From Hong Kong-based blogger Thomas Crampton: The Chinese link? The Fail Whale was drawn by Chinese graphic designer Lu Yiying, who sold it on iStockPhoto for US$10, according to Jay Oatway of the Hong Kong-based Charged magazine. Thanks to Twitter’s perpetual failures, Lu’s Fail Whale now features on t-shirts and coffee mugs while other artists create kinetic Fail Whale sculptures. The Sydney-based Lu Yiying fanned the flames of fandom with a girlfriend (and the official......

Freshly fired from Windows Underground, Brad finally has time to blog again. Here's a snippet from "My Shanghai Story (Part 1)", about the Texan's introduction to Shanghai's underground live music scene: "About a month later John, some other friends, and I went to our first real underground rock show at the Sus2 Music Factory (a real factory!) where Reflector (反光镜) and Loudspeaker (扩音器) played a late-afternoon show to a crowd of pierced/mohawked/Dr Marten’d students. I......

After Xinhua reported that county officials in Weng’an—including its Communist Party secretary, Wang Qin, and head of the county government, Wang Haiping—were fired on Friday following the June 28 riots, Western media has hailed Weng’an as a turning point for China. Both WSJ and TIME remark that Xinhua’s handling of the Weng’an incident is remarkable in itself; not only did state media report the riots almost immediately, but quickly produced "unusually long investigative stories." Adding......

China's bloggers have always gone to extreme lengths to share information and criticism. But after the Weng'an riots this weekend, bloggers have had to become especially crafty when distributing information on the riots and their aftermath. In addition to burying coding inside search phrases that hide the words from online censors and taking a screenshot of written text, the Wall Street Journal reports netizens on Tianya.cn now flipping sentences to read right to left instead......

We were right. The Olympic Bible ban controversy would spill over. And it has, in a most unbelievably crazy fashion. More ill-informed Christian and Catholic news media have given legs to the story. Somewhere along the way, the rumour became a fact, and a debate has made its way to the hallowed halls of the US Congress! Senator Lindsey Graham has made a complete idiot of himself by calling up the Chinese Ambassador to the......

So in the meanwhile, Youtube remains blocked. Shanghai blogger John Pasden of Sinosplice informs us that Youtube wasn't the only unlucky fella. Revver.com and Dailymotion.com also appear to be hit. And of course Google Video was never accessible in China to begin with, so that's a no-count. But the mainstream media don't seem to be bothered with the Youtube block. If you don't believe me, just compare for yourself by clicking here and here. For......

Okay, Shanghaiist has got several hundred blogs on his RSS that he scans through everyday. Some things scream at us, others are quickly forgotten and yet others are hidden in some corner of our brain for (mostly useless) information ready to be used at some future point in time. There are all these bloggers that you've never met personally that you can form an impression of only after a long period of reading their blogs.......

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......

Like we told you before, Chinese state media are beginning to get the hang of the art of spin. CDT informs us that People's Daily Online ran an article about President Hu's wonderful skills in the traditional Chinese art of paper-cutting and this has spawned yet another wave of satirical commentaries from Chinese bloggers, read here, here and here (in Chinese). Really, Shanghaiist would love to lay his hands on a pic or video of......

Just when the thought we heard the last of the Olympic pigs, we found this headline from Beijing Daily just screaming at us while we were scanning the Chinese news yesterday:北京提升猪肉产品质量 生猪入圈静养听音乐 To improve pork quality, Beijing pigs will listen to soothing music So apart from getting fed an organic diet and being put through a daily exercise regime, it appears the pigs will get to hear soothing music while being bathed each day! Said......

China's growing web addiction [CBNnews.com] The Internet has revolutionized the way that millions in China communicate with the outside world. But for some Chinese teenagers the thrill of using the Internet came with a high price: addiction. China bloggers stew about Olympic pigs [Wall Street Journal] In recent weeks, news that hogs are being specially raised to feed the athletes at the next year's Beijing Olympics has spurred an outcry on the Internet. The pigs......

We had a good laugh when we saw this "patriotic" banner by Chinese blogger Xiucai ("秀才") which reads: "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. Xiucai is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features." [h/t to Rebecca Mackinnon] The truth is, as the 17th Party Congress looms closer, Chinese bloggers have been having anything but a party. MacKinnon also points us to an excellent post......

A man on the inside sent us this Brand Republic story from late last week. If you've ever wondered why bloggers never link to the South China Morning Post or why you don't see any stories from them on Google News, here's why: HONG KONG – South China Morning Post’s online publisher Chris Axberg is departing his role, after failing to agree with SCMP management on the business model of its online platform. Axberg, who......

Walking into Steak & Eggs, Shanghaiist was flooded with fond childhood memories of chowing down on big greasy breakfasts at truck-stop diners during family road trips along Interstate 10. Sure, we love Moon River and its classic 1950's theme, but Steak & Eggs is the first place we've eaten at in Shanghai that fits the mold of the no-frills American roadside diner. The owner is a friendly Canadian named Paul, who opened the first two......

