What do Haruki Murakami, burnout, and blind box toys have in common?
Pop Mart’s founder once asked: “If you pulled the head off a doll and found a USB stick inside… would you still buy it?” Strange question, right? But hidden in it is the secret to why millions of people are spending billions on toys that… do absolutely nothing.
This episode takes us from Murakami’s idea of “small but certain happiness” to China’s hyper-stressed youth, to the psychology of glorious uselessness.
And then—Pop Mart’s next big play: going global.
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🌏 About Mandarin Unpeeled: Bite-sized explainers that unwrap how China really thinks, feels, and evolves, and how it is already impacting you — told by someone who’s lived, studied, and worked across both East and West.
- Tatler Hong Kong, The Value of uselessness, How Popmart’s founder turned blindboxes into billions.
- Zhong, S. (2016, July 20). 完整回顾教科书级营销案例：4 小时后逃离北上广. 数英网 — DIGITALING.
- The Standard. (2025, August 6). Pop Mart’s overseas sales projected to surpass domestic performance in 2025. The Standard.
Sound Attribution:
- London 2012 Olympics womens marathon.wav by KeyKrusher -- https://freesound.org/s/163268/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
- Shenzhen street noise by ohmygod327 -- https://freesound.org/s/264343/ -- License: Attribution 3.0