What Dan Wang Saw on His Last Trip to China

Summary

Odd Lots — What Dan Wang Saw on His Last Trip to China
July 2, 2026 | Hosts: Joe Weisenthal & Tracy Alloway | Guest: Dan Wang

---

Episode Overview

This episode features a lively conversation with Dan Wang—author of "China’s Quest to Engineer the Future" and fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution—following his recent month-long trip back to China. The hosts, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, dig into Wang’s impressions of contemporary Chinese life, technology, economics, and social trends. The discussion covers the vibe on the ground, shifting demographics, tech culture, the omnipresence of smartphones, youth unemployment, influencer culture, and China's demographic and cultural challenges.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dan Wang’s Recent China Visit: Setting the Scene

• Timeline: Left at the start of 2023, recently spent a month split between Shanghai and Yunnan.
  • [04:42] Dan Wang: “And I left at the start of 2023…this time, I spent about a month in China between Shanghai for two weeks and then Yunnan for two more weeks.”
• City Experiences: Wang compares living in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, emphasizing the unique character and limitations of each.
  • [06:09] Dan Wang: “We were in all of these cafes and I spent two years living in Hong Kong…then I moved to Beijing for two years. Then I decided that was way too much real China. And then I decided I should move to Shanghai.”

2. Changing Face of Foreigners and Immigration in China

• There’s a marked decrease in Americans; more Russians, Arabs, and overall, fewer foreigners than ever.
  • [07:12] Dan Wang: “…what was really striking was how many more Russians and Russian you hear in the streets of Shanghai…how few Americans you hear... stunning collapse in immigration to China…”
• Comparative statistic: China (1.4B people) and Ireland (6M) both have about 1M immigrants.

3. Shanghai vs. Beijing: The Personality of China’s Great Cities

• Shanghai: Framed as cosmopolitan, comfortable, and convenient—a Paris of the East.
  • [08:31] Dan Wang: “I love Shanghai. Shanghai is, I think, one of the great cities of the world. And Beijing is not.”
• Beijing: Described as imposing, intellectual, and somewhat harsh; more directly centers political/intellectual power.
  • [08:48] Dan Wang: “Beijing is this desert steppe city with Stalinist characteristics…there’s kind of this threat of apocalypse that hangs over there…when we were living in Shanghai…we were calling Beijing Western Pyongyang.”

4. Phone Culture and Tech Immersion

• Ubiquity of Smartphone Use: Joe is shocked by how entrenched phone culture is—constant use at meals, live streaming everywhere.
  • [11:36] Joe Weisenthal: “I have never been in, in a culture, in a city, etcetera, in which there was more just like constant phone use... everyone with their screen up…”
• Infrastructure: China’s 5G is omnipresent, enabling this digital lifestyle.
  • [15:03] Dan Wang: “Let’s say you have this amazing mobile infrastructure where 5G is truly everywhere... I kind of wish that we had mobile access everywhere.”
• Social Expectations: The culture is self-reinforcing—if everyone is instantly reachable, everyone is expected to reply instantly.
  • [16:30] Joe Weisenthal: “It does seem self reinforcing, which is that if everyone is on their phone, everyone then becomes expected to text back within the minute, which means you can’t opt out…”

5. Influencer & Photo Culture

• Influencer Hotspots: Cafés and city blocks in Shanghai are re-architected as photo spots, mainly for young women to take photos for social media (often Xiaohongshu/RED).
  • [19:20] Dan Wang: “...how many cafes in Shanghai are just places where young people, overwhelmingly women, park to take photos of themselves... many city blocks have been rearchitected to be photo spots…”
• Consumption Patterns: Taking photos can substitute for actually spending money or having deeper experiences; may affect attempts to increase consumption.
  • [20:51] Dan Wang: “…you wonder the extent to which phone culture becomes a substitute for real spending on holiday…constant photography is a boon for live streaming…people are substituting away real experiences…”

6. Material Comforts vs. Social Ennui

• High Quality of Material Life: Advanced tech, luxurious hotels at lower prices, dynamic consumer offerings.
  • [26:05] Joe Weisenthal: “I had a great time...the food is all great... the Park Hyatt…top three or four hotels…$250…extraordinary.”
• Underlying Discontent: Despite prosperity, youth unemployment is rising, property values dropping, and social ennui is pronounced.
  • [29:00] Dan Wang: “...the central contradiction... is that people have a bit of a serene discontent with their lives... Youth unemployment... is north of 15%, trending close to 20%... property has fallen by 25 to 30%...homeless people…friends have told us that there are these homeless people wandering through the outskirts of Shanghai…”
• Demographic Cliff: Shanghai’s total fertility rate is among the world’s lowest (0.4-0.6).
  • [31:40] Dan Wang: “No one wants to have kids…Shanghai is 0.6, which is on par with Taipei and Seoul… in a couple of years, in something like I think 20 years, half the population will be north of 65.”

7. Fertility Declines and Social Pressures

• Why So Few Kids?: Intense educational pressures, work culture, high cost of living, and prioritizing “right” schools and neighborhoods.
  • [36:00] Dan Wang: “…the one thing has to be the educational culture where people feel like if their kid can’t get into the right university, then their life is over…life is so oriented towards education, and then after education, it’s so oriented towards getting a great job…”

8. Corporate Hustle and Nationalist Drive

• “Hustle Culture”: Echoes of early U.S. capitalism; fierceness in work and technological competition driven by nationalist priorities.
  • [39:12] Dan Wang: “...if you want to appreciate capitalism, red and tooth and claw, you go to Shanghai, you go to Shenzhen…people just really work their asses off…”
• Nationalist Temperature: The government is focused on “Fortress China,” prioritizing technological self-sufficiency despite property collapse and unemployment.
  • [41:00] Dan Wang: “...Xi Jinping’s main goal is to militarize and harden the country for great power competition…this is much more of a fortress mentality…”

