@sixthtone.bsky.social
Fresh voices from today's China — news, features & commentary from a human perspective. Also on Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, & YouTube.
Website: www.sixthtone.com
@sixthtone.bsky.socialDomestic tourists in China made 6.5 billion trips and spent 6.3 trillion yuan (US$930 billion) in 2025, both record highs.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialResearchers found that levels of a gene expression regulator rose in the spleens of middle-aged female mice, contributing to cellular demise and potentially explaining why men and women age differently.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialFrom life on the streets at 15 to smashing the record for racing 330 kilometers through the Alps, champion runner Zhao Jiaju reflects on his long road to greatness.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina’s men’s basketball team has suffered its second-worst defeat in its history at the Asian Games, calling into question the coach’s abilities and the team’s training methods.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAfter slashing prices to survive, a small-town business attracts strugglers from far and wide seeking a low-to-no-cost lifestyle.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAfter a mushroom grew from an apple, researchers turned online curiosity into a two-year breeding project with help from samples sent in from across China.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina’s immersive productions have grown ever larger and more spectacular. Their next challenge is turning audience participation into genuine understanding.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAfter once leaving rural China behind, two filmmakers returned to document the farmers and workers whose stories are fading from view as the countryside changes.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialFor China’s army of part-time couriers, retirement remains an abstract concept — surviving today is the priority.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChinese academics, writers, and journalists are expected to do everything. As the Zhuge Yiyang controversy shows, many wind up with nothing.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAs opportunities to get ahead seem increasingly limited, Chinese audiences are finding more to relate to in culture’s supporting characters.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAn incident at a Shanghai stand-up show in which customers who bought tickets through unofficial channels were denied entry because of the venue’s ticket identity-verification requirements has sparked public debate over China’s ticket scalping market.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialU.S. startup founder Ken Chester entered China’s first rural hackathon in a remote village in Fujian province. Then, he took the idea back to Michigan.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina aims to grow its innovative drug market by more than 20% a year through 2030, under a plan that also calls for listed pharmaceutical companies to spend more than 10% of their revenue on research and development.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialThe new municipal government program uses AI token consumption to help assess tech companies seeking loans, offering another route to financing for companies that struggle to secure conventional credit.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina’s surveyed urban unemployment rate averaged 5.2% in the first eight months of 2026, unchanged from a year earlier.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialAs opportunities to get ahead seem increasingly limited, Chinese audiences are finding more to relate to in culture’s supporting characters.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina has approved the weight-loss drug Wegovy, a brand name for the medication semaglutide, to treat a severe form of fatty liver disease, making it the country’s first and only glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drug approved for the condition.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialChina’s annual AI token consumption is projected to rise from 100 quadrillion tokens in 2026 to more than 35 quintillion by 2030.
@sixthtone.bsky.socialA growing number of Chinese students studying abroad are turning cooking videos into viral hits across Chinese social media. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the hashtag “international students hunong cooking” — using the term “to do something halfheartedly” — has amassed 2.1 billion views.