Unsubstantiated rumors of defection have been burning up the internet all day involving the popular anti-gang Vice Mayor of Chongqing, Wang Lijun (王立军). Last night Weibo users reported that police cars had surrounded the US consulate in Chengdu. Combine that with the announcement this morning that Wang has been put on "vacation-style" medical leave and voila, you have a solid gold rumor generator! more ›

Six giant pandas, aged two to four years old, are scheduled to leave captivity and enter the wild on January 11, 2012. The pandas - named Xingrong, Xingya, Gongzai, Yingying, Zhizhi and Qiq - were deemed the most fit for release by a test that evaluated the physical condition and genetic origins of 108 animals housed in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. more ›

This past summer in Chengdu, a blatantly insecure boyfriend forced his girlfriend to endure beatings, sleep deprivation and a chastity belt over his suspicions she was cheating on him. more ›

Yesterday in Chengdu, A woman in red dove off a bridge right into the path of speeding vehicles, whose apathetic drivers then appeared none too willing to lend a hand. more ›

This video has been quickly spreading around the Chinese internet recently, depicting a BMW X6 racing two Lamborghinis at speeds of over 200kph (125mph). The whole process is recorded from the interior of the BMW, as an excited passenger narrates in profane Sichuanese just how totally crazy fast we're going, man, while the driver speeds along a busy Chengdu-Shanghai Expressway. more ›

US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Beijing and met with his counterpart (and probable future Chinese head honcho) Vice President Xi Jinping this morning in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square, to begin a four-day tour that includes a series of meetings in Beijing and Chengdu. Topics that Biden will discuss during the trip will reportedly include the current global economy, currency concerns and trade. more ›

There really isn't much of a story here, but this twitpic of the New York Knicks' Carmelo Anthony doing his best punk-ass tourist sneer with his panda homey is definitely worth your attention (though Shaq seems to have already claimed the same panda-throne two years ago!). Anthony, along with his potential future teammate Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets, is currently in Chengdu as part of the annual pilgrimage of NBA stars to the succulent milkable cow that is the Chinese market Jordan Brand Flight Tour, a four-city brand promotion do that includes store appearances and training camps for the Jordan shoe imprint owned by Nike. more ›

According to the latest official statistics released by the Ministry of Health, around one in three cases of HIV involve gay or bisexual men in China, where the AIDS epidemic is becoming increasingly prevalent. more ›

Tragedy has struck again in light of this year's Gaokao, the Chinese national college entrance exam. On the morning of June 7 -- the first day of the exam -- a male student in Longhui County, Hunan province, committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor of the dormitory building. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he died soon after from sustaining critical injuries. more ›

Another interesting gaokao headline here: A 44 year old man from Chengdu is sitting the gaokao for the 15th time in 28 years. Liang Shi first sat the national college entrance exam when he was 16 but did so poorly he was not accepted by any college. In subsequent testings, he managed to place into a local technical school but dropped out because he felt he could do better if he retook the test and has been trying his luck ever since. more ›

See that billboard on the right? It reads "Qingming condolences to my lost wife Gao Dezhen, who passed away during labor at the No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of West China Hospital on February 18, 2011." more ›

On January 11, in just about a week, new trains on the Shanghai-Chengdu and Shanghai-Chongqing high speed lines will begin operation... and boy are they aiming for a much higher income level than the citizens who normally ride the rails. New cars are equipped with the "most luxurious soft sleepers" in China, and a ticket for these first class cabins costs 2330 RMB (after 30% off!). more ›

An event that would have caused Mary Wollstonecraft to turn in her grave recently took place in Chengdu on November 27th. In a hotel 40 young women strut their stuff on a provided catwalk not to demonstrate the clothes they are wearing, but to demonstrate their skills as “workers”. In the audience 80 CEOs sit tight and ogle together at the specimen presented. more ›

As if you weren't already convinced enough that Shanghai nightlife is dominated by Hong Kong names, an official "Lan Kwai Fong" (Hong Kong's infamous bar street) is in development here and in Sichuan's capital of Chengdu. more ›

It looked for a while that Beijing-Tokyo relations were improving in the aftermath of the Diaoyu island incident but another round of nationalistic protests erupted this weekend on both sides and the Chinese government is turning a blind eye to the mobs that run amuck. more ›

Jeez, China likes to talk a lot about internet addiction, but maybe the relevant ministries should be turning their gaze towards a more analogue form of entertainment: Mahjong. In Chengdu, netizens reported that whole tables of Mahjong addicts continued playing their games, even as an old man (and fellow Mahjong player) fainted, was attended to by emergency services, declared dead and wheeled away by a funeral car. more ›

• While it's long been tradition for the elderly to be looked after by family members in China, it seems that more and more senior citizens are opting for elderly homes. [Channel News Asia]
• John Garnaut profiles Yu Jianrong, a respected Chinese scholar who has, among other things, lived as a petitioner in Beijing's petitioner village to record how problems get solved (they don't) and researched mass unrest in the country. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• ESWN translates a story of a fireworks disaster in Guangzhou Province. A rich family who had bought several hundred thousand yuan worth of fireworks (without a license, of course), ended up killing 13 people and injuring 49 when something went wrong. [EastSouthWestNorth]