9. Stunted Cultural Exports & Censorship

• Limited Cultural Exports: Despite population and economic scale, China underperforms compared to, for example, Korea.
  • [48:00] Dan Wang: “...it is still remarkable how stunted Chinese cultural economic exports are relative to, let’s say, the Koreans with, you know, all of this K pop, Squid Game...China might do much better, but I would say by any measure, it is an underperformer…”
• Barriers to Creativity: Heavy censorship—e.g., comedians need to submit material for prior approval—cripples creative potential.
  • [44:34] Dan Wang: “…one of this really big comic in China made a pun off of one of these core military slogans...all of these comic clubs in Shanghai were shut for, I think, something like four months...they have to submit their scripts to the censors…”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Phone Use in China
  • “I have never been in a culture, in a city, in which there was more just like constant phone use.” – Joe Weisenthal [11:36]
• On Urban China’s Contradictions
  • “People are able to have a really good life…cities are amazing. And yet...take a look at how people are, especially young people…Youth unemployment…is north of 15%...property has fallen by 25 to 30%…” – Dan Wang [29:00]
• On Social Pressure and Family Formation
  • “Parents are telling you, women face only one question in China. When are you going to marry to the unmarried? When are you going to have kids to those without kids?...I think it’s a wonder that anyone has children.” – Dan Wang [36:22]
• On Comedy & Censorship
  • “They all closed down in Shanghai and across these festivals, across all of these public performances, the comics have to submit their scripts to the censors before they can do their routine. And so how can that possibly be not excellent for creativity?” – Dan Wang [44:46]
• On the Fortitude of the State vs. the Happiness of the People
  • “In great power, the little people don’t really matter all that much...all of these resources are funneled towards them [the elite], and power is made really cheaply to them...They want to pursue it.” – Dan Wang [42:21]

---

Highlighted Timestamps

• Timeline of Dan’s recent China visits: [04:42]
• Changing foreigner demographics: [07:12]
• Shanghai vs. Beijing showdown: [08:31–10:06]
• Phone culture shock: [11:36–12:14]
• Influencer & photo culture: [19:20–20:51]
• Material comfort & discontent: [26:05–31:40]
• Fertility collapse & social factors: [31:40–36:22]
• Work culture and “hustle” capitalism: [39:12]
• Rising nationalism & technological drive: [41:00–42:34]
• Cultural censorship/comedy scene: [44:34–45:03]
• Stunted cultural exports vs. Korea: [48:00]

---

Tone & Language

The conversation is light, observational, and peppered with self-deprecating humor and personal anecdotes. Dan Wang offers wry, critical, but affectionate takes on Chinese urban life; hosts Joe and Tracy probe with curiosity and draw parallels to Western culture, maintaining a casual and engaging flow.

---

Final Reflections

The episode closes with reflections on the convergence of social phenomena—youth dissatisfaction, collapsing fertility, the stresses of digital and economic life—not just in China, but increasingly around the globe. Despite China’s material progress and unique tech adoption, the social "ennui" and pressures mirror those in Western societies. The sense is that amidst the physical trappings of modernity, new generational anxieties and structural contradictions are rising to the fore.

---

Listen if you want:

• An honest, insider’s view of 2020s China beyond economic headlines
• To understand how tightly phone culture is woven into Chinese social fabric
• Discussion of the paradox of prosperity amid discontent
• Insights on demographic cliffs, social pressure, and stunted creativity under censorship
• Wry anecdotes and on-the-ground “vibes” from China’s most dynamic cities

---

Transcript

[Tracy Alloway]

Now a message from Meta. Meta is launching America's Workforce Academy. The program offers paid training, a job, and a path to America's future. Because the future is for everyone. Learn [e-mail] AmericasWorkForceAcademy the thing about AI

[IBM Narrator]

for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Francine Lacqua]

IBM when you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business is a pay in full card that elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits that will take your business to the next level. Sapphire, Reserved for business offers 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, airport lounge access, and more. Chase Sapphire Reserved for Business it's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn [e-mail] ReserveBusiness Chase for Business make more of what's yours Accounts subject to credit approval, restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA Member FDIC,

[Joe Weisenthal]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.

[Tracy Alloway]

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

[Tracy Alloway]

Joe, I heard, I might have heard, you know, just a little bit that you went to China for the first time.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I haven't been that obnoxious about it. I haven't like. No. But okay, can I just say one thing? I didn't like, do a. I've posted about it. I've talked about it. I have. I did not come home and do like a 20 tweet thread about like, China's like, future in the world, which I consider myself to be a heroic, heroic act of restraint.

[Tracy Alloway]

So you're not a China expert after your one day?

[Joe Weisenthal]

I fully admit that I'm not a China hand after one day. And I will also say I can't do that anyway because I got over the border on a tourist visa. So I'm not even, you know, you

[Tracy Alloway]

know, the China, the China Expert pipeline.

[Dan Wang]

Right?

[Joe Weisenthal]

How does it work?

[Tracy Alloway]

So you got to, first of all, you have to go to China and be, be an English teacher for a few months and then you have to move there and become a China consultant.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yes.

[Tracy Alloway]

And then you have to start a YouTube channel and start. Start calling yourself Joe Y or La Weisenthal.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Someone said Joe Shanda would be a good China signification of my name, which I thought was decent. You know, that actually almost happened to me. There's a different version of my life. So when I was in college at University of Texas, I saw a poster on the campus. Now, this was Taiwan, but I would have learned the language. It said, come be an English speaker in Taiwan. So I was like, I didn't have any plan for my life or anything like that. And I called the number, and I didn't have a cell phone at the time because we just. So we just shared a house phone. And I called the number and I left it, and then the person on the other side called back. But one of my roommates answered the call and ended up getting the job and going to Taiwan. And I always think about that version of my life where I wouldn't be doing odd lots because I was home and answered that call. And would I be one of those people that, like, you know, helped American businesses source parts and in southern China?

[Tracy Alloway]

What a segue, Joe.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, well, that's. You know, you.

[Dan Wang]

You.

[Joe Weisenthal]

You show. You reminded me that there is this one of the various versions of my life that. That was actually kind of one of them.

[Tracy Alloway]

All right, well, I'm sure you have your own impressions of China for the

[Joe Weisenthal]

first time based on 24 hours.

[Tracy Alloway]

Based on 24 hours. I know you do, because you did tweet about it a lot. But there's someone else we talk to, and we want to get general China impressions, take the temperature on the vibes in China, I guess. And that is the one and only D. He's been on the show a number of times before. He is, of course, the author of China's Quest to Engineer the Future, also a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. So, Dan, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Lots.

[Dan Wang]

Tracy, it's great to be back home.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Thank you.

[Tracy Alloway]

So, vibes in China. Well, first of all, was this your first time going back in a couple years?

[Dan Wang]

It's sort of been my first time going back.

[Tracy Alloway]

So give us the timeline of when you left.

[Dan Wang]

And I left at the start of 2023, right after the total collapse of. And then I was back in Yunnan, just finishing my book. Writing in the mountains in the south of the province.

[Tracy Alloway]

Sounds so nice.

