The new norm in China is for people to look at how they can continue to work and enjoy themselves by using a number of new online and cloud based social sharing and virtual community apps and services.
Over half of the Chinese 1.4 billion population have gone into house-quarantine since the Chinese New Year (January 24 2020) due to the emergence and escalation of Covid-19. But people have quickly found new ways to use social networks to share information, offer practical and moral support, invent new money-making opportunities and create entertainment.
Chinese social networks are used to forging their own ways, thanks to the development of native apps as a result of the ‘Great Firewall of China’, blocking out international suites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Now faced with a period of unprecedented crisis, live streamings with special Chinese characteristics, known as ‘yun (cloud) socials’, are proliferating.
Will they take root beyond the current plight and reshape how we live and interact socially in the future? Will other parts of the world take note, follow suit and invent their own forms of ‘cloud living’?
‘Yun’ medical services
A number of cloud based health services have started up in China both at hospitals and local GP surgeries
Unlike a single non-emergency number such as the NHS 111 operated in the UK, hospitals across China, as well as Internet giants such as Alibaba Health, have opened their own online medical service platforms.According to incomplete data as of February, over 100,000 doctors across China have consulted over 4 million cases, usually via video chat. Patients with mild or suspected symptoms are afraid of going to hospitals as the queues are long and the risk of cross-contamination is high. These online services take pressure off the hospitals as well as provide a safer environment to assess and reassure people with concerns.
Another notable feature of ‘Cloud GP’ is the possibility for international medical professionals to offer their expertise – qualified and verified medical doctors (mostly overseas Chinese doctors) can register to offer their help. The jury is out if such online GP services will become mainstream after the pandemic. The combination of consultation + dispensary + delivery-to-door without leaving the home can be attractive, but quality and consistency will need to be continuously monitored in order to maintain trust.
‘Yun’ wine tasting
It is a long-held belief across many cultures that alcohol could ward off illnesses. Though this claim may not be proven beyond all reasonable doubt, alcohol will certainly make an indeterminable quarantine more bearable. In China, wine drinking is a social activity, very few people would drink wine alone at home. That is why ‘Cloud wine tasting’ sessions, either casually among friends via video chat, or being guided by experts or influencers on live streaming platforms (usually with the aim to sell some wines), are gaining more traction, especially among urban millennials.
COFCO Great Wall Wine Company, China’s largest wine producer by volume, even launched a week-long cloud wine party, complete with video sharing and rhyming couplet competition, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of interactions. Great Wall has also launched a series of ‘Yun classes’ with wine experts and mixologists to teach people about wine and making cocktails at home. The hope is to cultivate wine consumption at home beyond the quarantine period. If the wine industry can collectively bring about this shift in Chinese consumer behaviour, there would be a very bright future to look forward to post pandemic.
‘Yun’ clubbing
Sites like Bilibili have hosted online virtual raves to great success – helping to earn money at the same time
Online platforms such as Bilibili, TikTok, Kuaishou, to name but a few, have joined hands with bands, musicians, DJs and nightclub brands to bring ‘collective virtual raving’ to teenage bedrooms across the country. According to one platform’s February data, their ‘Cloud Clubbing’ nights attracted over 16.5m participants and induced 6.8m real-time comments and interactions.
It is worth mentioning that most Chinese social media platforms allow users to shower others with cash packets or reward tokens. Some clubs have found to their astonishment and delight that revellers were willing to ‘throw’ large amounts of cash at them, as if they were in a real club buying overpriced drinks. It is not unusual for a single virtual club night to earn over £200,000 (many have made donations of their earnings to aide frontline medical needs). However the sustainability of such a format is questionable beyond the quarantine period, as the real physical immersion in a club with the lighting, sound and atmosphere would be impossible to replicate in a home environment.
‘Yun’ fitness
A major side effect of being housebound for long is the risk of putting on weight due to lack of exercise and overeating. It is therefore no surprise that fitness apps such as Keep have seen significant user sign-ups. These apps allow you to hire real personal trainers and interact with them remotely, or to follow pre-loaded contents. You can also tailor make AI powered fitness programmes to suit your profile and goals. Of course, a full set of performance data to share with friends for one-upmanship and motivation comes as standard. You can even run a virtual marathon in your living room.
These apps are not new, but they have achieved significant traction as a result of the quarantine. Post crisis, these apps will focus more on merging online and offline exercise regimes and continue to grow.
You can still take part in your choreographed dance routines on Tangou
In China, you can trust the cloud fitness industry to take care of the nation’s formidable public-square-dance-troupe population, usually comprising of retired ladies. In these dire days of quarantine, they can still don their sequenced costumes and follow online choreographed set-pieces, from apps like Tangdou. When you are ready to perform, the app offers a rich library of virtual reality backgrounds and more crucially, beautifying and slimming lens filters – just watch all the praises roll in on-screen as you dance!
‘Yun’ tourism
Tour operators are not taking the virus situation lying down either. Platforms such as Ctrip, Fliggy and Mafengwo have created ‘full service’ tour packages that you can access online, some incorporating virtual reality to provide a more immersive experience. As of March, over 1,000 tourist attractions in China have opened up Yun travel services, enticing 730m views of the Chinese hashtag ‘yun travel from home’.
As a virtual visitor, you can choose a place of interest, and enjoy VR or image galleries accompanied by professional audio and visual tour guide material. You can even buy souvenirs online. But the real aim of the game for tour operators is to tempt you into booking a future holiday.
Remember the virtual reality travel shop in Arnie Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall…well they’re catching on in China
It is easy to extend the concept to include special exhibitions and events, such as live streaming of expert talks, live auctions or special sales. In such instances, Yun tourism can open up limited capacity events to a much larger pool of participants.
The possibilities for a parallel life in the clouds are boundless. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to understand many other Yun-based activities that the Chinese are getting up to: ‘Yun dinner parties’ where friends relay cooking experiences and recipes and may even be judged à la ‘Come Dine With Me’ style, or ‘Yun pass-the-mike Karaoke contest’, ‘Yun’s got talent reality TV show’, ‘Yun classrooms’, ‘Yun offices’,‘Yun Milkround recruitment fair’…
The question is, when the lock down is over, will we come back down to earth?
In Chinese, the word for crisis is made up of two characters – ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. This pandemic will force us to rethink about our relationship with our planet and with each other. We will slow down in some aspects, and we will be forced to accelerate in others.
- If you want to know more about the Chinese market then Janet Wang has written a book, The Chinese Wine Renaissance, that is available through Penguin books here. You can find more of her writing at Winepeek and follow her on social media at @JZWinepeek.
