As the sweltering summer heat creeps up in Chinese cities, their residents have made a chilling discovery: soaring ice cream prices.
Akira Cao, an event planner in his 20s from eastern Jiangsu province, decided to treat himself after a hard day of work to a Chicecream ice cream, known as the “Hermes of ice cream”, popular with the country’s sweet-toothed Gen-Z.
“I know that Chicecream is expensive, but I was not ready for the price tag,” he said. Akira forked out Rmb128 ($19) for the ice cream dessert, more than six times the minimum hourly wage in the province. He later took to social media to “thank the kind-hearted robber who left me with an ice cream”.