[Dan Wang]

And then this time, I spent about a month in China between Shanghai for two weeks and then Yunnan for two more weeks. I think the big News when I was in China was there were two big things happening in New York. One was that the Knicks won some sort of sports ball. And then Joe Weisenthal, I think I

[Tracy Alloway]

heard a little bit about.

[Orderly Meds Narrator]

Just a little.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah. And then Joe Weisenthal went to Shenzhen. That was, that was big news on Twitter that day.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I watched the Knicks game from a rooftop bar in Shenzhen.

[Dan Wang]

No kidding.

[Joe Weisenthal]

The one, the, the game where they clinch. It came five, which is wild. Just to give us your back. I mean, we've talked about your book and stuff like that. You're Canadian, right?

[Dan Wang]

Yes.

[Joe Weisenthal]

So that's why the red and the red shirt. Today you're wearing maple leaf colors to sort of represent your Canadian heritage on the podcast.

[Dan Wang]

Absolutely.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Okay. I just wanted to establish that. Where did you go on? You know, I, that's why I'm not no expert because I only spent 24 hours in like one of the world, the country's most advanced cities. But where were you?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, well, I've lived in the three major big zones of China. I spent two years living in Hong Kong where I played board games with this new entrant to Hong Kong, namely Tracy Alloway. Remember all of these board games that we used to play?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, that was so much fun.

[Dan Wang]

We were in all of these cafes and I spent two years living in Hong Kong and I thought, why? Well, this really isn't enough real China. And so then I moved to Beijing for two years. Then I decided that was way too much real China. And then I decided I should move to Shanghai.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Can I just ask a quick question? I don't know anything about how like Chinese immigration policy or visa policy works. As someone who is ethnically Chinese, but a Canadian passport holder, what is required to establish semi residency either on like a part full time or sort of part time work or whatever. How do you, what are there any restrictions? How easy is that process?

[Dan Wang]

If you're of Chinese heritage, it's somewhat easier to visit China. There are these specific visa categories, namely family visit, which gets you multiple entry probably for 10 years. That makes it really easy for someone like me to visit grandma. But I don't think for any other Chinese heritage people, it becomes much easier. They're not necessarily favored to actually live in China. And when I was visiting China at this time, what was really striking was how many more Russians and Russian you hear in the streets of Shanghai. You see more Arab folks walking around presumably doing business deals, and how few Americans you hear on the streets as well. And so this has been a really stark shift in the composition of the foreign people there. Then there's also just been a stunning collapse in immigration to China. And so this Irish guy, Sam Enright, came up with this figure to establish that China and Ireland. China has slightly fewer immigrants than Ireland does. So Ireland, a country of 6 million people, has about 1 million immigrants. China, 1.4 billion, has about 1 million immigrants. And so these are the sort of stunning things where it takes a few more Joe Wines visiting to prop up the foreign market there.

[Tracy Alloway]

Lao Wiesenthal, we're calling him Lau Wiesenthal.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Tracy Alloway]

Why did you decide to go to Shanghai and not Beijing? And how much should I read into that as, like, a shift in the center of power within China or, like, more focus on tech and finance?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, I love Shanghai. Shanghai is, I think, one of the great cities of the world. And Beijing is not. Beijing is not.

[Tracy Alloway]

I really like Beijing. It has that sort of, like, northern frontier feel. I. I really enjoy it. But I've been to Shanghai, too, and it is very impressive.

[Dan Wang]

Well, Beijing is this desert steppe city with Stalinist characteristics. And, you know, there's kind of this threat of apocalypse that hangs over there. I don't love the ring roads. These. These streets are way too long and so. And they're way too wide. And, you know, I was in Beijing when once this dust storm swept through the city where everything turned yellow. I thought I woke up sick that day, but everything was yellow that day. So there's some charm, definitely, to Beijing. But when we were living in Shanghai, we were calling ourselves the Paris of the East. We were calling Paris the Shanghai of the West. And then we were calling Beijing Western Pyongyang. Why would you visit West Korea? So these are the sort of things where we are happily dismissive of the Beijing life. There's definitely parts of the Beijing life which feels much more more intellectual. The Communist Party really is much more centered there. The great universities are much more centered there. Shanghai prizes much more convenience and comfort. And that's in part because the French literally built a major section of the city of these leafy boulevards. You have these cafes everywhere. It's super walkable. You're never that far from a subway station.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Which city are we talking about?

[Dan Wang]

Shanghai is much, much better. And then Beijing was essentially designed by Stalin, so it can't be all that pleasant.

[Tracy Alloway]

I will say Beijing is the only place in the entire world where I ever developed eczema. I had it for, like, three months just in Beijing. Never had it ever again.

[Dan Wang]

I have these headaches that come at random times. When I was living in Beijing, that was the only city where I actually had to experience that.

[Tracy Alloway]

It's so strange.

[Joe Weisenthal]

If we ever do a live episode of the podcast in China, I guess we don't have to do Beijing. I don't know. You kind of.

[Tracy Alloway]

I would prefer Beijing to Shanghai. Shanghai might actually be the smarter choice because our audience is probably bigger there. But I really like Beijing. I don't know, I like the food.

[Joe Weisenthal]

In my 24 hours and you've talked about this, but in my 24 hours, there are many things that stood out. But the one thing that's. And here I'm going to commit an act of modest journalism. The one thing that stood out that I can't get out of my head from visiting China, that I saw kinds of head grade food, I saw the electronics mart, et cetera. Tell us a little bit more than anything else. Me like, it's okay. So we're sitting here, the three of us are talking. I'm physically in pain right now like, that. I haven't checked my phone five times like that. I. In this conversation, like, it's very difficult for me to like go, We've been talking for nine minutes so far. So normally I would have checked my phone five minutes. But I could do it. But like, I have never been in, in a culture, in a city, etcetera, in which there was more just like constant phone use. Like, that is the one thing I still just cannot get out of my head. I went to a nice dinner, everyone with their screen up, you know, which would be very, I think, like, if I, if you did that in New York, that would be considered really rude, I think, to have your phone.

[Tracy Alloway]

And yet, Joe.

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, I know, like to have your phone face up on the table. I was like really stunned. And you've talked about this too. And I'm sort of like, I kind of want to talk about phone culture.

[Dan Wang]

Okay, let's talk about phone culture. Joe, what is the right number of times to check your phone in 10 minutes? Is it five? Is it 500? Unless. Yeah, this is really.

[Tracy Alloway]

This is.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I might, I'm totally up, you know, because the thing was when I just like, I was like, oh, I don't want to be rude, but I want to take some pictures. Maybe I want to tweet something. But like, but you know, I don't want to be rude. And then I would like look around and like everyone was on their phone. So I was like, I guess it's not rude. I felt great. I Loved it.

