In the evenings, the sculptures are lit up and ice-lantern park touring activities are held in many parks throughout the city. A number of other winter events take place in the city at the same time as the festival: fireworks display, ice hockey competitions, winter swimming, skiing and speed skating events, football games on expansive snow grounds, poetry jamboree, and ice and snow cinematic festival.

Here are the basics: The Wildfire WF650-C is one foot longer than a Smart Fortwo Passion but weighs more than 1000 pounds less. It is powered by a 650cc, liquid-cooled four-stroke two-cylinder whose output—identical to a Sears Craftsman 27691 riding mower’s—is funneled through a four-speed manual transmission whose linkage is uncanny in its ability to drop flying monkeys on third gear, banishing it to the skies of Oz. (A CVT might have been more useful.) The warranty is two years or 24,000 miles.

Our Wildfire covers the quarter-mile in 27.3 seconds at 48 mph. It cruises most happily at about 40 mph—roughly where third gear tops out—which takes 17 seconds to attain. There’s no tach. You just shift when revs stop climbing. We once got the Wildfire up to 65 mph before it was time to pause for lunch, a meal made less palatable by a trike trait you probably never considered: When you have wheels at both sides and one in the middle, it is tricky to avoid dead animals.

Reading that made us realize we don't know much about cars.

You can find the official Wildfire Motors website here — not all of their vehicles have three wheels. Not sure exactly where in China Wildfires are made or what Chinese company makes them. UPDATE: We found a PDF that says the three-wheeler is "manufactured by Taixing Sandi Motorcycle Co Ltd, sold by Wildfire Motors." Taixing is in Jiangsu and here is the Sandi website.

Chen Hang Feng's Daily Prosperity @ Art Labor
There's a whole load of artists who fuse modern and traditional China, but Chen's work is one of the more interesting takes on the clash of the old and the new. His work appropriates corporate logos to create artworks and patterns in a traditional Chinese mold while for this show he's promising a chandelier made from rubbish he's collected around the city.

Liu Jin's Realistic Odeum @ 140sqm Gallery
Apparently, Liu Jin creates "anti-realistic suppositional environments". We're not really sure what that means, but we like his photos of fallen angels wandering through forests or getting into scrapes at factories.

Wang Tingting's Painted Skin @ FQ Projects
Young artist Wang Tingting's works give a glimpse in to the world of a born-in-the-'80s girl. This is no sweet Shanghai princess though, Wang's work features flowers and fairytales, there's also plenty of "blood and blades".

The Artist Died Yesterday @ Island6
We know it's bad luck to talk about death in the run up to Chinese New Year (or at any time really), but the theme seems to be getting some interesting treatments lately. This collaborative exhibition from 26 foreign and Chinese artists even comes with its own obituary.

Tomorrow

South Rakkas Crew @ Shelter
Teaming up with the Uprooted Sunshine gang, the dancehall masters blaze a trail to the Shelter to drop their electro-reggae influenced sound. You've probably heard their reworking of The Jacksons' 'Can You Feel It' bouncing off the walls of a club before, but if not check it out here.

Coming Soon

we are ENFANT TERRIBLE lead a Parisian pop and French electro invasion of LOgO on Friday; Saturday sees local IDM masterclasses from Dead J and Liman down at Shelter; The 5th Wall ensemble stage some marriage counseling in their original piece of theatre from January 16-17; Also on the 16th, outstanding local pop-punkers Pinkberry support Beijing punk act Demerit at The Dream Factory; Pioneering Beijing music label Maybe Mars bring a night of top quality acts to Shanghai with Ourself Beside Me (featuring former Hang on the Box members), Carsick Cars, and Snapline.

Keep an eye on Shanghaiist for more info on all of these events nearer the time.

...we’ve switched from Cao Lang Feng down by the Suzhou Zoo to Wang Wang Gong Guan (汪旺公馆) here in SIP. The closer proximity is a bonus, but the choice was hardly ours. After going to Vet Cao for the last few days, when Maggie went there yesterday the staff explained that if we wanted to stay we’d have to pay the approx. 1500 RMB/day because the dog food distributor had cut off payment there.

Rather confused by this turn of events, the story we got from Vet Cao was that the cheap-ass distributor didn’t want to pay the high costs associated with the “premium” care at Cao Lang Feng Animal Hospital - largely considered the most well-equipped vet in Suzhou.

The distributor (predictably) had a different opinion. He told Maggie that Cao Lang Feng had been using this aflatoxin exposure as a big payday. He accused Vet Cao of ordering unneeded and excessive testing and expensive blood transfusions as a way to beef up the bill - which he knew the “clients” wouldn’t have to pay for. He then also said he’d heard that Vet Cao was overheard saying to a friend, “When else am I going to get a chance to make this money from them?” The distributor seemed pretty bothered by this, as he had a long relationship with the animal hospital. He also added that at least one dog brought in with this problem had died not from the liver damage, but because no one was caring for the dog while it was having an IV.