Elephant Diet Vol.3
- Kat
- Oct 24
- 7 min read
Updated: Oct 25
Lily’s Dish—
Chinese Middle Class’s New ‘Dignified’ Therapy: Going to KTV for Meal（中产最体面的「崩溃」方式：去KTV干饭）
by Phoenix Weekly (凤凰WEEKLY), a magazine focusing on in-depth features and providing an essential source for understanding the complexities of modern China, especially insight into lifestyles, anxieties, and consumption habits of the country’s growing middle class.
China’s young middle class is reshaping its leisure habits, from cafés, craft beer, live houses, to stand-up comedy and script-murder games. These trends reflect the diverse ways in which the new generation of office workers seek relaxation and emotional fulfillment amid fast-paced lives. Facing a decline in younger patrons in recent years, many KTV venues have evolved into spaces that combine entertainment, dining, and social interaction.
KTV once competed mainly on microphone quality, song selection, and affordability, but is now integrating extensive food and beverage services. Their menus have expanded dramatically, featuring everything from barbecue, grilled fish, and iron-pot stew to snail rice noodle, effectively turning KTV into a hidden food court and making the combination of “singing + eating” a new norm. Also, thanks to their private and cozy atmosphere, KTV rooms have become ideal spaces for office workers to socialize and casually release their emotions.
Driven by the convenience of pre-prepared dishes, many KTVs now offer a wide range of such meals, which meet young consumers’ demands for both flavor and efficiency. Although pre-made food can sometimes vary in quality, young city dwellers, already accustomed to hectic schedules, tend to be more tolerant of it. For some, the KTV dining experience has even replaced traditional restaurants, becoming a so-called “Chinese McDonald’s”. At some leading KTV chains, customers can even skip the room fee altogether and order at the counter, then dine directly in the lobby.
Joyce’s Dish —
by Sixth Tone, a Shanghai-based English news outlet known for its culture and human-centered stories that capture both the changes and the constants in the rapidly evolving China.
After short dramas took China’s entertainment scene by storm and made waves internationally, Tuanbo (团播), or group livestreaming, has become the latest craze nationwide.
Across Chinese short-video platforms, performers dance on a rotating stage as audiences send gifts, vote, and even pay to dictate moves. Real-time algorithms track engagement, deciding who stays in the spotlight and who fades.
Like many internet-driven businesses, Tuanbo livestreaming has its share of concerns, including skirting the edges of appropriateness. Yet, Sixth Tone, reporting from the inside of “Peach Island” — a group of seven livestreaming performers — captures the other side of this controversial industry — it indeed offers a second chance at stardom for those who are barred behind the age hurdle in the industry that favors youth and chases traffic.
“I’ve always wanted to be an idol, but was born too late to catch the wave of TV talent shows,” Lu Yingcheng, the lead of Peach Island, told Sixth Tone. “But livestreaming gives me another way in. The screen’s just smaller now.”
The same goes for fellow performer He Jingjie, 30, who is reclaiming her once-lost dream of being in the spotlight, dancing through physical pain and multiple hospital visits.
Yet, these traffic-driven platforms aren’t a pure haven for dreamers; the relentless pursuit of views and audience hunger can take a toll on performers.
Through on-the-ground shooting and recording, Sixth Tone has brought the complexities, conflicts, and emotional ups and downs behind the scenes right to the stage.
Kat’s Dish—
Inside the Cell: The Ecology of Female Prisoners in China(监室之内：中国在押女子生态)
by WOMEN(我们), a Chinese community committed to documenting contemporary Chinese history, free from the constraints of China’s internet censorship within the “Great Firewall.”
This article uses the recently released Second Draft of the Prison Law Revision as a starting point to explore the experiences of incarcerated women. Through the firsthand accounts of women who had been imprisoned, it highlights the harsh conditions these women face under the dual pressure of institutional and gender-based discrimination. To give you a sense of their dilemma, the significant issues raised in the article can be summarized as follows:
Absence of a Gendered Perspective
Although the Second Draft of the Prison Law Revision includes provisions for communication, visitation, and legal counsel, it remains largely indifferent to gender sensitivity. The specific challenges women prisoners face — such as menstrual hygiene shortages, inadequate care during pregnancy, and the violation of bodily privacy due to male surveillance — are completely overlooked.
