On a warm mid-April afternoon, the pastel-coloured castle of Pop Mart’s Pop Land rose like a “magic kingdom” in Beijing’s Chaoyang Park. Inside, a group of young British visitors laughed, took photos, and discovered the stories behind the vinyl figures they had long collected back home. They are all student union representatives from universities including the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Leeds, who came to Chaoyang district to experience Chinese culture, explore cutting-edge technology and build bridges of understanding. “I had no idea that all these different characters were under Pop Mart,” says Maximilian Camara from the University of Leeds. He had bought a Crybaby blind box at a London mall, only to discover later that the quirky figurine had taken British social media by storm.…