US billionaire Warren Buffett may have appeared on this year's chunwan (春晚), CCTV's Chinese New Year gala show, but even that wasn't enough to turn around the long-standing decline of the annual affair. Barbara Demick and John Lee of the Los Angeles Times write that increasingly heavy-handed censorship has caused several heavyweight celebrities to drop out of the show and driven viewers away: more ›

Yao Ming might be accruing guanxi up the wazoo with his new standing committee gig, but it's Shaquille O'Neal who truly speaks to the people! Shaq showed up for Hunan TV's Spring Gala Festival to run around on stage with kiddie monks, and went through his usual patented brand of kung foolery while trying not to step on the children. more ›

"Are we more interested in money or are we more interested in the truth? Eventually you have to bow to the will of the people and especially as their progress as an economy, education also gets higher; their interactions with the world and other people's functioning in the world, and the openness of self-expression. No one wants to live in hypocrisy, and China is the largest hypocrisy in the world right now." more ›

The Chinese internet is full of people who, though often entirely undeserving of attention, receive copious amounts of it for seemingly no good reason. Whether arriving at momentary fame through careful corporate promotion or sheer dumb luck and timing, each of these individuals has managed to secure a place in the Internet Hall of Fleeting Fame more ›

What does the Yao deal tell us about China? That everything the wine industry has come to believe about tackling the Chinese market is on target. Brands matter. Prestige matters. Celebrity matters. Why do Lafite and Mouton still reign supreme there? Because they have the reputation. Artisanship (with all due apologies to that press release) is irrelevant. Terroir is irrelevant — although the overall brand power of Napa Valley certainly holds sway. more ›

We already knew Yao had a soft touch around the basket and middling math skills, but who knew he wanted to be a sommelier? The former 9-time NBA All-Star intends to sell his own wine in China, proving once again that he is the most interesting man in the world. more ›

In the pictures we shared a week back of Yao Ming's first day in class, we interpreted his face as an open book of frustration and WTF? Turns out we were right on the money, as Yao himself admitted in a press conference he was "totally lost." more ›

It's been two months since Li Yang, the self-styled evangelist of the English language and founder of the Crazy English franchise, was accused by his American wife Kim Lee of domestic violence, but Li has not only NOT been hiding in a hole, he's been going around China talking about the episode to just about anyone willing to interview him! Li was recently in Shanghai for a talkshow where he was unlucky enough to meet the sharp-tongued Jin Xing, the dancer who was unceremoniously booted off a Zhejiang reality show as a judge recently, just because she was transgender. more ›

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Former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming will study in the prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong University from October, his agent Zhang Mingji said here on Monday. Zhang said that Yao has not decided his major but the university will choose special teachers and give the super star lessons on a one-to-one basis.

Jin Xing (金星), one of the foremost figures in Chinese contemporary dance and a judge on the reality television singing competition Fei Tong Fan Xiang 《非同凡响》says she has been kicked off the show by order of the Zhejiang Province Radio, Film and Television Bureau because of her transsexual identity. more ›

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Allan Wu, the American-born Chinese host of The Amazing Race: China Rush, the reality television series now airing on International Channel Shanghai (ICS), has received flak for comments he allegedly made in the Shin Min Daily News, a Chinese-language broadsheet known in Singapore for its trashy tabloid content. more ›

Abe Sauer makes the astute observation on BrandChannel that celebrity over-endorsement in China is leading to "overlapping shilling" and "mass confusion" among Chinese consumers:

In China, the paradox of this is that the hot celebrity of the moment can haphazardly accrue numerous, simultaneous endorsements. In China, this flood of celebrity pitch people appears to have muddled the message and confused consumers. more ›

Taiwan megastar and singer-songwriter Jay Chou (周杰伦) has joined the ranks of Ashton Kutcher as a celebrity tech investor. His latest venture comes in the form of 31SMS, a mobile messaging application for iPhones and Android phones which he's hoping his star appeal will help make a WhatsApp-killer, at least for the Greater China market. more ›

A good man may shed blood, but he should never shed tears, so the Chinese adage goes. At Yao Ming's retirement press conference yesterday, he was seen turning away from the glare of the media to shed a few tears. more ›

The Golden Horse Awards (金马奖), considered the Oscars of Chinese cinema, has broken with its 48-year tradition of inviting the previous year's winners to present the next year's awards by announcing its decision to rescind its invitation to Lü Liping (吕丽萍) to its 2011 event. more ›

"A well-known pop singer who was on the wanted list has been arrested in north China for child molestation -- years after he finished serving a three-year sentence on the same charge. Hong Dou, whose real name is Wang Liyong, was nabbed by police on Tuesday in a hotel in Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Two boys who stayed with him were also taken away for questioning, Xinhua reported today. The singer was put on the wanted list in November 2009 by police in Hebei Province. Recently, Baotou police received a tip-off that he would come to the city to prepare the concert of a Hong Kong singer, so a trap was laid for him." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

