[Current Trends] Five Words Show How the World Is Talking About China Differently

An American cycling through a mountainous region in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region this year received an unplanned lunch invitation from the locals.

An elderly woman waved him inside, and when he tried to decline her offer, she cut him off: "I don't care. You're hungry."

She and her family boiled water, cut meat and picked pea shoots from their own garden to make him a hot meal. The clip, shared by content creator Jack Mullinkosson, spread widely online.

It's the kind of small, unscripted moment that keeps surfacing in a bigger story. A cluster of internet slang – China Travel, China Cool, Chinamaxxing, reverse shopping, and Becoming Chinese – has taken hold on Western social media this year as more people travel to China.

China logged 22.914 million foreign arrivals in the first half of 2026, up 20.4 percent from a year earlier, aided by a policy that allows citizens of 55 countries to transit visa-free for up to 240 hours. As many as 17.815 million entered visa-free altogether, a 30.6 percent increase.

China Travel

Where tourists go has changed as much as their numbers.

In his video "Someone Warned Me Not to Go to Rural China," a German travel blogger who posts under Ken Abroad showed clean streets, modern facilities, and friendly inhabitants, challenging viewers' perceptions of rural China.

While riding through Huaqiao village in Shaoyang, central China's Hunan Province, American vloggers Ludwig and Michael were invited to try local food.

Over 100 million people watched the footage worldwide, with one remark saying, "Chinese people are so warm."

One of Nolan and Moses' videos showcasing China-made RVs and camping in Yizheng, near Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, has over a million views.

Movies are pulling people to specific places, too. According to German tour operator Thomas, the film "Deep Sound of Silence" made his clients want to check out tech hub Shenzhen.

American teacher Keith traveled to southwest Sichuan Province after watching "Ne Zha 2," hoping to track down the Sanxingdui archaeological site referenced in the film.

Singaporean traveler Jenny Lin and her 69-year-old mother, inspired by the film "Letter to Grandma," embarked on a journey to the Chaoshan region to explore their roots.

Even neighborhoods are changing. As visa-free tourists from Thailand, Malaysia, Europe, and the US arrived at a six-table Chengdu noodle shop that served locals, the owner printed a bilingual menu. The shop now puts extra stools outside to handle the overflow.

Similarly, global tourists are following AI and social media to Shanghai's neighborhood dumpling shops, looking for authentic street flavors far off the traditional tourist grid.

Chinamaxxing & Becoming Chinese

Chinamaxxing combines the words "China" and "maxxing," which is Internet slang for fully committing to something, similar to phrases like "looksmaxxing" or "sleepmaxxing."

Since surging across TikTok and Instagram in 2026, hashtags built around the term have drawn more than 4 billion views.

It describes young Westerners experimenting with elements of Chinese daily life: drinking hot water instead of iced coffee, practicing the breathing exercise baduanjin, swapping out sneakers for house slippers, and even exploring traditional eating habits based on the 24 solar terms.

NPR profiled the trend in its "Word of the Week" series in March, noting that users joke about entering a "very Chinese time" in their lives.

One creator is widely credited with pushing the broader cultural-mimicry trend into the mainstream: Sherry Zhu, a 23-year-old Chinese American from New Jersey who posts as @sherryxiiruii.

In a video that has drawn millions of views, she tells her audience: "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, OK? Tomorrow you are turning Chinese. And I know that sounds intimidating, but there is no point in fighting it now. Because you are the chosen one."

Her follow-up videos cover topics like brewing apple-and-goji tea and why traditional Chinese medicine frowns on cold drinks; some fans have taken to declaring, half-joking, that their "Chinese blood has awakened."

Zhu has said the moment that affected her most wasn't a viral spike but a direct message. Before the Chinese New Year, a woman wrote to say her Chinese daughter-in-law was about to have a baby, and she wanted to send a red envelope of lucky money.

But she didn't know how much was appropriate to give. The woman felt awkward asking her daughter-in-law directly.

Zhu, after checking with her parents, suggested amounts built around the numbers 8 and 6, considered auspicious in Chinese culture.

"Sharing Chinese culture is something I've always loved doing," Zhu told Xinhua News Agency. Her father is from Zhejiang Province, her mother from Guizhou, and she was raised in New Jersey.

China Cool

This summer's heat wave across Europe gave the trend a literal meaning.

Household air conditioner ownership across the continent sits at roughly 20 percent, held back by old-building preservation rules, high labor costs and limited installation capacity.

Chinese manufacturers moved to fill the gap. One appliance maker in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, said sales of its installation-free split-unit air conditioner had already reached 200,000 units this year, up from more than 80,000 last year.

It is designed around European building codes and a roughly 10-kilogram outdoor unit. It typically retails for about 1,000 euros (US$1,158), against 2,500 to 4,000 euros for a comparable installed unit once labor is factored in.

In Yuyao, in Zhejiang Province, another manufacturer has been operating its production lines at full capacity, producing portable air conditioning units destined for Germany.

The product integrates the compressor, fan and control system into one box, cools the air around the outlet to 16 degrees Celsius within three minutes, and offers Wi-Fi control.

The company said its export orders were booked through the end of August and that first-half export volume overall was up 23 percent.

