From an innocent children’s cartoon character to a top cultural icon, Peppa Pig , a British preschool animated TV series, has undergone an amazing journey in adapting to Chinese culture and China’s market.

2015

In June, the Peppa Pig TV series was introduced to the Chinese market by Entertainment One and first aired on the CCTV Children’s Channel. Shortly after its publication, Peppa Pig attracted billions of views on social media platforms like iQiyi, Youku and Tudou.

2016

The Peppa Pig TV series was broadcast on the CCTV Children’s Channel for a second round. It also gained more viewers on the Golden Eagle Animation Channel, Hunan TV.

2017

The phrase “Peppa Pig Girl” became one of the hottest buzzwords on China’s Internet. It refers to a girl who holds a positive attitude toward life even though she tends to be lazy in her daily life. She might look a bit silly and often have tasty food as a top priority on her mind.

2018

Rumors claimed that Peppa Pig was banned from Douyin, China’s major video sharing platform, saying it “violates(违反) the community regulations and has not passed censorship (审查制度)”. In May, however, representatives from Douyin said the app was not forbidding Peppa Pig.

2019

According to Entertainment One, more than 40 million Peppa Pig books have been sold since 2016. In the year of the Pig, more companies are adding Peppa-themed elements to their products for promotion.

A primary school principal in north China has become the latest internet celebrity for busting some cool moves during a morning exercise routine with his students.

Every morning, 40-year-old principal Zhang Pengfei at the Xi Guan Primary School in Linyi county, Shanxi province would lead about 700 pupils on the playground in a “ghost shuffle”routine --- a dance that incorporates（吸收；包含） contemporary jazz steps with heel, toe and arm movements. The bold headmaster thought the fun and energetic exercise routine would better encourage students to get active instead of “being glued to their mobile phones”.

The school's new 30-minute dance routine has replaced the government-imposed broadcast callisthenics（健身操） programme , a short workout that has been a requirement at every primary, middle and secondary school in China since 1951. “I thought we needed a change because the students have been losing interest in doing the broadcast callisthenics routine,” Zhang told Southern Metropolis News.

The dedicated principal said he came across a group of people doing the “ghost shuffle” routine at a public plaza last summer and decided to learn the dance himself. “I thought the dance would be great for kids, ” he said. “The music is full of energy and it really gets the happy feeling of flowing.” In October, he introduced the choreographed（编舞）routine to all of his students and shortly after, even teachers and staff were joining in. “Now the students aren't constantly on their phones. I sometimes catch them watching different dance routine videos and learning new moves!” the proud headmaster told reporters.

The video quickly went around on Chinese social media, with a Weibo topic page titled “principal leads students in ghost dance routine” gathering 250 million views. “This is perhaps the best adaption of sport and entertainment for children,” a comment on Weibo read.

It is often difficult for farmers to identify diseases quickly enough to protect their crops and those on neighboring farms. Now, some farmers are using a simple device directly in the field to find viruses before they spread.

In Tanzania, several viruses are a threat to cassava crops. Farmers struggle to identify the diseases in an urgent effort to avoid severe crop damage. The disease identification process is often difficult when farmers are acting on their own. If they do not know what is attacking their crops, they cannot decide the best way to fight the disease. A device from British technology company Oxford Nanopore is changing that. The device extracts deoxyribonucleic acid, better known as DNA, from plants. DNA is the carrier of genetic information in nearly all living things. The device helps farmers identify what is harming their crops so they can change to more resistant crops.

Laura Boykin is with the University of Western Australia and also works with the Cassava Virus Action Project. She brought the device to a Tanzanian farm owned by Asha Mohamed. She said, "We are here collecting leaf punches from infected material to test, to do a DNA extraction and then start sequencing（排序）in the field." The testing identified a number of viruses in the cassava fields near Mohamed's farm. The process also discovered that plants considered resistant to disease had a very low viral level. Once the viruses were identified, Asha Mohamed was given two kinds of seeds that are resistant to the diseases.

In another case, DNA was collected from a pawpaw tree farm in Kenya. With that test, the technology was able to identify diseases affecting Naomi Mumo's crops. Naomi Mumo said,"All my pawpaw were affected by a disease, and I didn't know what kind of disease it was. But now, I have people who have identified the disease using new technology, and within a very short time. So I'm very happy."

The speed at which farmers identify diseases can mean the difference between the success or failure on large areas of crop land. Now, the use of such simple and easily transportable DNA sequencing devices is making that possible.