The rain did little to deter the enthusiasm that met the opening of Shanghai's 14th International Film Festival on Saturday night. An assortment of Chinese and international stars and luminaries turned out for the premiere of Water for Elephants, SIFFilis' opening-night gala film starring Reese Witherspoon and It-thing Robert Pattinson (SIFF was claimed as an acronym by the Seattle International Film Festival decades ago, so we enthusiastically invented a new moniker for the festival). more ›

"NETIZENS will get a chance to choose a new temporary judge for "China's Got Talent," in place of songwriter Gao Xiaosong, for the program's new episode recording on May 19, officials of the TV reality show said yesterday. Gao was detained for drunk driving in Beijing on Monday and he might face detention of between one to six months. Producers of the show temporarily appointed Antonio Chen, a Taiwan music producer and composer, to fill Gao's slot on the judges panel for the recording on Tuesday. But the recording for the next episode on May 19 will have a new temporary judge, selected largely based on online votes on the program's Sina microblog by May 18. The 10 candidates are mainland film directors Lu Chuan and Feng Xiaogang, singer/composer Wang Feng, actress Xu Jinglei, pop idol Faye Wong, Hong Kong music producer Harry Hui, Taiwan singers Jonathan Lee, Lo Ta-yu and Fei Yu-ching, as well as Antonio Chen." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

Deaf celebrity Song Xiaobo (宋晓波), who shot to fame as the runner-up of the 2006 My Hero (加油好男儿) talent competition, has complained that Sina Weibo is filtering search results for his name. He said:

A lot of people aren't able to add me up. Why is it that when people search for my name here, they get the message that search results have been blocked in accordance with the relevant rules and regulations? If searching for just "Xiaobo", only Wu Xiaobo's (a writer) account is shown, not mine. Why is this so? This has been a major obstacle to the people who want to follow me and made it very difficult for me to use Sina Weibo.

28 year old singer Li Na (厉娜), one of top five finalists in the 2006 Supergirls talent competition and now a successful recording artiste with a huge following, has now become the first mainland Chinese celebrity to make an "It Gets Better" video. more ›

The spectacular arrest of famed Hong Kong actor Max Mok (莫少聪), 50, by Beijing police for allegedly taking drugs has been widely reported in the media. As this video shows, the actor, best known for his role in the 1990s drama series Once Upon a Time in China by director Tsui Hark, was busted at home in Beijing together with two of his friends, including his manager. Commenters have been horrified at the way Mok has been humiliated on public television for the relatively minor crime of smoking pot, and many have wondered if this wasn't the handiwork of someone else in the industry who reported on him to the police. In the video, a tired-looking Mok insists, "I really didn't do it... Even if you give it to me for free, I don't want any of it." But later when shown the results of his drug test, Mok concedes that he took two hits, but only because there were lots of friends around who kept pushing it to him, and he found it hard to reject them. Mok's buddies also tested positive for ketamine, but their faces were blurred out in the news report. Moral of the story? If you ever get busted for smoking pot some day, then you only really need to start worrying if you're as famous as Max Mok.
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Recently, the Chinese internet went abuzz with an allegedly smuggled video (watch after the jump) showing one not particularly famous singer, Ma Ruila (马睿菈) prostituting herself. While it's probably nothing new that some small-time acts earn money on the side doing titilatting work, Ma also managed to allege that A-listers could be bought as well, including a "Bingbing" who would totally do you for the low price of 500,000rmb. more ›

The biggest piece of concert news this spring season is that Bob Dylan is playing Shanghai Grand Stage on April 8th--you already knew that unless you're on some type of news media fast for Lent--however, there's a lot more going on besides that especially in the Canto and Mandopop arena. Here are some big name Chinese singers to look out for these next two months. more ›

According to ISIS magazine, Bob Dylan's doing a run through Asia and Shanghai is on his list of touring cities. Is this great news? You betcha and we'd be really psyched up about it except for one little thing. Last year at this time, Dylan was also scheduled to play on the mainland and his tour dates got scrapped by the government. However, if the information we've got coming through the grapevine is correct, the musician will be performing on April 8th at the Shanghai Grand Stage. more ›

Here's Russell Crowe at the Shanghai Pudong International airport two days ago in what looks to be a letterman's jacket with a yin yang on it and a hat with a rabbit? Asia represent! more ›

Following in the footsteps of Chinese actress Gong Li, kung fu superstar Jet Li (李连杰) has also confirmed that he has now taken on Singaporean citizenship. more ›