A little bit of light was shed on the saga involving human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng this week, but his whereabouts remain shrouded in mystery. Speaking with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yang Jiechi denied that Gao had been tortured, but claimed he had been sentenced to prison for subversion. However, Yang did not clarify whether he was referring to a new sentence or citing the suspended sentence handed down to Gao in 2006 for having written an open letter to President Hu Jintao claiming Falun Gong adherents had been mistreated. more ›

In China, paranoia is never too far away, but now an anxious bunch are not even letting medical diagnoses put their minds at rest. BBC News' Chris Hogg reported that hundreds of people in China believe they may have a "new disease with HIV-like symptoms", while doctors claim this is all in the mind. more ›

It may only be a spit away by plane, but for those of us too cheap environmentally concerned to fly, getting up to Beijing for the weekend is a bitch (despite our love of munching through a bottomless nosebag of sunflower seeds to looped pan-pipe renditions of Celine Dion songs). Which is why we don't go. So the proposed high-speed line between Shanghai and BJ, which will reportedly cane it along at 350km/h and take... more ›

China's hospitals and in particular, Chinese hospital food, do not necessarily have the highest of reputations. Now the whole scare factor of heading off to a Sino hospital has just raised that little bit more with the recent story that a poisoner is at large in a Harbin hospital restaurant. more ›

These days, Shanghaiist is rarely surprised about anything that happens in China. However, we did think that this news story did come from a little out of left-field. A Henan-based investor group is constructing a 21-kilometre (13 mile) long metal Chinese dragon as a tourist attraction. The dragon's body forms a nine-metre (27-foot) high wall running along a ridge-line, with the dragon's head rising 10-metres (30-feet) above the surrounding land. This project plans to cover the metal structure in 5.6 million pieces of white marble and gilded bronze to form the dragon's scales which Xinhua reports should be "symbolic of the country's 56 ethnic groups". The dragon construction is planned to finished by 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. The investor group states that advertising space on the giant serpent also will be sold and tourists can pay to have their names and other messages inscribed on the walls of galleries located inside. more ›

And you thought it was just a Canadian bar. (Did you, really? I mean, they do have a Canadian map on the wall. But they also have this mantra posted, in big block letters: REAL MEN EAT BEAVER.) Shanghaiist ended up at the Eager Beaver last night after a late dinner at Anadolu -- home of the 18 RMB beef doner wrap and the 25 RMB can of Tsingtao. At the Beaver, bottles of Tsingtao were 15 RMB, 50 Years of BBC News played sans sound on the flat screen and someone handed out tiny slips of paper advertising "Beaver Breaks," an evening of "HipHop/Breakbeat/Drum'n'Bass/Ragga" from your favorite DJs The Melkman, Skyline and DJ O. Pretty much your average Wednesday night near Dongping Lu. more ›