[Dan Wang]

I am much more New York cultured. Stop looking at your phone, man. Let's have a debate about this, Joe.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, I'm doing great.

[Dan Wang]

So, you know, where do we need to check what's so important on the phone that we can't talk to each other about face to face right now?

[Joe Weisenthal]

But I. No, I mean, look, I'm glad that we have this conversation where the expectation is that we have our phones down. But, like, was my. When you went back to China recently, did you have the same sense that I did?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, totally. That. I think that a lot of good friends would be around the table and then they would start pulling their phone and what are they doing on their phone? It's actually totally trivial stuff. They're kind of just checking the progress of their JD.com or Alibaba deliveries. They're kind of scrolling through some photos that they just taken and deleting a few, selecting a few. And it's like, you know, not everyone is able to get together all the time. So, you know, is that the most important thing right now? Definitely. Phone culture has broken Joe Wiesenthal laowai's brain. Yeah, but hasn't it broken, like, hundreds of millions of people's brains across the world? And there is something, I think, not to be a boomer about this.

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, that's fine. It's great.

[Dan Wang]

Important about attention. But what do you think?

[Joe Weisenthal]

As much as I'm guilty of it, I don't think that the always checking of phones is a healthy part of New York society or American society. Like, I think I am participating in something that is unhelpful and not an anti pro, not pro social. Every time I check my phone in a group environment or even when I'm alone, I should be reading a book instead. And so, like, I was just stunned by the degree of like. And then you walk into a store and every store in the mall has a girl live streaming on whatever the equivalent of TikTok is of, like, what's happening in the store. Like, the degree of like, phone ness was wild to me.

[Tracy Alloway]

As someone who is often the victim of Joe's phone addiction, I will say it does make me sad when I'm talking to you and you literally, like, leave the conversation mid sentence to go take a photo of someone's T shirt and tweet it, which happened last week.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, Tracy, you and I are going to have dinner and Joe can be off on the side like, tweeting like a toddler. And then you and I can have like a much More serious conversation. What do you think?

[Joe Weisenthal]

This is why I'm actually glad I have this job. Because it's an hour at a time throughout various times of the week in which I don't look at my phone.

[Tracy Alloway]

Let's get back on track. Let's do China.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Okay.

[Tracy Alloway]

How much of the Chinese phone obsession. I'm thinking how to phrase this, but how much of it is. Because your entire life is basically oriented on your phone now. And I know we could say something similar about the US but I feel like payment systems, online shopping are even more endemic in China than they are here.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, well, so this is where we should praise what enables the phone culture. First of all, let's say you have this amazing mobile infrastructure where 5G is truly everywhere. And it is kind of odd to me that you head into pockets of New York, namely the subway as well as many other places, kind of remote parts, and you just kind of drop out of cell access. And I kind of wish that we had mobile access everywhere. And there is kind of this broader phenomenon in East Asia where people have super long commutes on the subway, let's say like an hour to get into Tokyo, you know, an hour to get into central Shanghai or Shenzhen. And you having mobile games and having phones is kind of just a great way to pass the time in your cool, well connected subway. So there are some good things here and you have basically a lot more apps that are highly functional. You're able to order absolutely anything you want into your door 15 minutes, you can get an amazing croissant. And so there are some good parts here, but let's also get into the bad parts. So the bad parts are when you're in China, you're kind of constantly expected to be on for your boss all the time. And so, you know, if we were in China, we have like three producers sitting behind us. We're going to have Joe Wiesenthal, Lao Wai texting them all the time about, you know, pick up this or that. And so I think that is less pleasant.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Sorry, just to jump. It does seem self reinforcing, which is that if everyone is on their phone, everyone then becomes expected to text back within the minute, which means you can't opt out of always looking at your phone. Anyway, keep going.

[Tracy Alloway]

This is the other thing. So I know you're always on your phone. And so when I WhatsApp you and you don't immediately reply, I get insulted.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Just DM me. Just Twitter DM me. Anyway, keep going. But yes, Tracy is, she's like, I know you're looking at your phone. Why haven't you responded?

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, he has a very limited like bandwidth in which to reply.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I know, go on, just keep talking

[Dan Wang]

about Chinese text Wiesenthal, like in 30 seconds I know he ought to reply, so why isn't he replying within three minutes? But, so I mean, the good thing is that you can always use your friends and that's always good too. But myself, I think I'm much more of an American, whatever European about this. I just silence all of my notifications. My friends can't really reach me. I think it's better that way and I think I prefer it not to be reached whenever, at anyone else's pleasure. But you know, if you need to like call someone, you know, you know that almost always going to pick up.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Foreign. Now a message from Meta, our sponsor. People are building things in America again. And America's workforce Academy, built by Meta, is training the next generation of builders. This unprecedented program offers paid training for in demand jobs like electricians, plumbers, crew leaders, fiber installers and more. When participants finish the program, they are offered a job because the future is for everyone. Learn more at meta.com AmericasWorkForceAcademy get the

[Francine Lacqua]

news you need in just 15 minutes.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Start your day with Bloomberg Daybreak, the podcast with a global view on the stories that matter. I'm Nathan Hager.

[Tracy Alloway]

And I'm Karen Moscow.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Join us each morning for curated stories on current events, politics, business and foreign relations, plus one conversation on the day's biggest developments, all in just 15 minutes. Subscribe to Bloomberg Daybreak for a precise, thoughtful take on the stories that matter. Listen to Bloomberg Daybreak each morning on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen.

[Wix Narrator]

Can you believe it? The business I'd been about to start lived in my head for two years. But last night I finally bought the domain on Wix. Took me 90 seconds and suddenly it was real. I even used WIX Harmony, wix's AI website builder, to create a full website in minutes. Didn't even have to stress about security, privacy or any of that technical stuff. It all came included. That's two years of stalling, one night of progress. Don't wait like I did. Go to wix.com domains, talk about influencers.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Because this is like this. When we were in Shenzhen, at one point, the guy who I was going around with was like, oh, this is a really nice new apartment. It's like all the influencers live there. Talk about like influencer culture. There's.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, well, this is also one of these Things that make China increasingly highly unpleasant to me now, the extent to which everyone is just photographing themselves as kind of, as kind of the main thing. So I usually go visit Shanghai and Yunnan, which are I think, without a doubt the two most beautiful parts of China. And the good thing about being in beautiful parts is that you have a wonderful city, you have this wonderful province. But what sort of distresses me is how many cafes in Shanghai are just places where young people, overwhelmingly woman park to take photos of themselves. Perhaps a group of seven might order one or two coffees to the disappointment of the cafe owners, and then they park themselves there for like an hour or so taking photographs. And so many of these Shanghai city blocks have been almost re architected to be photo spots, whether these are outdoors or whether these are restaurants. And so, you know, that's just a lot of photography. Have you noticed something like this?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I mean, I would say this is. Describes the West Village in large part.

