Results tagged “babies”

Young Shanghainese unwilling to pop out babies

Guess the two child incentive wasn't enough to make young people in Shanghai have more children. Statistics from the Shanghai population and family planning commission noted that almost 8% of couples of prime child bearing age are hesitant to have kids, up 3.37% from 2003. Reasons why include the rise of nursing costs and increasing competitive pressure at work. The lack of kids will only speed up the population aging trend, officials said, with estimates that by 2035, 40% of people in Shanghai will be older than 60.

Female infant for sale on Taobao for 1 Yuan

Taobao - the place where you can buy everything... even, it seems, babies. An anonymous seller put an infant up for sale on the online auction site yesterday for the low price of 1RMB. Of no surprise to anyone who's read of unwanted babies in China - this one was a girl.

Photo of the Day: The butt of a joke

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We're sending happy thoughts and well wishes to...

...two abandoned conjoined twin girls who will undergo separation surgery tomorrow at Shanghai Children's Hospital. Six-month-old Sui Jianshuang and Sui Jianlian are connected from the chest bone to the stomach for 15cm. They share a liver, but each has her own heart, lungs, kidneys and digestive system, making the chances of surviving a separation surgery better. The girls were abandoned outside an orphanage in Guangdong province, which then contacted Shanghai Children's Hospital about the possibility of surgery late last month. The hospital agreed to take on the case, and have also issued a country-wide alert for the parents to come forward. "We want their parents to show up so they can have a real family," a hospital official said. Awwwww! Source: Shanghai Daily

Made in China deal: Half off abortions with your student ID

This latest ad has managed to shake ever our most jaded "This is China" hearts. A hospital in Chongqing is offering half price abortions if you show your student ID.

Chinese still aren't breastfeeding enough

China is still lagging behind national and global breastfeeding targets, according to China Daily. Just 45.3% of newborns were breastfed for a full for months and only 20% of mothers breastfeed their infants for at least six months. WHO targets suggest that all infants six months or younger be fully breastfed. Part of the reason has been the "aggressive promotion of baby formula products" which mislead young mothers through exaggerations that their product make babies "smarter" and "healthier." This is despite the whole melanine scandal, which seems to have little impact despite all the unfortunate deaths.

Expat new mothers now able to get <em>yuesao</em> option

Chinese customs dictate that a woman who's just given birth spend about a month after delivery inside, in bed, without any form of stress (including eating cold foods). Usually, they have a specific type of ayi to help with zuo yuezi, called a yuesao. Now, according to City Weekend, expat women can partake in the tradition too! For RMB3,000 to 5,000 a month, your yuesao will help you with newborn care and make sure you follow Chinese traditions to a tee. While we're trying to remain open minded to the option, the only way we would possibly want to stay indoors for a month post-partum is if every day and every night included a nice stiff drink.

Chongqing woman uses breast milk for baby bath water

A Chinese mother is producing so much breast milk that she bathes her baby in the excess every day. The mother said she usually ends up producing two liters more milk than her six-week-old daughter needs to drink, so the family has been finding clever ways to get rid of it. At first, she, her husband and her mother-in-law took turns drinking the extra milk. But when there was still plenty left over, they began giving the baby milk baths, which have made the baby's skin very smooth and white. Source: Ananova

Photo of the Day: Bliss

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

A British couple, Scott and Cecile Spirit, has donated RMB400,000 to the Shanghai Children's Hospital to jumpstart the Foundation for Newborns with Respiratory Diseases in the memory of one of their twin sons who died four weeks after they were born prematurely. The Shanghai Children's Health Foundation will donate a further RMB100,000 to the fund which aims to help poor parents seeking treatment for their babies born with respiratory diseases — the cause of 15 percent of neonatal mortality in China. Scott Spirit moved to Shanghai late 2006 and is the China Strategy Director for the advertising group WPP. [Source]

Two new parents from Leizhou, Guangdong got a bit of a surprise last week when they discovered that their newborn baby boy had eight toes on each foot. The baby has the usual number of fingers (ten in total), but oddly enough, no thumbs at all. Doctors say the birth anomaly could have been caused by either genetics or environmental pollution, though that doesn't seem like much of a prognosis to us at all.

From Reuters:

UP TO five per cent of infants in Shanghai could have kidney stones after drinking tainted milk formula, media reported on Friday, as publicity surrounding the scandal was muted by China's manned space launch.

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Welcome to the latest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

  • Zhang Zhenling, Sanlu's vice president, has made a public apology (see video on right) but did not explain why the company took so long to take proper measures in letting the public know about the contamination.
  • A second baby has died and 1,253 infants have been diagnosed with illnesses linked to the contaminated milk powder. The Health Ministry expects a 'possibly rising' toll. (Update: Three babies have died, more than 6,244 others have fallen ill, with 158 strickened with kidney failure)
  • Sanlu Group has sacked Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of the group. Tian has also been stripped from her post as the secretary of the corporation committee of the Communist Party of China.

