A few weeks ago, Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China reported:I just received an email from a friend who said that they were being told they could not renew their F visa fro within China anymore. A quick Skype to another confirmed that F visas cannot be extended past the Olympics. That apparently is not the case, but the cost of an F visa has gone up quite a bit. In Richard's latest......

We’ve known since arriving in Shanghai that there are two types of waiguoren out there: the ones with the chauffeur-driven cars, portly bellies and a company villa in a hermetically-sealed Jinqiao gated community; and the rest of us. Not that Shanghaiist is bitter or anything, in fact, we quite like the directionless romantic bent of our life at present. Which is why we’re suspicious of labels, such as this one, dug up by John at......

If you guys have passed by CITIC Square on Nanjing Lu in the past month or two, you'd surely have seen that Mont Blanc has taken over the ground level store that used to be occupied by Starbucks, and apparently, they are building the world's largest Mont Blanc boutique right there. All Roads Leads to China reveals that Mont Blanc is paying US$11 per square metre per day, which works out to about US$250,000 per......

On finding out about the Youtube block, these were the first reactions of Chinese blogger Ken Wong:昨晚YouTube发布了香港分站也即繁体中文站时，我还可以正常访问所有YouTube站点，而今天一大早起来，就发现已经全部撞墙了（广州电信ADSL）。看了一下昨晚读者朋友们的反馈，他们也和我一样。暂时还不知道该说什么好，或者一个字就够了：扌喿！ Yesterday when Youtube released its Hong Kong / Traditional Chinese version, I could still access Youtube normally, but this morning when I woke up, I found that it had been bummed (I'm on Guangzhou Telecom ADSL). Comments on yesterday's post from readers suggest they experienced the same thing. I don't really know how to respond to this, except......

Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere: Angry Chinese Blogger takes a look at a draft copy of a coming report from the World Bank regarding the cost of pollution in China, and finds that recent reports of Beijing using its global influence to have certain pieces of information excised from the publication are apparently true. Looks like we can start chalking up China's famed "for the good of society"......

Rumor: Chinese Xbox 360 in "next few months" - Joystiq Microsoft is in talks with Chinese internet providers and government ministries for a possible Chinese New Year launch. (tags: Microsoft Xbox360 games gaming internet computers China) Foreigners working in Shanghai might get new government health care service The city government is considering offering health insurance to foreigners working in Shanghai, alleviating problems for those whose work does not offer health insurance or who are......