[Tracy Alloway]

For sure, for sure. I still remember the very first time I went to Dominic Ansell in New York and everyone was taking photos of the food and I was like, oh, like food is now performance art basically. But okay, so is influencer culture that's standing in the way of Xi Jinping's drive to increase consumption, Is that what we're saying?

[Dan Wang]

I think that must be a part of it, because at some point you wonder the extent to which phone culture becomes a substitute for real spending on holiday. So as I just mentioned, you have cafes, you may have cocktail bars in which a gaggle of people come over and then buy two drinks and then they spend the rest of their time photographing themselves. Maybe you can say that the constant photography is a boon for live streaming and so that promotes some aspect of consumption. But I think overwhelmingly people are substituting away real experiences to, let's say, have a super nice travel experience when they could just photograph themselves. Because the other part of being in Yundan, which is in the southwest, this is the region where my family is from, this is highly mountainous, it's essentially Tibet. In the north, it's part of the Himalayas literally in the north. And then in the south is basically a giant rainforest. And in between there are basically 25 of China's nearly 60 official ethnic groups. And so with these rich, richer again, overwhelmingly girls from Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen would do, is that they go to Yunnan, dress in this ethnic garb, pretend that they're Tibetan for a day, take some snowtrop, you know, snow covered mountains as a backdrop. There are parts of New York Miami, Louisiana. That have been re architected. But I think phone culture is much more extreme. But, Joe, did you consider dressing up as a Tibetan?

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, but I know that if Tracy and I ever go to China together, I'm going to have to take a lot of, like, Tracy's gonna make me do that for sure. Absolutely. For her Instagram.

[Tracy Alloway]

You're a decent photographer. So, you know, it. It helps.

[Dan Wang]

You know, I may be part Tibetan myself. This is part of the family lore. When the Tibetans come up to me, they always say, tasha delay. And so, you know, maybe I just their hello, standard greeting. And, you know, maybe the three of us can do an awesome photo shoot.

[Joe Weisenthal]

This is one time, this is now. We're gonna do a road trip, but we're going to make this happen.

[Tracy Alloway]

I would actually do that trip. You describe this as mostly girls, and this is also a phenomenon in the West. But why, like, what is the ultimate goal of taking all these photos and sticking them on social media? Is it, you know, dating? Is it building a professional brand? Is it just socializing with your online friends?

[Dan Wang]

You know, Tracy, I don't look at these photos, so it's only speculation for me. But I think it has to be all the same phenomenon where, you know, women everywhere feel like they have to. To perform for the gram, or in the case of China, for the Xiaohongshu. And I think the added layer in China is just that it's kind of a cheap way to have fun and to establish that you've been there and these are kind of beautiful things and you do spend a lot of effort on makeup. And so I think it could be kind of fun. But so why not? So when I am sometimes upset by the photo culture, I remind myself, you know, these ladies aren't harming me. So what? I'm no skin off my nose. They should have a great time.

[Joe Weisenthal]

They're not harming you. No skin off your nose. On the other hand, I don't really know much about, like, how are your. How are your male relatives doing in China? And the only reason I ask is actually because I'm aware that in Korea, which, you know, totally separate country, the people talk about the gender gap in politics here in the US that the gender gap in politics in Korea specifically is extraordinarily large, and that the, you know, the sort of 4chanification of politics in Korea seems like even far more advanced than it is in the West. There's no electoral politics in China, so we don't really get to read articles about how these feelings express Themselves at the ballot the same way. But how do, how would the, how would you know the Dan Wongs? Your cousins or friends? Male friends. How are they feeling?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, well, I think you guys have done this remarkable job of keeping this conversation on track, but I think we need to get this back on track and talk about my male pseudo relative, Joe Weisenthal. Lao Weiss. Slight time in China. And I notice, Joe, for those watching on camera, you have a Chinese ethnic garb yourself. You have an anti shirt wear on you. So we're going to ask you to talk a little bit more about your impressions, 24 hours though they may be. And I'm just going to offer one more proverb, a well known ancient Chinese proverb here about visiting China. So everyone knows that you Visit China for 24 hours, you feel like you can write a book, visit China for a week, you start having some doubts. You live six years in China and you realize you know nothing. So you know, what's the book in you, Joe, that you're gonna give to us?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, I don't mean to brag.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah.

[Joe Weisenthal]

But I actually like, do not like I feel like very viscerally that I only got the tiniest slice and I maybe just because I've been doing media for a while, like I really did not feel like I could say anything useful about China from 24 hours.

[Dan Wang]

Just tell us.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I can be honest how you felt. How you felt. I mean, I had a great time. It's like all the cars are real that all the cars that we see on social media, they're all real. The food is all great. The pr. I spent a night in the Park Hyatt, which was probably one of the top three or four hotels I've ever spent a night in. And it was $250, which would be like the grimiest hotel off of Times Square. Like, but there was just 24 hours.

[Tracy Alloway]

Some cool like tech stuff as well.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I went to the tech mall and like I bought for $15 this eye massager. I almost bought a suitcase that could double as a scooter for a grown adult person and ride around the airport. But I was worried about like the batteries and like I wish you'd gotten that. I know my son would have loved it. Like if I told him if I showed him a video, he'd be so upset that I didn't get that from. But like, you know, all of this like basically in that 24 hours, it was like all the social media stuff that like I'm inundated by like I was like, oh, all of it is, at least in this one city, incredibly advanced. An entire city as big as in New York, where all the offices are about as feel like the new J.P. morgan headquarters. Like, it's extraordinary.

[Dan Wang]

What did you not like about this experience? Walking around?

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, I liked it. I actually didn't like. I really. I found it to be a very pleasant 24 hours, including. I went and bought some cigarettes for friends. I don't smoke, but some friends do. And currently in New York, Chinese cigarette. Chinese cigarettes are very highly sought after. Yeah, this is the thing for sure.

[Dan Wang]

What's the brand?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Well, I got a Chung Wa. I don't know, but there's. I bought a bunch of other brands. I'll show you the box. I mean, they don't have the labels on them.

