This time on China Popcast, toy collector and reporter Vica Li and marketing professor Zhang Ying have discussed how a wild-yet-charming forest elf character designed for Chinese-owned Pop Mart went global. Labubu has taken the world by storm, popularized after it was seen with celebrities such as Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Lisa from Blackpink. Our guest Zhang Ying is a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, where Pop Mart's executives, including founder Wang Ning, were students in an MBA program. The "grandfather" of Labubu, or "La Ye Ye" as we named him, tells us what Wang and the others were like as students. And Li tells us about the emotional rollercoaster of toy collecting: the appeal, the thrill of blind boxes, swapping and giving collectables away, and the art of dressing up your little "monster" companion. Catch our video podcast here: https://youtu.be/D2-0nShIkEk?si=HiaNPBn5vqZwqE0b CONTACT: lucy.lv@cgtn.com wendyl.martin@cgtn.com

In today's episode, mountaineer Kevin Wang and Gen Z content creator Jonathan Yao join China Popcast hosts Lucy Lv and Wendyl Martin for a discussion about China's never-to-be-forgotten World War II stories. Wang is the founder of the "Back to the Hump," through which he leads expeditions over the mountains of Yunnan to find the wreckage of aircraft and pilots who flew along the Hump, an air route over the Himalayas that was used to help deliver supplies to China. Yao, who uses his video channels to uncover history and culture, talks about the Japanese occupation of his native northeast China. Catch our video podcast here: https://youtu.be/1btDfhiaFa0?si=ZPHdMDWuaws1lOzr CONTACT: lucy.lv@cgtn.com wendyl.martin@cgtn.com For more on Chinese culture see: www.cgtn.com/culture https://www.facebook.com/chinaplusnews/ https://www.facebook.com/chinaplusamerica/ https://www.facebook.com/chinaplussa/