college’s founding operators, emphasized that the institution’s mission goes far beyond basic cooking instruction. “This is more than teaching students how to grill,” Qiao explained. “We aim to train students to understand the entire business ecosystem of the local barbecue industry.”

For Yueyang, the decision to launch a specialized barbecue college is anything but random. Industry data from the association shows that barbecue is a cornerstone of the city’s local economy, supporting more than 2,000 operating outlets and generating annual output exceeding 2 billion yuan ($293.4 million). The college was jointly established in July 2025 by Yueyang Open University, the local barbecue association, and private industry partners, said Jiang Zongfu, vice-president of Yueyang Open University. It was designed to anchor two key local growth drivers — nighttime consumption and urban tourism — while addressing a pressing industry need for greater professional standardization.

“Many local barbecue practitioners want to expand their businesses beyond Hunan, even overseas,” Jiang noted. “But to do that, they need to transform informal hands-on experience into systematic, standardized knowledge, to move from ordinary informal workers to certified industry professionals.”

Prospective students at the college span a diverse range of backgrounds: from first-time job seekers and freelance food vendors to employees sponsored by barbecue chains from across China, with most being new entrants to the industry. The program blends academic coursework with hands-on practical training, offering both degree-credited academic programs and short-term skill certification courses. Its curriculum extends far beyond grilling technique to cover all aspects of small business operations, including food safety regulation, cost control, digital marketing, and customer service, with a core focus on preparing graduates for either wage employment or independent entrepreneurship.

Yueyang Barbecue College is far from an isolated case. Across China, a wave of specialized niche vocational institutions has emerged in recent months, responding to both local industry demand and national policy guidance pushing for more market-aligned vocational education. Examples include a crayfish industry vocational college in Qianjiang, Hubei Province, a Yibin spicy noodle college in Sichuan Province, and a luosifen (spicy snail noodle) college in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Even more specialized programs focused on sectors like bathhouse services and gig work food delivery have also launched in recent months.

In December 2025, Guangzhou Polytechnic University in Guangdong Province launched China’s first formal “Rider Academy”, officially named the Modern Grassroots Workers Academy. The institution was created to support the growing professionalization of gig delivery workers, offering foundational training in food safety, road safety, and service standards, while also providing pathways for career advancement into logistics management and roles tied to emerging supply chain technologies.

This growing trend of niche vocational programs reflects a broader shift in China’s vocational education strategy, moving away from one-size-fits-all training to customized programs that directly support local economic strengths and address unmet skill needs in fast-growing emerging sectors.

A devastating explosion at an illegal makeshift firecracker assembly site in India’s southern Kerala state has left at least 13 people dead and multiple others critically injured, marking the second fatal industrial disaster in the country’s fireworks sector within seven days.

The blast struck shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday in the city of Thrissur, where roughly 40 workers were gathering to assemble fireworks ahead of the upcoming Thrissur Pooram, one of India’s most prominent annual Hindu temple festivals. Local authorities confirmed that five of the injured are in life-threatening condition, and damage from the explosion extended to nearby residential structures, with the shockwave felt as far as several kilometers away — so powerful that many local residents initially misidentified it as an earthquake.

Witnesses reported chaotic scenes in the immediate aftermath of the blast, with local residents rushing to the site to pull survivors and deceased victims out of the rubble before official emergency teams arrived. The response effort was significantly hampered by the location of the temporary assembly sheds: the structures were built alongside rural paddy fields with narrow, unpaved access roads that slowed the arrival of fire trucks and ambulances. The initial blast also triggered a series of secondary smaller explosions from stored firework materials, forcing rescuers to pause operations while hazards were neutralized.

Officials confirmed the workers were contracted to produce fireworks for the Thiruvambady Temple, one of the two main temple groups that host the iconic competitive fireworks display that is the centerpiece of the 7-day Thrissur Pooram festival. Kerala’s Revenue Minister K Rajan told reporters that the organizing committee held official permission to produce and store fireworks in designated, regulated areas, but it remains unclear why assembly was taking place at the unauthorized rural makeshift site. Food preparations for roughly 40 workers were found at the site, confirming that a large workforce was present when the explosion occurred, though an exact headcount remained incomplete in the hours after the disaster.

While the exact cause of the blast has not been confirmed, Thrissur’s municipal chairman PN Surendran told reporters that high mid-afternoon temperatures may have been a contributing factor. “There is still no clarity on how many workers were in the shed or the full extent of injuries,” Surendran said. “It is suspected that extreme heat may have triggered this tragedy.”

This explosion comes just three days after a separate blast at a firecracker factory in neighboring Tamil Nadu state killed 25 people, bringing the total death toll from fireworks sector accidents in south India this week to 38. Deadly explosions are an endemic, recurring crisis in India’s $1 billion fireworks industry, which supplies pyrotechnics for religious festivals, weddings, and cultural celebrations across the country. The sector is dominated by informal, unregulated small-scale operations that handle highly explosive raw chemicals in cramped, low-cost facilities, where even a tiny stray spark can trigger a catastrophic blast.

India’s largest fireworks production hub is Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, which produces more than 90% of the country’s domestic firecracker supply. A 2010 study documented nearly 10,000 fireworks-related accidents in Sivakasi between 2003 and 2010 alone, including almost 400 fatal incidents. Weak regulatory enforcement and surging consumer demand ahead of major festivals like Diwali routinely push safety protocols to the background, with factory owners often cutting corners to meet deadlines and keep costs low.

Kerala has already seen one of the deadliest fireworks disasters in Indian history: a 2016 explosion at an unauthorized fireworks display at the Puttingal Temple in Kollam killed more than 100 people and injured 400 others. Investigations later found that basic safety rules were completely ignored, with explosives stored in unregulated makeshift sheds, and community competitive pressure overriding existing safety regulations.

In response to Tuesday’s disaster, Kerala authorities have ordered a full magisterial inquiry to determine the cause of the blast and assign responsibility for any safety violations. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has announced that the state government will bring in specialized burn care experts from other regions of India if needed to treat injured victims. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also released a statement offering condolences and announcing official financial assistance: 200,000 Indian rupees (roughly $2,140) for each victim’s family, and 50,000 rupees for each injured survivor.