Extra! Extra! Zhang Ziyi, web stats and Japanese manhole covers

Ever wonder why Zhang Ziyi speaks English so fast and always makes her sentences rhyme?
".cn" is the new favorite suffix for web addresses in China. And Chinese consider Google to be the best search engine, although more people still use Baidu. Oh, and China now has 111 million internet users. And 14 percent of youths in Shanghai are addicted to the internet.
Japan has turned manhole covers into works of art. Not a bad idea.
Only 40 percent of the illegal coal mines China wanted to close in 2005 ended up getting shut down.
What can US$24,444 get you in Hangzhou? One Chinese New Year meal. (The price isn't so unlucky when converted to yuan.) Meanwhile, in Shanghai 100 yuan can buy you a "mountainful of monkeys."
The New Yorker ran a story about the "radical quaintness" of Xintiandi recently -- a few years too late. They even made a Blade Runner reference when describing the Pudong skyline. Radical.

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