December 30, 2024
BEIJING – It was the evening before Christmas when a mysterious Santa Claus hid snow globes and a Christmas tree stuffed toy in Beijing’s university district Haidian before uploading hints of their location online.
Within minutes, the festive trinkets were retrieved despite the winter chill, according to strangers who shared photos of their spoils with the blogger who had hidden them just half an hour earlier.
In China, hiding gifts around town has become a daily affair as “city treasure hunting” hots up on Instagram-like platform Xiaohongshu.
Hashtags with a city’s name followed by xunbao – the Chinese term for treasure hunting – clue hobbyists in on where and what trinkets have been hidden by bloggers. By Dec 26, such hashtags had racked up more than 36 million views on Xiaohongshu.
From Sichuan to Shandong, a growing group of young Chinese are transforming their cities into playgrounds by leaving goodies such as handicrafts, milk tea packets and blind boxes around.
The trend joins a global treasure-hunting movement known as geocaching, where participants use Global Positioning System-enabled devices to search for containers concealed outdoors.
On Xiaohongshu, bloggers share videos and photos of the items they hide, along with instructions on where the public can retrieve them.
Several young Chinese told The Straits Times that these treasure hunts help spread joy amid the economic gloom in China, where growth remains sluggish despite the world’s second-largest economy lifting Covid-19 restrictions at the end of 2022.
Ms Daisy Guo, who lives in Shanghai, said treasure hunting breaks the monotony of city life – where a person simply travels back and forth between work and home – by giving people something fun to do.
The 34-year-old uses the activity as a means to give away excess purchases to people who can make better use of them.
“There was once a girl who shared that receiving a gift that day lifted her spirits, which made me feel rewarded,” said Ms Guo, who had hidden a Yuletide-themed package with goodies like an apple-shaped candle. In recent years, gifting apples has become a Christmas tradition in China, as the Chinese term for apple sounds a bit like Christmas Eve.
The trend joins a global treasure hunting movement known as geocaching, where participants search for containers concealed outdoors using GPS-enabled devices. PHOTOS: QIJIYAYA/XIAOHONGSHU, BAOHETANG/XIAOHONGSHU/THE STRAITS TIMES
Ms Ula Wang, a Wuxi city native in her 20s, hopes treasure hunting will help people around her feel the small forms of happiness there are in daily life. She said: “It’s akin to when a waiter tells you that the next table has already paid for your meal.”
Ms Wang, who is on a gap year, customises her gifts according to the needs of people who frequent the area where she hides them in. For example, she places coffee or milk tea packets near office areas or an umbrella on a rainy day.
“I think treasure hunting has become very popular these days because everyone is more concerned about happiness,” she said. “Finding treasures is a low-cost way of fulfilling that aspiration multiple times.”
Ms Ula Wang customises her gifts according to the needs of people who frequent the area. PHOTO: WANGWULA/XIAOHONGSHU/THE STRAITS TIMES
PhD student Hetang Wang, 28, sees the activity as a way to distribute her handicrafts to a larger audience after realising how her artwork could cheer others up.
While hospitalised for depression in May, Ms Wang, a resident of the eastern seaside city of Weihai, started making crafts from twist sticks to give to nurses, who were happy to receive the gifts.
She was inspired to leave the handicrafts she had made in hidden locations for strangers to find after encountering the trend on her Xiaohongshu feed.
While the first handmade dog she hid was found only half a day later, the experience left a lasting impression. The photographer who found it thanked her and took some nice photos. He then hid the dog again for the next person, who kept it.
Ms Wang said: “Through receiving positive feedback and making connections with strangers, I’ve realised that the world can actually be a beautiful place.”
PhD student Hetang Wang hopes that her handmade toy dogs can spread happiness to others. PHOTOS: BAOHETANG/XIAOHONGSHU/THE STRAITS TIMES
For others, hiding treasures is just part of a job to boost social media traffic with the latest trends.
Ms Kaya Zhang, 28, was hired to run an account targeting students of Beijing’s institutes of higher learning.
“I select my treasures according to the hobbies of the demographic I am targeting, so I typically hide Pop Mart blind boxes that are very popular among university students,” she said.
Although the earliest videos of city treasure hunting appeared as early as 2020 on short video app Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – all five bloggers ST spoke to said the trend appears to have found new life in 2024 on Xiaohongshu, where they learnt about it.
Ms Jia Dongyi, 27, who is pursuing a PhD in Shanghai, said the trinkets hidden these days are far more diverse than those featured in Douyin in previous years, which showcased bloggers hiding items such as cash.
“Perhaps it’s because Douyin pushes content that immediately grabs eyeballs, that’s why items hidden tend to be simple and unrefined. In contrast, items hidden on Xiaohongshu tend to be more meaningful,” she said.
Christmas-themed gifts hidden by Ms Jia Dongyi. PHOTO: QIEQIEZHUOMICANG/XIAOHONGSHU/THE STRAITS TIMES
As treasure hunting grows in popularity, detractors have raised concerns that the activity can be misused to hide malicious items and inconvenience personnel manning public spaces.
“Please stop this kind of treasure hunting games,” declared a November post with 61,900 likes, adding that packages could create unnecessary panic and work as they could be easily mistaken as terror threats or litter.
Responding to the critics, Ms Ula Wang said: “I think other bloggers have also seen the criticism, so everyone is choosing to place our items in outdoor locations such that it will not cause problems for subway or shopping mall staff.”
She also opts for sealed food items so no one can taint them.
Typically, treasures are hidden in places with high human traffic, which means they are snapped up in minutes.
When this reporter attempted to find such gifts on Christmas Eve in Beijing, all four gifts placed near universities and Universal Studios throughout the day were taken before she could board the train to get there.
The writer finding a geocache in Beijing shopping street Wangfujing on Dec 24. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
Chinese users who find these treasures often share their gratitude on social media with communities the bloggers have created for their fans.
Among them was someone who snagged the stuffed Christmas tree hidden in Haidian on Christmas Eve.
The user said: “I saw the post while buying dinner, so I rushed over. Thanks! I’m really happy. I originally felt I was very unlucky today.”
Ang Qing is a journalist covering local and international breaking news at The Straits Times, with a focus on the environment, crime, technology and social issues.