Trump’s Oval Office prayer moment crossed the firewall and got immediately metabolized. Chinese bosses from tiny workshops to mid-sized factories started assembling their own prayer circles: employees in formation, heads bowed, chanting for 爆单 (exploding orders), 涨工资 (pay raises), and 公司业绩节节高 (ever-rising company performance) over the track “YMCA”. The prayer is fake but the desire for divine KPIs is very, very real.

Taiwan’s digital infrastructure runs on a hybrid operating system combining traditional IT protocols with placement of green corn snack packets. This is Kuai Kuai culture, an elaborate folk practice that’s become embedded across industries from finance to aerospace. Kuai Kuai brand corn snacks, specifically the green-packaged original flavor, are positioned near machines to keep them functioning properly. The name ”Kuai Kuai“ (乖乖) translates to ”obedient“ or ”well-behaved,“ creating linguistic sympathetic magic—say the word, invoke the quality, manifest the outcome. The practice spread from IT departments to permeate Taiwanese society wherever technology intersects daily life. Server rooms obviously, but also ATM machines, ticket booth systems, toll plaza controls, industrial machinery, broadcast equipment. Anywhere a malfunction creates cascading problems, Kuai Kuai packets appear as first line of defense. Period pad packaging—specifically green boxes displaying “靠得住”(dependable/reliable)—now functions as acceptable substitute, with particular preference for varieties marked “大流量”(heavy flow). Massive menstrual flow in original context, massive data flow in IT application. When you can‘t control whether the satellite launches successfully, at least you control the corn snacks blessing it.

Turning 18 in early 2000s China meant one thing: you could finally get baptized at a wangba (网吧).

Gaokao determines everything in China, which makes Hengshui Model schools into score-maximizing machines. Now there‘s a game simulating the morning runs, complete with competitive rankings.

🕯️WELCOME TO 996 DOOMSCROLL🕯️ This is for the Chinese internet lores, cores and gores. The space that explains how Chinese people scroll, communicate, build, move online. The name comes from the central pressure point around which most subcultures orbit: the 996 work schedule (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) that defines precarity for China’s digital generation. I’m also hoping to build this as a decentralized research platform in the future. I’m always looking for freelance writers, editors, and researchers based in China who want to study the depth of Chinese digital culture. If you’re interested in working together, DM me.

When Hello Kitty stares into burning screens through AI’s lens, she becomes something unprecedented: corporate existentialism wrapped in kawaii packaging.