Yesterday, a newborn baby girl was discovered by a Paralympics spectator in the restrooms of Beijing's Bird's Nest. The mother, who seemed to have given birth in the bathrooms was not to be found. The baby was taken to hospital and declared to be in good health.

For starters, we have moved the cook-off to the street that runs alongside Bubba's Bar-B-Que (between us and Marriott Hong Qiao). It is a nice, tree-lined street and we're gonna close that sucker down to traffic and allow pedestrians and cooks only. Oh sure, we'll have music, games for kids, and games for adults as well.

To improve pork quality, Beijing pigs will listen to soothing music

This is the trailer for a new British documentary which the Chinese embassy in London is apparently trying to stop Channel 4 from broadcasting, according to the Sunday Times.

In other Shanghaiist news, our favourite media blog Danwei has offered your correspondent a very special Toilet Bowl Award as part of their recent Model Worker's Awards for "posting regularly about news that no one else is finding, and translating some of the more interesting stuff on the Chinese Internet". We have also been singled out for our "excellent contribution to the toilet sector, for the posts Shanghai artist's Nike poo, and especially for the video displayed at this page: New bidet that doubles as enema and colon cleanser." We wish we could take all the credit for it but the first story came in as a tip while the second one was a quite a boo-boo on our part. We've actually since unpublished the post (but somehow it still appears), reason being, one of our colleagues already wrote about it earlier this year. Anyhow, we shall graciously accept our toilet bowl and promise to polish it religiously.

Shanghaiist has been hearing a lot of rumours of late of dodgy, well, more dodgy behaviour along the Tongren Lu bar strip south of Nanjing Road. This morning, Shanghaiist was forwarded an email by our golf-enthralled editor via one of his trusted acquaintances. The email contained details regarding the assault of two expat males on Tongren Lu this week.

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week.



  • "China Digital Times has noted a Wall Street Journal article that reports on heightened sensitivities around the subject - sensitivities that may have resulted in the current issue of the business magazine Caijing being pulled and revised."




  • "A member of China's parliament has demanded the immediate closure of a Starbucks coffee shop set up inside Beijing's Forbidden City, the Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday."




  • "Ads for soft drinks and fashion magazines have crept onto Chinese campuses - not only spoiling the ambiance but undermining the very essence of education in the arts and sciences."




  • "The majority of the foreign visitors expected during the 2008 Games have religious beliefs, and we should cater to their needs," said Liu Bainian, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).




  • "What is the truth about the 'green paint on the mountain in Fumin county, Yunnan' incident that shook up the nation? Does the local government bear any responsibility? Was this the act of an individual businessman?"




  • "In a joint statement released late Sunday, the Supreme People's Court, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice and the country's top prosecutor also said condemned prisoners should not be paraded through the streets and suspects should not be tortured."




  • "The government took its assault on the internet gaming world a step further this week with an announcement that it perceives the explosion in virtual currencies used in a variety of online gaming forums – everything from Second Life to World of Warfare to virtual poker rooms – as a serious threat to its national security."




  • "The overall airport reconstruction project in the western China region will cost 52 billion yuan (6.5 billion US dollars), including an input of 9.6 billion yuan (1.2 billion dollars) and the sum is higher than the input for the same use in east China, according to media reports from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC)."




  • "Apple has sent a letter to Shanghai Municipal Consumer Interest Protection Commission and said that it will make improvements on its after-sales service, which has seen many complaints from Chinese users."




  • "Until now, one kind of establishment has eluded the city: the boutique hotel. But a new wave of these hotels are opening this year, providing yet another lure to entice the young international travelers who are already flocking to this city, whose transformation is occurring at breathtaking speed."




  • "Yet nearly three months later, the deal's appeal among consumers and financial community is waning after an initial burst of interest, according to Tom Group Inc., one of Tom Online's largest shareholders."




  • "China expects to start making large commercial aircraft developed domestically by 2020, an aviation industry official said Monday, raising the possibility of competition for Boeing and Airbus in the country's booming market for new planes."




  • "More than 200 top athletes of extreme sports from America, Brazil, Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries and regions will compete for over US$100,000 on X Games Asia 2007 this May in Shanghai." America? Brazil?




  • "Thousands of residents in the districts of Xuhui, Minhang and Pudong have already been told that move they must. Many feel taken by surprise. Expressions of opposition have proliferated on the internet."




  • "Bookshop owners in Shanghai are snapping at an influx of camera-wielding pirates taking photos of pages to avoid paying for pricey books, local media reported on Monday."




  • "A fierce strike from midfielder Yu Tao seven minutes into the second half, however, gave Shenhua victory over Shandong on Sunday and earned the team a share of a two million yuan ($258,300) bonus from multimillionaire owner Zhu Jun."




