Wokai (我开), a non-profit microfinance organization in China, is winding down their operations according to their website. The innovative grassroots company helped numerous rural Chinese workers receive loans and will be sorely missed. more ›

Wearing a suit, sprayed with perfume and topped with a dyed red mohawk, Zhou Fei (周飞) has made himself an online celebrity as "the most fashionable beggar in China." more ›

It might suck to be away from home on this fine Thanksgiving day (blue skies in Shanghai!), but don't you worry, because Rocksgiving's got you covered! Make sure you come out tonight to see 7 fantastic bands and get a little tipsy for charity! Proceeds from the evening will go to BEAN and the Concordia Welfare & Education Fund's migrant school meal programs. 50RMB // TONIGHT, 8pm // Yuyintang // 851 Kaixuan Lu (凯旋路851号，近延安西路) more ›

The gumboot dancers from Kliptown, South Africa are back in Shanghai this weekend raising money for the Kliptown Youth Program. After an incredibly successful event last year, Cocktails for Kliptown is coming back to Cotton's tomorrow for an evening of dance, drinks, barbecue, and a dinner date auction! Come out and support a community program benefiting youth in one of South Africa's poorest townships. more ›

International music acts are descending en masse on Shanghai this weekend. Steve Aoki, Slugabed, T-1000 and more (including some RnB artist from the UK). Hard mode: can you catch them all? Nightmare mode: can you do that and also get your social responsibility on by helping out at Rivers of Hearts or JAR Animal Adoption Day? And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. more ›

A 14-year-old boy is the only pupil studying at a village school near Dandong (丹东) in Liaoning province. His surname is Feng, and he is HIV-positive. He has been suffering from discrimination by his fellow villagers, and was rejected by the local elementary school. However, in the elementary school set up specifically for him, he enjoys complete freedom from discrimination. This is because there are only two people in the school: Feng, who is 14 years old, and Wang Lijun, 63 years old who teaches Feng and plays with him. more ›

The Kliptown Youth Program gumboot dancers from South Africa are returning to China this year after an amazingly successful first tour last October. They've expanded their numbers and scope in anticipation of this year's schedule, and will be performing at multiple events in Shanghai and Bejing in the coming weeks. We absolutely insist you try to make it out in support of them wherever possible. Not only will you be supporting disadvantaged youth from a struggling township, but going by last year, you're guaranteed plenty of rhythm, dance, and fun. more ›

If you're like us, and think discussing China's socio-political currents over dinner with the Telegraph's Malcolm Moore would be the silken cat's pajamas, then here's your chance! more ›

The outpouring of sympathy and the flood of donations from around the nation has given Yueyue's parents a major headache even as doctors continue to work overtime to save the life of the toddler caught in the Foshan double hit-and-run that has now made international headlines. more ›

Chen Xianmei, the illiterate scrap peddler who picked up Foshan toddler Yueyue off the street, has fled the city after being overwhelmed by hundreds of media requests and random groups coming out of the woodwork to give her piles of cash. more ›

Shanghai's second closet swap is happening this Saturday at The Apartment, and if you want to take part you better get moving! Today is the last day you can take all your unwanted, lightly-used items down to William the Beekeeper and exchange them for tokens. Then on Saturday, head over to The Apartment and start rummaging. Best of all, it's all for a good cause! more ›

If you're feeling festive and energetic this weekend, maybe head out to one of the many anniversary parties around the city which are certainly filling up our plans on Friday and Saturday this week (Lola, Judy's, and Xibo to name a few). If that's not your style, you could also check out Shanghai's newest venue Shanhai for a night of Chinese and Japanese DJs, head over to the Go West Book Launch, or hit up the four-year anniversary of the Pervert Party at Cargo JJ (the future location of our very own Shanghaiist Halloween party coming up later this month - you heard it here first!) And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. more ›

Our friends at Hands On Shanghai have a project that we can all get behind:

Helping to serve the basic needs of orphans and disadvantaged children in Anhui、Jiangxi、Gansu、and Shanxi Province, HandsOn Shanghai, in partnership with Mifan Mama will host a children clothing drive at MVC on September 24th. more ›

In the Yaopu village (瑶圃村) of Shanxi province's Xiaoyi city (孝义市), a local widow has served as a one-woman orphanage, having adopted 80 orphans and disabled children over the course of 22 years. The widow, 49-year-old Li Yanping (李艳萍), subsists on a meager income, and lives inside a 40 square meter country-style yard home with 13 children who call her 'Mother'. more ›

How about this weather? Perfect excuse to get out of the house and hear some tunes. Live Bar is turning six years old this week and to celebrate they are inviting us all to a free concert! And if you want even more local rock, Trash A GoGo is at it again with Duck Fight Goose playing at Yuyintang Saturday. Then there's some psychadelic rock from Macau, and MAO gets its metal on with To Die For from Finland. Read on for all the details, or check out our calendar for more! more ›

