Brenna Dugan

Recent Actions

• Posted RIP: Nottingham Gym to Shanghaiist
  Imagine going to your gym to work out, and instead of being greeted by ladies in smart suits, you find a piece of paper saying something vague like “Due to a problem, the gym has closed.” Sound familiar? This happened at Golds Gym in 2003 and it happened again this morning, just a few blocks away, at Nottingham Gym. Are the gyms in Jing'an cursed? Apparently, at this small gym, things had been going down...
• Posted Friendlies, face the facts: Your names are silly to Shanghaiist
  The “Five Friendlies” themselves have received a warm welcome (meaning that people spent far too much money on them when they first came out) but no one seems to like that they're called "The Five Friendlies". Although in Chinese their names spell out “Beijing Welcomes You,” (Bei bei+Jing jing+Huan huan+Ying ying+Ni ni=Beijing huan ying ni) nothing quite so “clever” is done with their English name, which to Shanghaiist bears too much connection to a place...
• Posted Xiangyang Market crackdown to Shanghaiist
  For all of you who are afraid of accidentally buying fake brand-name goods when all you really want is a pair of socks, this is your day. Having been to Xiangyang Market over the weekend, we heard from one of the “salesmen” that the yearly crackdown is going on as we speak and that it lasts until Wednesday. What does this mean? It means that people selling Montblanc pens and Chanel keychains have to quickly...
• Posted Xintiandi is No. 1 to Shanghaiist
  It’s official, Xintiandi is the most popular entertainment street (even though it's not really a street) in the city according to 80 percent of respondents in a survey. Thirteen thousand votes were taken by mail, Internet and telephone from locals as well as “people from other places,” according to Shanghai Star (Nov. 10 print edition). We’re not sure if that means tourists, foreigners or aliens, but we do get a sneaking suspicion that the people...
• Posted RIP: Jingwen Flower Market to Shanghaiist
  Goodbye beautiful bunches of roses for 10 yuan. Goodbye piles of cheap Christmas decorations. Goodbye grumpy man who sold us a money tree. Goodbye woman who tied together beautiful corsages for our wedding, only to add the world's gaudiest bow at the bottom. Farewell. Adieu. You will be missed. The Jingwen Flower Market, which was at 225 Shaanxi Nan Lu (and also had a gate at Maoming Nan Lu, which was a happenin’ bar strip)...