[Dan Wang]

We're gonna go out for a smoke after this.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, that's fine. But like, when I went to the cigarette and liquor dealer, like, you walk in and the first thing, it just starts pouring tea for everyone and opening packs for you to try. I was like, this is great. I mean, this is a nice. This is a. This is a good life.

[Tracy Alloway]

Life.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, but you're the guest, so you got to tell. You got to tell us, like, this

[Tracy Alloway]

is liquor and cigarettes. Good life?

[Dan Wang]

No, after this, we're gonna, you know, drink some baijiu. We're gonna have a Huazi, which is kind of how you refer to a cigarette there. And then. So the. My. I. I don't love Shenzhen. I really feel like Shenzhen is America's answer to San Jose. You know, we kind of talk about Shenzhen as the Silicon Valley of China. And I think, yeah, you know, it's just kind of the San Jose. It's kind of these big, kind of big midtown buildings. It's a lot of office parks. I mean, the nice thing about it is it's really green, but it's. The parts of the city is really centered between the east and the west, and to get between them, you have to get on this big highway. So.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Oh, yeah, it was on that highway.

[Dan Wang]

Urban design is not great. And so this is why I think Shanghai is still much, much better. And I think that when people are in China, I think that the central contradiction, as the Marxists like to call it now, is that. But what I feel on this trip is that this is kind of people have a bit of a serene discontent with their lives.

[Tracy Alloway]

Ennui, sort of. Sorry, ennui, kind of.

[Dan Wang]

Maybe everyone does, but I think it is a little bit more extreme in China. So on the One hand. The products are really, really amazing. So you have these amazing suitcase rollers that you can sit and roll around, no? So real Paul Blart, Mall cop, Joe Weisenthal, Lao Wai, airport roller guy. And now when I was in Shanghai this time, I was really struck by the amazing food culture there. I mean, just in terms of the coffees now all have these infusions that make them look almost like caffeinated cocktails without the alcohol. So why not have your coffee be infused with some sort of honeydew melon and rose water, all these amazing things and they taste really good. And I'm thinking, oh, why am I getting a standard Americana when it can have something like this? The croissants are really, really amazing. I love baked goods. And so, you know, the Shanghai's croissants are like approaching Parisian, maybe Copenhagen levels of quality, Tokyo levels of quality. I'm, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about how China builds a ton of electrical power, solar, wind, nuclear, etc. And then I learned how much it costs to charge your electric vehicle to the full range of about 600km. It's about like $12 to have essentially a full tank of gas. And that's kind of totally amazing. And so people are able to have a really good life. They have access to cheap noodles. Cities are amazing. And yet, and yet, take a look at how people are, especially young people. Youth unemployment, according to the official data, is north of 15%, trending close to 20%. The main source of wealth for most people is parked in property. Something like three quarters of the wealth is in property. Property has fallen by 25 to 30% across all these big cities. This was the first time in Shanghai where friends have told us that there are these homeless people wandering through the outskirts of Shanghai because all of these migrant workers may have nowhere to go. Based on all this macro data, migrants are kind of returning to the countryside because they can't find great jobs. The college educated young people, mostly men, are doing delivery drivers because they can't find great jobs. Everyone's kind of, all these young people are sort of living with their parents, which is kind of a, a fine lifestyle. And for me, the most amazing fact about China now is that Shanghai is such an amazing city and no one wants to have kids. No one wants to have kids. So the national TFR rate in China, and this is the official data, is 1.0 and Shanghai is 0.6, which is on par with Taipei and Seoul. And there are aspects. The richest parts of Shanghai, the TFR. Official TFR is like 0.4. And so how can this function when in a couple of years, in something like I think 20 years, half the population will be north of 65? How can the city function when half the people expect to be retired? And how can the country function when there's no young people? And this is something that I used to be a little bit more sanguine about, the demographic cliff. This is where are we going to see a completely different China in 15 years that's much less sang.

[Francine Lacqua]

The Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit returns to Singapore on July 22. Our 5th annual Asia Pacific Summit will explore how business and finance leaders are shaping the next phase of globalization by strengthening resilience and driving a multi speed energy transition across Asia's diverse markets. Join us for solutions driven discussions and networking opportunities. Thank you to our Summit advisor, Bangkok Bank. Learn more at BloombergLive.com SBS Singapore Summer

[Orderly Meds Narrator]

is here, which means we all want to look and feel our best. A GLP1 may be right for you. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more about which GLP1 you could be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com podcast that's orderlymeds.com podcast. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved, eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Seeing these global stats and being at a place where it's like, okay, it's not so expensive and transport, it's very easy with children, etc, and yet still, you know, fertility is collapsing like that unfortunately. It definitely makes me more skeptical of a lot of the claims that like if only we had like free child care in the US or whatever that that would like make people more inclined to have families and stuff like that. Like it doesn't seem like these physical material affordances actually do much on that front.

[Tracy Alloway]

Well, I was going to ask Dan, what's your theory for declining birth rates in China? Because you hear all these different things about, you know, like the work culture is too intense, the educational culture is too intense, life in general is too intense. What do you think?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, yes. And I mean the first thing to say is that China is not an outlier in East Asia, so outlier anywhere,

[Joe Weisenthal]

it's ahead of the curve. But there is not a place in the world, including Africa, including Central and South America, et cetera, where we don't see fertility rates basically falling off a cliff.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, but I mean, the. I mean, I think. I think there may even be a qualitative difference between TFR of what is the US now, 1.6, 1.7 and, you know, 1.0. And so the exponential math here really starts doing their punishing math. So, you know, in East Asia, Japan is actually now, you know, kind of something like 1.2, 1.3, and they have, they're further down the demographic curve, but they have a higher TFR at the moment and they're much more open to immigrants. And so, you know, should we be more optimistic about Japan or China? You know, the. Japan is more open to immigrants and has high, higher tfr. So maybe.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Can I just.

[IBM Narrator]

Yeah.

[Joe Weisenthal]

On a statistical methodology question, does that tf. Does the national Japanese TFR include the immigrant population, which presumably, which might have a higher TFR than the ethnically Japanese population, surely.

[Dan Wang]

But I suspect that the immigrants are not that big a part of the population really to affect that. And, you know, I think the East Asian problem, if I had to boil this down to one thing, and obviously life is complex, but the one thing has to be the educational culture where people feel like if their kid can't get into the right university, then their life is over and therefore they need to get into the right kindergarten to get into the right university. And if they can't live in this particular section of Shanghai or Shenzhen, then they might as well not have a kid at all. And I think it's also worth acknowledging all of these other pressures that families pile on the kids, that your life is so oriented towards education, and then after education, it's so oriented towards getting a great job in finance or tech. And then once you've checked off that box, the parents are telling you, women face only one question in China. When are you going to marry to the unmarried? When are you going to have kids to those without kids? And just all of these social pressures that keep reproducing themselves. I think it's a wonder that anyone has children.