All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: some back-to-back networking & do-good events, amazing food and wine at El Willy's, folk music and lyrics at Yuyintang and a fashion show/party at M1NT. Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

Moving from Shanghai and don't know what to do with the Giant you bought a couple months ago? Managed to keep a bike from getting stolen long enough for you to want a new one? If you're one of the lucky ducks who find themselves with more bikes than they need, why not give it to charity? The Shanghai Healing Home, a charity dedicated to helping children with cleft palates, recently moved locations. They're now looking for seven bikes that can help their Ayis get to the new area. So, in case you've got one, please do help them out! Email Sarah Vasey, their volunteer coordinator, at francoisevasey (at) gmail (dot) com. more ›

Ah, another weekend of relaxation, filled with so much to do! In case you were still in the woods, The Zebra Music Festival is back on! If by some miracle the weather clears, consider it an excuse to drag yourself to the beach, wear flip flops and soak in the sun. But if the beach isn't your thing, we've got multiple parties (among other indoor ongoings) to fill your time! Most importantly, of course, this weekend we've got a little something we are calling Shanghaiist Sexy Saturday! It's a party, it's more or less sexy and, well, it's on Saturday. And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more! more ›

Yang Feng (杨峰), the man who lost five family members, including his wife and unborn child, in the recent Wenzhou train crash, has finally broken his silence amid suspicions that he was forced to keep quiet by railway officials. He recently stated on his Weibo that he wants to raise money for charity from profits earned by selling train tickets between Shaoxing and Wenzhou. He wants to set up an NGO called the 7.23 Foundation to help other relatives of victims. He also claims that it was his wife's dream, of all things, to sell tickets for the high speed trains. It remains unclear how or whether the railway could allow a private citizen to officially sell tickets, and the news director of the Shanghai Railway Bureau only had this to say: "We haven't received a similar request to have a private person run the ticket services on certain lines, and we can't guarantee that it would work as Yang wishes." We certainty didn't expect Yang to shift from his initial stance against the Railway Ministry to working for the Railway Ministry... more ›

We have got quite a week ahead of us here. The big name this week is Macy Gray, of course, who plays M1NT on Thursday. But we're more excited about the giant Maybe Mars contingent that seems to be descending upon the city this weekend. You can find all the details below, or check out our calendar for more! more ›

Congratulations, Red Cross Society! You're now in the running for most venal organization in China, against some pretty stiff competition. But if you keep overspending on real and imagined projects, then who knows, you might just win the title outright. more ›

Only shortly after a scandal involving the the Red Cross' financial management was uncovered, they have to deal with another scandal. This one involving a bratty rich 20-year-old mini-blogger called "Baby Guo Meimei" (郭美美Baby), openly flaunting all her riches (huge villa, designer handbags, luxury cars and high end cosmetics) on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter. And, she claims to be the general manager of Red Cross Commerce, allegedly a company that handles advertising for the Red Cross on vehicles. more ›

The latest edition of Shanghai's premier white collar pugilistic-cum-charity event took place Saturday night, and surely gave the red carpet stars at the premiere of SIFF's Water for Elephants a run for the city's most glamorous on the evening. more ›

BEAN's Sumo on the Suzhou charity event on Friday night was a triumph of faux-obesity and altruism, and managed to raise 18,000RMB, a figure good enough for 730 basic children's health kits. Ordinary men and women went through an instant metamorphosis at the River South Art Center, donning rubber suits to become corpulent and unwieldy, and then attempted to push each other out of a duct-tape dohyo for the sake of the children. more ›

Things have quieted down a bit after all the monster names played Shanghai last week. This weekend has a massive dose of rock, and in any way you take it. Chinese punk, Japanese metal, and New Zealand indie rock, just to name a few! Read on for highlights, or check out our calendar for more! more ›

Born in 1898 during the Qing Dynasty to a poor family in Shantou, Guangdong Province, Teresa Hsu Chih (許哲) has spent most of her life helping the poor, the destitute and the elderly. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out, Hsu gave up her job to serve as a volunteer to help the injured. The experience led her to decide to become a nurse at the age of 47 when the war ended. As she was overaged, she wrote a special request to the Nursing Council in London to accept her as a student. Touched by her sincerity, the council accepted her application and she went on to serve as a nurse in England and Paraguay before returning to join her family in Penang, Malaysia. more ›

If you'd ever wanted to go to Brawl on the Bund but couldn't afford the astronomical ticket price, we present: Sumo on the Suzhou. more ›

But for those of you wanting to get out this Sunday, rest assured we've found this weekend's most satisfying event to be a part of, both gastronomically and ethically. more ›

If our Flickr pool is anything to go by, a whole lot of Shanghaiist readers are also enthusiastic photographers. So why not turn that hobby into a way to give to charity two weeks from now? BEAN Shanghai has organized a Shanghai Photo Scavenger hunt... a great one, with all the proceeds benefiting a worthy cause. more ›