Restrictions on Communication and Legal Aid
The revision draft specifies that prisoners have the right to communicate and consult with lawyers. However, this right is subject to vague and broadly defined exceptions, such as those related to “threats to national security.” These ambiguous clauses make it easier for authorities to abuse the system and strip prisoners of their right to communicate. Legal consultations are often delayed, monitored, or substituted, with incidents of forged power-of-attorney forms and the forcible appointment of lawyers. As a result, the “right to defense” is often rendered meaningless in practice.
Hierarchical Oppression and Institutional Isolation in the Cell
The “class leader” system in Chinese detention centers and prisons establishes a rigid, closed hierarchy of power. Women are forced to “self-manage” and “supervise each other” within a highly repressive space, where every aspect of their daily lives is strictly regimented—bathing, using the toilet, and eating all follow a hierarchical order.
The Normalization of Torture and Psychological Deterioration
Several of the interviewees recount experiences of prolonged interrogations, sleep deprivation, humiliation, and even physical violence. The use of torture serves not only to extract confessions but also to break the prisoners’ will through mental anguish. Female political prisoners, activists, and those detained under vague charges like “creating disturbances” are especially vulnerable to these brutal tactics.
While the number of incarcerated women in China has been rising steadily, the legal and administrative systems remain largely centered on male prisoners. The Bangkok Rules, established in 2010, called for the integration of a gender perspective into penal systems, advocating for alternatives to incarceration and protections for mothers and children. Yet in China, prison management remains highly bureaucratic and lacking in external oversight. Unless the revision of the Prison Law addresses these structural issues, the so-called “expansion of rights” may remain little more than a rhetorical gesture.
Biyi’s Dish—
When the Facade Begins to Fall （当房子的「面子」开始跌落）
by Portrait (人物杂志), a prestigious Chinese biographical magazine launched in 1980 renowned for human-centric journalism.
In China, as the population ages, there’s another thing aging even faster: our buildings, especially the residential compounds (小区) we live in. The exterior walls, or “facades,” are deteriorating at an alarming rate. A study by the Sichuan Provincial Architectural Design Institute found that among thousands of facade failure incidents since 2000, the average time for materials to fall off was less than six years after a building’s completion. The external insulation layer is the first to go, typically failing in just 1.47 years on average— “significantly shorter than the standard requires.” As the “face” of a building, the facade forms our first impression. Its damage and collapse pose direct threats to safety and property. Even when no one is hurt, it downgrades a compound’s image and perceived quality. Ultimately, it places a huge burden on the “housing pension fund”—the public maintenance fund.
The article opens with a close call experienced by Zhang Xue in Beijing: a piece of concrete missed her head by less than five centimeters. Her residential compound, only about a decade old, already has large areas of exterior tiles peeling off, “like a middle-aged man losing his hair.” Similarly, in Nanjing, Zhou Jun’s brand-new home, built by a reputable developer, saw its decorative insulation panels fall off three times in just a year and a half after he moved in. The most significant single incident involved an 80-square-meter section.
The premature aging of building facades has multiple causes. On one hand, to cut costs, developers often cut corners in design and construction—for example, by thinning out stone panels or using inferior materials, planting hidden dangers for the future. As engineer Xu Sen revealed, this is an open secret in the industry. On the other hand, construction techniques and management are crucial. Cost-cutting practices such as using insufficient adhesive mortar or poor surface leveling significantly shorten a facade’s lifespan. Research shows that adhered materials, such as tiles, are most prone to falling off and causing the most harm, which is why their use on high-rises has been banned in many areas.
Fixing these problems is an uphill battle. For new homes still under warranty, owners can, like Zhou Jun’s community, force the developer to make repairs. But for the many “middle-aged” complexes past their warranty period, the massive repair costs are the biggest hurdle. Tapping into the public maintenance fund is a complex, lengthy process, often stalled by homeowner disagreements. For instance, one Beijing community spent four years securing the 13.16 million yuan needed for repairs.
As China’s real estate market cools, the mass-produced, shoddy homes from the earlier boom years are finally showing their true colors.
Hope you enjoyed the October issues of Elephant Diet,
See you in our next story!
The Elephant Room team🐒
（*While the Elephant Room team carefully selects content from credible news outlets and media, we cannot independently verify every piece of information it contains. If you believe any material infringes on copyrights or contains factual errors, feel free to reach out to us so that it can be reviewed and, if necessary, removed🙏）
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