☕️ Good morning, friends,

The asiabits team is flying to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan this weekend. So we’re kicking off the week with a local specialty: bamboo worm coffee. If anything wakes you up on a Monday morning, it’s that.

Consumer group of the week: the superstitious. A woman in northern China spent nearly 10,000 USD trying to get rid of her crow’s feet. She believed her wrinkles were making her husband unfaithful and hurting her grandson’s grades.

You can see the result here. By the way, the money was her grandson’s school tuition…

P.S. Yesterday we sent you a survey to make asiabits even better. Please take a moment to fill it out if you haven’t yet. 🤝

BENCHMARKS

NUMBER OF THE DAY

+40 %

That’s the surge of live-captured rats Hong Kong has seen compared to last year. With AI-powered surveillance, a total of 89,600 rodents were trapped.

🐀 Tech Revolution: Thermal cameras with AI are replacing traditional sweet potato bait.

📹 Precision Hunting: Three days of continuous monitoring reveal rodents’ movement patterns and peak activity times, allowing pest controllers to set traps at exactly the right moment.

Watch: Hong Kong proves how AI can transform even centuries-old trades—smart pest control could soon become an export model for megacities worldwide.

TOP BIT

💍 Pandora in China: Store Closures as a Wake-Up Call

The Danish jewelry brand is closing far more stores in China than planned. Sales remain well below 2019 levels.
At the same time, consumer demand has shifted: instead of silver charms, utility and resale value matter more today. On secondhand platforms, more Pandora pieces from impulse purchases are popping up. The brand is responding by cutting weak locations and focusing on profitable ones.

The Details

 🏪 Market Trend: Domestic brands have been steadily gaining …