[Joe Weisenthal]

This actually gets to something that I wanted to, that I regret not talking about. And it's the last time we had you on the podcast, which was last year, and we were talking about your book Breakneck. And around the same time that I read your book, I also read Eva Doe's book about Huawei and like the culture they had there. And one thing that she really emphasizes in that book and other people like about this extraordinary company is like this sort of, yes, of course they have, like plenty of brilliant engineers, etc. But they also have like this, this. This culture that probably is a sort of silhouette of CCP culture, maybe is a way to put it, and how, like, the company's founder instilled a certain, like, willingness to die within the company's cadres. And they would therefore win the contract to build 5G in a rocker, win the contract to build 5G in Afghanistan, because they would not leave the country while everyone else would. And there are these certain cult like that strikes me as like a cultural change or a difference in corporate culture that is not simply about, say, the engineers versus lawyer brain that you discuss in your book. And so when you talk about some of these, like, intense cultural forces about getting into the right school, etc. When you read about this sort of, like, imbuing of the Huawei ideology within the company, et cetera, is there something else going on that drives these companies to the technological frontier, to success beyond just, you know, the sort of engineering mindset that you discuss there, an ideological component?

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah.

[Dan Wang]

Well, Eva Do's book is great on Huawei. I blurbed it. I think everyone should read it. And, you know, to read these descriptions of the wolf culture, I think is the term on Huawei. You know, they rush towards Afghanistan. And so I think that there is definitely an element here that is very real. And I would say that this is more kind of a developing country's hustle mindset, because, you know, who else had this culture? New York City of 100 years ago, Joe, you used to live in the Lower east side.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, I still do.

[Dan Wang]

I hear there's a lot of people there. Yeah, you know, where there's a lot of people, you know, Lower east side, 100 years ago when there were like 15 people living in a single room, you know, so, you know, and the US definitely had this. And so the US people would rush forward. And so this is where I think this is kind of just, just capitalism. And my view is that if you want to appreciate capitalism, red and tooth and claw, you go to Shanghai, you go to Shenzhen, you go to Beijing, you go to all of these places where people just really work their asses off because they believe that there is something worth pursuing for. And the US used to have this. And I think that China very, very deliberately picked up as much as it could from the United States. You know, the cities are kind of built more like the US cities, much more of a car culture. You know, my phone charger plugs into the US and China more easily than it plugs into anywhere in Europe. So, you know, they copied the US A lot. And they copied everything from the US Aside from the political system. And so they've decided that they got a hustle. And so maybe you're a New York hustler, Joe. And this is what attracts you about China today.

[Joe Weisenthal]

In an earlier stage of my life, maybe I was. Now I'm sort of just like, I'm fine to.

[Tracy Alloway]

Since you mentioned the Wolf thing, what's. What's the nationalist temperature like at the moment in China?

[Dan Wang]

I think it is fairly steady. And I think that there, my sense of, you know, part of what. Part of what ails the Chinese economy right now is that Xi Jinping has his wish come true. And I think that top leader Xi Jinping's main goal is to militarize and harden the country for great power competition with the United States. And I have a chapter in my book called Fortress China. And I think this is much more of a fortress mentality in which everything has to be about pursuing the semiconductors and pursuing the batteries and making sure that social pressures are not blowing off a lid. And I think that it seems to me like the top levels of the Communist Party is pretty comfortable with where things are in spite of the collapse in property, in spite of youth unemployment being almost 20%, because they're having their wishes come true on the chips and the batteries and on all of these high technology pursuits. And when President Trump visited Beijing, you know, the. The White House social media was almost treated Trump as a supplicant. You know, there was these photos.

[IBM Narrator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Wang]

Which he was pointing the way. And Donald Trump is kind of nodding along. And so, you know, there's all of these things where this is much more about great power versus great power. And in great power, the little people don't really matter all that much. And so this is much more about the elite. You know, 10%, 1%, 0.1% of the engineers still being able to achieve everything that they want to achieve. And all of these resources are funneled towards them, and power is made really cheaply to them. And so, you know, they. They want to pursue it.

[Tracy Alloway]

So one thing we've talked about before is the lack of cultural exports from China. Labubu's not withstanding.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I thought this was going to be the one. I thought this was going to be the one. And that lasted about five minutes.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah. What do you think is needed to sort of unlock a cultural explosion in China? Because, like, the impulse must be there, right?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah. How about some marijuana? And I don't think that this is

[Tracy Alloway]

something that I didn't expect you to say that, but go on.

[Dan Wang]

Marijuana and the dropping of censorship. How about that? And I don't think that is going to be real anytime soon.

[Tracy Alloway]

Soon.

[Dan Wang]

So I was pretty deliberate on my trip to Shanghai this time. I went to go see a lot of stand up comedy in Shanghai, which is something that's really booming. And so they have kind of more of these online specials now, which comics are doing shows and then offline is actually a real phenomenon as well. And I went to shows, one of which was English speaking. I didn't choose that, but it just happened to be there that day. And it was kind of these, you know, American expats who were English teachers mostly who were giving this show. And the, for the most part, the audiences were amazing. Like, you know, they love to play along. You know, they, they give amazing joke answers back. I think the, the Chinese audience is really, really fun. The comics were not as funny as I hoped. I mean, I don't see that much comedy in New York and so it's not really good comparison. But the Chinese comic that I saw was essentially telling a series of skits and it wasn't, it's not stand up, as I understand it. You know, he was essentially telling these elaborate jokes which kind of, he constructed, which didn't really happen to him. And so it wasn't all that funny to me. But I think, like, it would be great if there were more Chinese jokes out there. But the, the, you know, fact of Shanghai comedy was that, you know, something like three years ago, one of this really big comic in China made a pun off of one of these core military slogans. And what happened? What happened to him? Well, all of these comic clubs in Shanghai were shot for, I think, something like four months. And they all closed down in Shanghai and across these festivals, across all of these public performances, the comics have to submit their scripts to the censors before they can do their routine. And so how can that possibly be not excellent for creativity?

