China's 'Chicken Cutlet Bro' Becomes Holiday Attraction

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00:00All right, time now for a look at stories that are making headlines in China's domestic media.

00:04We're talking about Golden Week, right? That's the key focus with news outlets reporting,

00:08get this, 23 million passenger trips estimated on the first day of the travel rush. Let's get

00:14to our China correspondent, Min Min Lo. She's tracking all things, Golden Week, traffic,

00:18spending patterns, what have you. Give us a flavor of what these preliminary numbers tell us.

00:24Yes, Chinese state media has really been highlighting some of the better performing

00:28sectors of the economy. So they're highlighting the Yangtze River Delta, which is Shanghai and some

00:33of the eastern provinces that are the economic powerhouses of China. And they're talking about

00:37rail travel up about 10% on year. And Shanghai in particular expected to see a single or expected

00:43to have already hit a single day record on October 1st when it comes to rail travel. But overall,

00:49nationally, we're looking at cross-regional trips up about 1.7%. So not as high as the Yangtze River

00:56Delta, but still very solid numbers there. One area that is not doing so well is the box office

01:01data. Based on day one of the numbers, we're looking at 300 million yuan on October 1st. It

01:08sounds like a lot, but you compare it to last year, it is one third below last year's numbers. And it's

01:12less than half of what it was back in 2019 before COVID. There you go. Let's look at social media.

01:19There's always some interesting insights there. Yes, the latest phenomenon is chicken cutlet bro.

01:25He is... Chicken cutlet bro. Yes. He's based in a small town called Jingdezhen, which is the porcelain

01:32capital of China. That's amazing. I love him. Yeah. So this place has been selling, has been making

01:40porcelain for thousands of years. But now people are going for the chicken cutlets. And you can see

01:45it's like a performative sport. He's going, I'm going to make one for you. I'm going to make one

01:48for you. I'm going to make one for you. And that whole clip, he's talking really fast and juggling

01:51a lot of things. That clip became a meme where people would replace the customers at the back

01:56with all the people they have to deal with in their daily lives, from their wives and their husbands

01:59to their clients to their bosses. So it became this meme that really, you know, got this guy famous

02:04a few days ago. And now people are flocking to this city, Jingdezhen, to eat his chicken cutlet.

02:10And it's really interesting because the local government then paved the road leading to this

02:15place. And that became the hashtag on Chinese social media. It says the chicken cutlet road

02:21gets paved before National Day. That's a hashtag on Weibo. And we can show some of the interesting

02:26comments that we're seeing. Some people are saying, wow, it only takes half a day to pave the

02:30road. In my hometown, it takes 10 years. And some others are saying that this guy, yeah,

02:36this guy, he is single-handedly raising the GDP of the chicken cutlet road. And it's interesting,

02:42it's a heartwarming story because there are a lot of locals who are so enthusiastic about

02:45the visitors coming. They brought chairs, like hundreds of these red stools, give it out to,

02:50you know, visitors to sit on while they queue for that chicken cutlet. And he's a hustler,

02:54you could tell, right? I don't even think that's a fast forward video. That's the volunteer with

02:58a stack of stools. Oh my goodness. Do we know if the food is any good? It must be. Well,

03:03people are queuing hours to get his chicken cutlet. But there is a guy who commented and said,

03:08this guy is so skinny, he's going to be as skinny as his chicken cutlets, like at the rate that this

03:13goes. I was going to say, I mean, how, you know, does he get, does he get a break? Does he get a

03:17lunch break? It looks like he's just constantly frying up those things. I love it. I love this story.

03:23And they're talking about how he's like an example, right? Of a hustler, right? Don't lie flat.

03:28Don't, you know, involute. Yes. He's a good example. And I'm hungry.

03:34I love it. Chicken cutlet, bro. I love him.

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