One of the first recorded gay marriage ceremonies in China happened last week. 47-year-old Zeng Ge and 27-year-old Xiao Pan tied the knot in a small bar in Chengdu on January 3rd. China currently doesn't recognize homosexual unions. more ›

Though we've heard some pretty sweet rumors about notable celebrities coming to town for the expo (was that David Beckham that just walked by us on Nanjing Road's pedestrian street?), it seems that a number of dignitaries are en route to Shanghai as we speak. In fact, there are ten of them, and we'd have to say they're the cutest thing that the expo has yet to offer (Sorry, creepily British Haibao!). Of course, we just have to be talking about pandas! more ›

• We've seen a lot of hotties selling cars - but never have they been male, until now. In Guangzhou. [WSJ]
• Charles Darwin is popular in China! Though he never set foot in the country, his theory has deeply influenced China's social and natural sciences, political thoughts and life philosophy. [Beijing Review]
• Everyone wants the Chinese to buy more, but despite fistfuls of initiatives to boost consumer spending... nothing. Why? [New Yorker]

Gross news from around China: netizens and health officials have been in an uproar over a recent post from a farmer in Chengdu who used blood plasma taken from a local hospital to water his fields. Upon visiting a friend in the hospital, the man found a packet of blood plasma discarded in the trash, so he took it home and proudly posted pictures of himself on the internet mixing the plasma with water and claiming that the protein inside will help his crops grow. The Chengdu Health Ministry said it was aware of the situation, and would do its best to find those at fault for improperly disposing of perfectly good plasma. Click the link for disturbing pictures! more ›

• Once seen as spies, Taiwan eases China media curbs [Reuters] "Taiwan has relaxed rules for Chinese media, long regarded as spy organizations for the Communist government, as relations warm between the two long-time political rivals, officials said on Wednesday. Effective immediately, Chinese media, which include state-run giants such as Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television, can increase staff from two to five people apiece and travel to any part of Taiwan or its outlying islands, officials said."
• Chengdu traffic gives rise to new profession: taxi chasing [GoChengdoo] "We've written before about how frustrating catching a taxi in Chengdu has become in the last few years. And although 800 cabs were allegedly added to Chengdu's streets last month, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. But now help is on the way, in the form of a "chubby figure" who chases down cabs for passengers, collecting 2 RMB each time."
• In modern China, no place for totalitarian anthems [China Media Project] "How should we best understand the extravagance that marked China’s recent National Day celebrations? In the wake of the pomp and circumstance, a good friend of mine summed it up with a single phrase: “Four portraits and four anthems.” By portraits he was referring of course to the four massive portraits of state leaders - Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao - that gazed over the celebration."

You don't see this everyday-- a lowly garbage picker in Chengdu has captured the hearts of young girls, netizens, and the press. The story, picked up from the Chengdu Shangbao and translated by GoChengdoo, caught fire after someone posted a picture of the ragamuffin on the net. The rest is a testament to the incredible viral power of the Chinese internet community. more ›

Now that the Qingdao Beer Festival is over, we've been looking for other places to go to satisfy our wanderlust. We'd love to visit some tourist sites, maybe a beach or two, but what we're really looking for is a scenic, historic city filled with culture, nightlife, and of course, beautiful women. Lucky for us, ChinaHush has a translated list from Netease of the top 10 cities in China for beautiful women. more ›

What's going on with China and its exploding buses? Just days after that bus fire in Chengdu killed 24 people, one in Shenzhen burst into flames as well. On the morning of June 13, a public bus on the 320 route began emitting smoke at a traffic light intersection. more ›

The deadly bus fire in Chengdu has sounded a warning to cities all over China to make sure that their buses are equipped and outfitted so as to minimize the chance of something similar happening again. But of course, never leave anything up to the government, right? The sales of safety hammers (10-80 yuan) in Shanghai are booming, and Shanghai has also decided to increase the number of conductors on buses in the upcoming months, especially on routes near the World Expo. Chinese media also reports that there have been emergency drills and exercises to help train bus drivers and people about what to do under such situations. more ›

Well, that's not being ruled out as a possibility. Witnesses being interviewed have said that they smelled gasoline just prior to the bus going up in flames. They said that someone had probably spilled something flammable. It also seems that the only thing that was flammable on the buses would have been the seats, but the burning pattern seems to suggest that it wasn't the seats that first caught on fire. Chinese commentary has suggested that the bus driver was at fault for 1. cramming too many people on the bus (he and every other bus driver in China) and 2. not stopping the bus when people saw flames coming out the back. It's going to be awhile before we know what happened—if we ever know. In the meantime, the blame game is on. more ›

A bus burst into flames on an off ramp in Chengdu earlier this morning. The fire has claimed 24 lives and injured 42 people. Its cause has yet to be determined and is currently under investigation. Head to GoChengdoo for more information. more ›