[Joe Weisenthal]

You know, this actually gets me to one more question. In addition, the other book that I read last year, the other China book that I read last year was the book about Xi's dad, Torygian. Yeah. Which is great. And I guess he's like your Hoover, Hoover Institute colleague. And one like my reading of that book, which I thought was very interesting and it speaks directly to this, is that one way to think about the sort of post Mao era is how do you keep a hard line while not tipping into true cultural revolution territory and this fear, like, because what you describe where it's like, and you know, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal recently about Xi Jinping cracking down on people who are into mysticism and so forth and, and like. But it's easy to see how these things spill over, right? Because if you're my boss and you tell me to stop with the mysticism, then I'm gonna bully the 10 people who are like a little bit mystical in my arena and then they'll, you know, and everyone replicates the bullying and then suddenly you're back in Cultural Revolution to territory like that seems how the way these things propagate to me, and I'm sort of curious, like when we look at the Fortress China that you talk about, do you think it's inured from a future Cultural Revolution at some point in the future by the way these things propagate?

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, I mean this is quite a chain of dominoes you've constructed, Joe. You know, first you take away everyone's tarot cards and then the Cultural Revolution erupts a little bit later, everyone, you

[Joe Weisenthal]

know, you take away my tarot cards. Then I'm gonna prove that I'm even harsher on the people I know who look at astrology websites.

[Dan Wang]

Perhaps, perhaps. Now I think that one, I'm spending more time in Silicon Valley. And the opening line of my letter this year was that one thing that Silicon Valley shares with the Communist Party is that both are serious self serious and indeed completely humorous. You know, the Central Committee is not a bunch of yucks. And I think it is our misfortune, our global misfortune, that we are ruled right now by Silicon Valley on the one hand and the Communist Party on the other. And these are completely humorless people that are determining that are kind of reshaping a lot of what we buy and what we think. And that is kind of kind of nuts to me. And I think this is also why, you know, how great are Silicon Valley's cultural export? I don't know, I don't think it's great products. And just like the Chinese and there's some great products, I think there's going to be, you know, Chinese marketing has not really kept up. You know, we don't really have amazing associations with Chinese brands as such, but I think that will change because the quality is going to improve. But I think if you're looking for any sort of a bottom up culture, it is still remarkable how stunted Chinese cultural economic exports are relative to, let's say the Koreans with, you know, all of this K pop squid Game all of that. You have Americans who are much more eager to study the Korean language at college now. I think that is actually outpacing people studying Chinese in college now. So, you know, China might do much better, but I would say by any measure, it is an underperformer relative to its population and its economic growth.

[Tracy Alloway]

All right, Dan Wong, thank you so much for coming back on all the lots and giving us the vibes. The vibes in China.

[Joe Weisenthal]

A true China hat. Thank you so much, Dan. That was fantastic.

[Dan Wang]

Yeah, let's. Let's have some photo shoots in China and we'll get on some yaks. We, we'll look like Tibetans and then we'll have a, we'll have a great

[Tracy Alloway]

time while drinking lychee flavored coffee. Right.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And smoking cigarettes. The three of us are going to do a road trip one day. Absolutely. We're going to make this happen. I can't wait. Thanks so much. That was great.

[Tracy Alloway]

Always fun to catch up with Dan.

[Francine Lacqua]

Joe.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I love talking to Dan. And there was a different one, you know, we didn't talk too much like what is the secret recipe of like batteries and stuff building giant projects. Yeah, I like talking about influencer culture. And I then that last anecdote about standup comedy was really interesting as well.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, yeah. So standup comedy obviously very different in China versus the US Although maybe the US is heading in that trajectory in some ways. But what stood out to me in that conversation is actually like there are a lot of similarities I think between like some of the cultural or not cultural social ennui that we have, we seem to have in the US and the, what did Dan call it, Silent discontent or quiet discontent in China.

[Joe Weisenthal]

You know, I just. Sorry, before going on to that. I don't fall. I happen to follow a. I think she's Kyrgyzstani stand up comic on Instagram and it's really funny because she like makes these jokes about like other like distinct ethnic pockets with a kir. You know, it's like so and so men do this and stuff like that. Anyway, I like seeing like these, these patterns like replicated all around the world. But I do think this is very interesting that there are certainly like, like let's say the collapse of fertility. They say that's a pathology in some way or something like that. Or everyone like these are like, these are global phenomenons and maybe the East Asian countries are just sort of like the most further along down this trajectory for one reason or another. The phone stuff, the influencer, it doesn't. And then Also, you know, and I remember we, when we did that episode earlier this year about like the Chinese Internet and like, like people, oh, there's like this more nationalist flavor. That's the same here.

[Tracy Alloway]

I know.

[Joe Weisenthal]

So it does, I think, to your point, like convergence. Yeah, there's sort of like cultural, global cultural convergence that everyone is sort of regard in. I guess what I would say is even in very different economic conditions, there is this sort of cultural convergence happening. And you say it's like, okay, the Chinese economy is like clearly done so well from a standpoint of, of lifting people out of poverty and material abundance so, so well over the last 10, 20, 30 years, obviously better than any other country in the world. And the fact that it's still roughly replicating the same moods, et cetera, as anywhere else, I just think it's like a very like, as Claude would say, a point to sit with for a moment.

[Tracy Alloway]

All right, shall we leave it there?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Let's leave it there.

[Tracy Alloway]

This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracee Alloway.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Dan Wong. He's at Dan W. Wong. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at carmenarmondashell Bennett at dashbot, Kalebrooks at Kalebrooks and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more Odd Lots content, go to bloomberg.com oddlots or the daily newsletter and all of our episodes and you can chat about all of these topics 24. 7 in our Discord, Discord, GG Oddlots

[Tracy Alloway]

and and if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you want us to do a road trip through Yunnan with Dan Wong, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening. SA. Francine.

[Francine Lacqua]

I'm Francine Lacqua, an award winning journalist and I've got a new podcast, Leaders with Francine Lacqua from Bloomberg Podcasts. I've interviewed everyone from heads of state to fashion icons about the news of the moment. But I've always been curious, who are these people as leaders? I don't think there's one right way

[Joe Weisenthal]

to be a leader.

[Dan Wang]

Make decisions. A poor decision is always better than no decision.

[Francine Lacqua]

Listen to new episodes every other Monday. Follow Leaders with Francine Lacqua. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Grainger Narrator]

This is the story of the one the one who keeps multiple buildings running smoothly day after day. Plumbing that flows, H Vac that hums. Cleaning supplies that keep surfaces sparkling. That's why she counts on Grainger. With easy reordering online and 24. 7 support, Grainger helps her keep the products she needs on hand so shelves stay stocked and buildings stay stay ready. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.