Here, Shanghai, were your favourite stories for the month of August: Most Voted 1. Man with world's largest hand in Shanghai for surgery 2. Giant man-eating catfish found in Guangdong reservoir? 3. Drag Party of the Year @ Shanghai Studio 4. Ad of the Week: Englihs Editer Wantd! 5. Paint-a-model for RMB1,000 a pop at this restaurant! Most Commented 1. Giant man-eating catfish found in Guangdong reservoir? 2. Man with world's largest hand in......

Pigs are back in the headlines once again, and with a vengeance. Here is an interesting juxtapose of three pig-related news stories found via the informative China Digital Times. We first read on the Beijing News that a "Zero-Profit Pork Alliance" consisting of about 150 supermarkets in Chongqing that came together on Aug 10 in a bold move to slow down and reverse rising pork prices has all but collapsed: The participating stores did surprise......

An increasing chorus of bloggers (including ourselves) have written extensively about the recent anti-competitive price-fixing moves by Chinese fast food chains, instant noodle manufacturers, milk producers and state-owned airlines. Now, even China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou has contributed his own tune to the cacaphony of voices in an article Thou shalt not collude on pricing. From the article: Thou shalt not collude on pricing, the regulatory god said unto the Moses of industries in most......

The Chinese internet is currently abuzz with all sorts of reports and rumours of what went on at Yao Ming's wedding at Shanghai's Shangri-La Hotel on Monday. Earlier in the day, we called up our friend Sebastien Lathuile, who is floral meister at the hotel, thinking we could get some inside scoop or even pictures of the event. Unfortunately, all he could tell us was that he was not personally involved in the event and......

Xiamen is mulling over a new rule that will ban anonymous Web postings after residents used the Internet to successfully halt construction of a US$1.4 billion paraxylene plant project because of its health and environmental risks. A total of 1 million mobile phone test messages were sent, and Internet postings were used to organize peaceful rallies that caught the attention of bloggers nationwide and helped push Beijing to pressure the city to suspend work......

So while we're nursing our hangovers from last night's party and trying to get the damn Beatles songs out of our minds, it dawned on us that not so long ago, we wrote our very first entry here on Shanghaiist, and since then, two years have passed! In the meanwhile, the poor bloggers at Shanghaiist have been so busy trying to keep you entertained and supplementing our meagre writer salaries by peddling strange stuff on......

The blog Lost Laowai has started a group writing project called "If I Knew Then What I Know Now." The general idea is for other bloggers to write about what they thought about China before actually moving out here and how different the reality actually is. Once the writer has finished the post, he/she can notify Lost Laowai and have it put up on the consolidated submission list for everyone's reading pleasure. For a while......

It seems that the TIME Magazine China Blog has been blocked by the Great Firewall of China (GFW), or "GFW-ed" to use the industry nomenclature. The blog normally covers a full-range of issues, including topics and analysis that local media wouldn't touch with a 10 meter 棍, and as a rule, TIME tends to "err on the side of free speech." However, evidently the blog took things a step too far for China's censors, when......

We're sure that you're all sick and tired of hearing about the Chinese stock market, but since we're struggling bloggers, we get vicarious thrills by talking about things that people with money do. Stocks in China took a slight tumble on Friday, amid more concerns that stock capital gains taxes were in the works. Everyone is still debating whether or not the stock market is a bubble or not, but some analysts say that whatever......

There seem to be some varying opinions on whether China is really going to be requiring bloggers to register their blogs using their real names or not. Earlier in the week, it was widely reported that the ISC (Internet Society of China), a quasi-governmental organization that exists under the umbrella of the MII (Ministry of Information Industry), had published a draft "code of conduct" that would encourage but not mandate that users register under their......

Sh Shanghai: 200-yuan car horn fines "Shanghai is about to become a quieter city - from June 1, drivers of cars, mopeds and bikes will be banned from blaring horns within the Outer Ring Road." We don't see this being enforced. Two city spots crowned in China's list of top scenic sites "Shanghai's Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Wild Animal Park were crowned as two of China's top-grade scenic spot, according to a list......

China's schools overcharged 1.7 billion yuan in past five years "A massive 1.7 billion yuan (about 217 million U.S. dollars) of unwarranted school fees have been charged to unlucky parents since 2002, the top corruption watchdog said here on Thursday." How long can Great Firewall of China last? "Where Manchester’s worker dissidents of the early 1800s had the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley to urge them to 'rise like lions after slumber', China’s modern......

Guangdong, China - 25 year old Chinese woman Yang Huiyan is now Asia's richest woman and China's richest person after her father transfers his shares to her and the company debuts on the Hong Kong stock exchange. At $9 billion, Yang is richer than George Soros, Steve Jobs of Apple and Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. But sorry guys, she is already married!Singapore - Founding father of modern Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, acknowledging the view......

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. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

Whew! Well, folks, the NPC is finally over, and what a party it was! Well, it wasn't quite as fun as C-Span, but after all the sanctimonious sloganeering, we were pretty excited about the New Socialist Countryside, Harmonious Society, Peaceful Development, growing the economy and creating win-win situations for mutual benefit. After so much excitement, we decided to cut-loose for a bit, and check-up on the latest banalities of everyone's favorite Shanghai deviant and scoundrel,......

The Private Property Party "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." China lawmaker wants Forbidden City free of Starbucks "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......