A separate manufacturer said its products, certified to Europe's top energy-efficiency tier, cut energy use by roughly 30 percent compared to common models and saw Western European sales rise 20 percent year-on-year in the first half.

Chinese air conditioner exports to Europe overall jumped 72.8 percent in June, according to industry data cited in state media reports.

Smaller cooling gadgets have caught on too. A hat factory in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, said orders for its solar-powered "fan hats" were booked through August, with sales expected to top 500,000 units this year.

Fan seller Liu Xiaoying, who runs a stall in the Yiwu International Trade City, fills custom orders from European clients, including a folding fan printed with the Eiffel Tower that was recently air-freighted to Paris.

She said some customers treat a fan as a fashion accessory to match an outfit as much as a way to beat the heat.

A buyer from Ukraine visiting the market said he was purchasing "every kind" of handheld fan he could find.

A home ice cream machine maker in Ningbo said it had exported 48,000 units since March, with orders from Germany, Britain, and Spain still pending. More than 20,000 units were scheduled for mid-July shipment to Europe.

Pet-cooling products are moving briskly as well. One supplier said monthly exports of its lightweight pet pool toys had topped 30,000 units, with orders up more than 20 percent year-on-year, shipping mainly to Southeast Asia, Europe and North America.

Pan Yuanyuan, a researcher at a national global strategy think tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Chinese manufacturers track what global consumers actually need and use a complete industrial base, mature supply chains and efficient logistics to deliver cost-effective products quickly.

Reverse shopping

Expanded visa-free travel and an "instant refund on purchase" tax policy have fueled what Chinese media calls "daigou in reverse" – foreign visitors flying in specifically to shop.

At one handbag boutique, a customer from Colombia asked the shop staff to track down a style she'd seen go viral online, only to find it sold out. The store arranged to ship a restocked bag ahead to her next stop, in Beijing.

Canadian shopper Cindy Thom said the brand was well known back home, while Brazilian customer Chris Wright said carrying it in Brazil reads as "super cool" and distinctive.

Along Shanghai's Huaihai Road, shoppers increasingly seek out homegrown designer labels rather than souvenirs – bags, clothing and shoes chief among them. International tourists also queue alongside local youths to order viral sheep-themed matcha latte art, while the historic White Rabbit Milk Tea Shop draws global visitors to Nanjing Road. Nearby at Pop Mart's flagship store, shoppers record unboxing videos of blind-box figures.

Indonesian traveler Johana Rosdiana Djuwo, who first visited China two decades ago and bought mostly souvenirs, said she now prefers Chinese labels for their distinctive design and quality.

A Singaporean visitor recalled buying mostly tea and medicine on earlier trips, compared with fashion-forward items now.

One label benefiting from the shift is Songmont, a Beijing-founded handbag and lifestyle brand whose name translates from the Chinese "山下有松" (roughly, "pine beneath the mountain"). It has drawn a following of more than 600,000 on overseas social platforms.

Footwear label Pane has picked up a similar following, with overseas followers asking in comments when it might open near them or whether it ships internationally. At one Shanghai store, foreign shoppers make up 30 to 70 percent of daily traffic, some buying two pairs at a time after discovering the brand on social media.

The trend extends to culture and tech alike. At Pop Mart's Shanghai flagship, foreign visitors pick out blind-box toys and photograph the unboxing to post online. American vlogger Christina, visiting the brand's Beijing theme park, called the décor "so exquisite" in a video.

In Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei electronics district, Algerian visitor Hassan Boubakeur Benhaddou, on his fourth trip to China, said a humanoid guide robot approached him and switched languages based on his nationality, which was "beyond my imagination," he said.

He also added a pocket camera from DJI's flagship store to his shopping list, noting that comparable gear is limited and marked up in North African markets.

Huaqiangbei draws roughly 750,000 visitors a day, including more than 8,000 foreign buyers, with exports making up more than 70 percent of many merchants' sales.

A similar pattern plays out in Hainan Island, where Belarusian tourist Anton, on his second family trip to the island, bought a Chinese-brand phone at the CDF Sanya International Duty Free City. He said it was much cheaper than buying the same phone at home.

An updated duty-free policy that became effective on November 1, 2025, on Hainan, expanded eligible product categories from 45 to 47 and set an annual duty-free shopping allowance of 100,000 yuan (US$14,834) per traveler, with no limit on the number of trips.

The bigger picture

A Pew Research Center survey published July 15 – based on interviews with 42,151 adults across 36 countries – found China now viewed more favorably than the United States in 25 of those countries. This marks the first time in nearly two decades of Pew's global polling that China has surpassed the United States.

"It marks the first time in the roughly 20 years Pew has been tracking global opinions that China has been viewed more positively than the US," said Laura Silver, associate director of Pew's Global Attitudes Research.

Former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Djoomart Otorbaev, who writes regularly on China and Central Asia for outlets including Project Syndicate and the South China Morning Post, has argued that a major power's genuine appeal tends to show up in periods of resilience and steady development rather than in moments of crisis.

As Zhu put it, describing why she keeps making the videos: "I want to show the visuals but also explain the cultural significance behind them."