  • "Silvercross, the iconic British pram company that supplied generations of Windsor babies, has struck a deal to sell its products in China, becoming the latest UK company to cash in on the booming Chinese middle class desire for heritage brands." Pram?




  • "Traffic authorities in Shanghai will link cycling lanes around the city this year to create a network of lanes with no obstructions, as one of several measures to improve conditions for drivers and cyclists in the city."




  • "The Shanghai Call Centre, which was launched almost a year ago, provides both English and Chinese information about tourist destinations, culture, sports, trade, medical care and other issues concerning daily life in Shanghai."




  • "Please note: supermarket is fine tuned for convinience, not neccessary for price, or quality. If you want more fresh vegetables, and fruits, many some local market is better, such as the Beicai Market nearby."




  • "China will intensify controls of the growing numbers of bloggers using the Internet to lay bare their thoughts, politics and even bodies, the country's chief censor has announced."




  • "All company-operated and licensed Starbucks stores in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China will be giving away free Tall (12-ounce) cups of coffee to anyone who drops by."




  • "I want to use the blog to not only discuss the development of Chinese Movie Database, but also the movie news that interests me, and my experiences of movie going, and perhaps other things."




  • "A Chinese lawmaker has proposed a tax on urban dog-owners to curb growing numbers of the animals and to fight rabies, state media has reported."




  • "A new property law is a breakthrough, even though it raises hopes that one-party rule may dash"


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    Photo by Mike Chen found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page.



  • "'What needs to be stressed is that China has always advocated the peaceful use of space, opposes the weaponisation of space and arms races in space.'"




  • "China will not loosen its one-child policy, despite a top family planning official’s acknowledgment Tuesday that it was partly to blame for a worsening problem of too many boy babies and not enough girls in the world’s most populous nation."




  • "'Hawks say (the missile) boosting (Chinese) spirits, strengthens our country's power, not to mention that others are also doing it; Doves say this violates the outer space treaty, increases international distrust, and might cause a new round of outer space weapon competition.'"




  • "The Chinese broadcasting monitor has called for only 'ethically inspiring' television shows during prime time to foster national harmony before a major meeting of the ruling Communist Party..."




  • "Chinese scientists have found fossil remains of a four-winged dinosaur called a Microraptor, with feathers on both its forelimbs and hind limbs. ... Six fossilized specimens were found in Liaoning Province in northeastern China. They are dated between 124 million to 128 million years."




  • "The Beijing drive-through, which opened Friday, is the first in McDonald's venture with China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. Jeffrey Schwartz, McDonald's China chief executive, said 25 to 30 more joint sites would open in the next 12 to 18 months."




  • "Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have partnered with a joint venture operating in China that develops technology for distributing music downloads and other content to mobile phones, the record companies said Tuesday."




  • "... 'The Place Hotel & Spa' is expected greet customers at an average price of 350 US dollars per night, much more expensive than the current 220 dollar average among Shanghai's five-star hotels. Located in downtown Jing'an District, the hotel is tucked amidst a group of high-end hotels ..."




  • "When new ticketing machines go into use at Metro stations around the city, passengers will be able to buy tickets with bankcards, not just coins, notes or a public transport card."




  • "China's new bullet trains will make their debut runs between Shanghai and two nearby cities on Sunday, the Shanghai Railway Administration confirmed yesterday."




  • "Prosecutors discovered that Zhou was suspect of bribery and falsification of value-added tax invoices during their investigation into the city's pension fund scandal, the Procuratorate said."




  • "If you don’t have the fortune of knowing what roujiamo is, check out these photos. If you detest the vile weed as much as I do, you’ll also want to make sure you know how to tell them to hold the cilantro."




  • "So there I was in my basement in my underwear eating a bag of Cheetos and downing a six-pack of Mountain Dew wondering how I could date an Asian woman. I had seen enough cute Asian girls in kung fu movies, hadn’t I?"




  • "Let's keep a few things in perspective. Rui is no 'ordinary grass-roots Chinese person.' I first met him not in Beijing but in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum."


  • For more del.icio.us links, visit the Shanghaiist Contribute page, which is updated throughout the day.

    Photo by spiky247 found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page.

    A Xinhua report dated Jan 11 tells us of a problem we all knew was bound to happen — that there will be MANY lonely Chinese men in the years to come.

    Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost.

    DJ Krush is pretty money. Even at the age of 44, the veteran abstract aural architect has still got it.

    The story goes on to reveal that Baidu has a network of "200 different distributors who in turn farm out the others" to sell keywords for search advertising:

    We just saw a commercial for Wang Wang coffee-flavored jelly drops (咖啡果冻) that made us pause and think. It featured a Caucasian man speaking Chinese. If you've seen these types of commercials, you probably know that the voices are dubbed over, and that the accented Chinese you're hearing most likely a Chinese person faking a non-Chinese person's accent.

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