22/08/2026

LYFE

LYFE SATURDAY | AUG 22, 2026

23

Losing your mind for latiao

A T a gleaming new factory in China’s central hinterland, masked workers in white uniform season and sift through mounds of latiao , a longtime popular snack that has found hungry fans overseas. Spicy, sweet and curiously chewy, Chinese latiao – literally “spicy strips” – are made by cooking wheat flour dough at a high temperature and pressure. Despite their reputation as junk food, the snacks originally developed as emergency supplies have grown into an industry worth more than 60 billion yuan (RM36 billion). The factory that AFP visited in Hunan province’s Pingjiang turns out nearly 700 tonnes per day of the spongy, red-coloured strips, which look like squashed French fries covered in oil. The plant’s operator Mala Wangzi currently sells all of that domestically, but latiao have acquired new legions of foreign fans spurred by online enthusiasm for Chinese culture, or “Chinamaxxing”. “ Latiao are now exported to more than 160 countries worldwide, showing that the market is moving increasingly towards internationalisation,” Li Manliang, Mala Wangzi’s vice-president, said. Some brands have expanded into East and Southeast Asia, where they are growing rapidly, consumers from

o China’s viral ‘spicy strips’ take a bite of global snack market the US to Australia are snapping up the snacks in specialist grocery stores, e-commerce platforms and via TikTok. The country’s largest latiao producer, Hong Kong-listed Weilong, made 117 million yuan from overseas sales last year, up nearly 50% from 2024. TikTok and Instagram are awash with videos of foreigners trying the fiery snacks. One influencer gained 1.5 million views by chowing down on a model house made entirely of the glutinous strips. In another TikTok video with 2.6 million views, an Australian reviewer

Latiao products on display at the Mala Wangzi factory. tucked into a giant latiao . “If you can handle your spice, I think you would enjoy this. Highly, highly recommend,” she said. ‘Quite addictive’ Latiao were created in Pingjiang in 1998 as an emergency staple food, after devastating floods wiped out the local soybean crop. They became ubiquitous in supermarkets across China, but gained a reputation as unhealthy and unsanitary – an image latiao brands have spent years trying to counter. “When I was young, my parents believed they contained too many additives. “But as the industry has developed and more brands have emerged, food safety has drawn a lot of attention... so I don’t think it’s a big problem to eat it now and then,” 22-year-old Beijing resident Wang Jingfei said.

People pick a packet of latiao measuring 13.14m in length at a market in Changsha. – PICS FROM AFP

models to small ones, but between humans in a bar, that’s also a form of knowledge distillation,” said Song. Bar to add humanoid robots soon Although the bar still employs people, Song has automated much of the bar’s inventory, reservation, utilities and membership systems using an AI agent. Due to huge demand, Song hopes to expand the bar’s Beijing floor space this year and use humanoid robots, another symbol of China’s innovation drive, to serve customers drinks. He opened a Shanghai branch in June. “We’ve hooked up all our lighting, software and hardware in the store to APIs for AI processing. “We’re trying not to waste human labour on tedious, unnecessary operational tasks,” he said. However, like many Chinese open weight models that users can access for a much lower cost than US proprietary AI models, Song is yet to make money. “The bar is completely losing money. “The amount of drinks given away is definitely 10 times more than what’s sold,” he said. – Reuters sponsored e-sport events, music festivals and animation conventions. “I find latiao is quite addictive and also stress-relieving. “When I don’t feel like having a proper meal, I’ll just eat latiao instead. I also like to snack on them while watching TV shows,” said 24 year-old Yang Xuhao. But not everyone is sold on the snack’s rehabilitation. Li Peng, 22, said he had kicked the latiao habit he developed in his school days. “I want to have a healthy lifestyle and get in shape, so I’ve stopped eating them,” he said. In a video watched 2.8 million times, a foreign reviewer described it as “kind of like chewy tofu” and “very oily”.

At the Mala Wangzi facility, an employee livestreamed the factory floor to showcase its hygienic conditions. Li, the company’s vice-president, claimed these were based on standards used in the pharmaceutical industry. And the recipe has changed to make the snack healthier, he said. “We’re reducing the use of oil, salt, sugar and additives, and using more natural raw ingredients.” The company has made other concerted efforts to appeal to younger buyers, its main consumer base. Mala Wangzi has opened pop-up museums around the country, held more than 4,000 latiao -themed weddings for superfan couples, and

A factory worker checks latiao quality on the production line.

At Beijing AI-themed bar, DeepSeek tokens come with pints

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) and alcohol have three main similarities, according to Beijing bar owner Song De: Hallucinations, bubbles and distillation. As AI enthusiasm sweeps across China, Song hopes his bar can ride the wave. He opened AGI Bar, named after the concept of artificial general intelligence where AI systems surpass human intelligence, last year in Zhongguancun, the capital’s high tech neighbourhood in Haidian district. It is now a hub for Beijing’s AI developers, investors and students. “You’ll see people sitting around a table coming from different labs, competing companies and different universities, all chatting about industry trends right here,” said Song, an independent AI developer in his thirties who runs the bar in his spare time. Located on Zhongguancun’s Inno Way startup street, the bar is a stone’s throw from the elite Tsinghua and Peking universities that produce China’s top AI talent, as well as the offices of well-known Chinese and Western tech firms, including DeepSeek and Microsoft. It has hosted parties for Chinese AI

labs including Z.ai, and regularly holds developer seminars, open-source AI symposiums and university research meetups. “This is a unique and advantageous location. Haidian (district) has always been the heart of scientific research in China. Internet companies are clustered here, and the tech atmosphere, industry investments and VC incubators provide massive momentum for the sector,” Song said. Inside, the walls are plastered with logos, colourful figurines and merchandise from China’s major AI firms, while the giant brass gong struck by Z.ai when it listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January stands proudly outside the entrance. The bar is a symbol of China’s drive to use AI to turn its economy into a high-tech powerhouse, which has even led retirees to adopt AI agents and made coding education for primary school children mainstream. The initiative has already brought about some job disruption and prompted universities to add AI to their curriculums. Deepseek tokens for customers The bar’s signature drink, also called

Song (front) discusses AI-related issues with customers at the bar. – REUTERSPIC AGI, is a 9.90 yuan (RM6) glass of foam. Customers can connect to the bar’s AI agent through WiFi to access free unlimited DeepSeek tokens for coding, which run on two Nvidia DGX Spark computers on display. Song, who believes the discovery of AI is more important than the Industrial Revolution. The bar’s registered Chinese name means “knowledge distillation”, a tongue-in-cheek pun on liquor distillation and AI model distillation. “First off, it’s an AI technical term for transferring knowledge from large “We say AI is a future public utility such as water, electricity and the Internet. AI should be like WiFi,” said