The free admission that began this week was such a great success at the Shanghai Museum that officials have now limited the maximum number of visitors to 5,000 at any time. The other three museums included in the trial also reported a spike in visitor numbers.Xunlei, the Chinese P2P service that is currently being sued by the Hollywood-based Motion Picture Association for US$1 million has said that the Shanghai court was not the appropriate place......

A BBC report (proxy needed) talks about the Confucian schools that are now thriving across China. And why are parents sending their kids to such schools?:"Traditional culture has many advantages that cannot be learned by modern education," says Yu Fang, the mother of a three-year-old pupil. "It emphasises virtues like kindness and self-discipline. It is very good for my son and very good for Chinese society as well." Another mother, Wang Ching, agrees: "This is......

In a recent blog entry, leading sexologist-sociologist Li Yinhe (李银河) has voiced her thoughts on recent porn crackdowns [h/t to Global Voices, translation by Shanghaiist]: 今天在中央12台看到打击淫秽网站的报道，不像看到破获谋杀、盗窃或性侵害的报道那样觉得毫无问题。 Today I saw reports on CCTV-12 related to the crackdown on porn sites. And unlike other reports on murder, theft, and sexual crimes, I thought there was a problem with these reports. 公安人员的侦破非常努力，法律部门的审判严肃认真，他们执法的依据也非常明确：刑法关于打击淫秽品的传播和禁止组织色情表演的条款。 The public security guys work very hard on the crackdown, and the justice department has issued......

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently published a report about how much income you need in order to be classified as white-collar in various Chinese cities. At the top of the list was Hong Kong, where you needed to make at least 18,500 RMB. As for some of the other cities:The benchmarks in some major cities at the upper end are: 8,900 yuan ($1,194) in Macao, 5,350 yuan ($717) in Shanghai, 5,280 yuan ($708)......

Tech Flocks To Shanghai "According to a report from Russell Reynolds Associates based on Shanghai government statistics, 144 foreign companies now have their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Shanghai, 48 of which established operations there only in the last year." City traffic police tougher on jaywalking "Besides receiving a verbal reminder of the violation, jaywalkers and cyclists will be fined between five yuan to 50 yuan, depending on their behavior and attitude." Shanghai Surprise "If you......

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on China's plans to reverse the brain drain that has seen one million of its students sent abroad, with two-thirds not coming back:"It has been a great loss for China - which is now in dire need of people of expertise - to see well-educated professionals leave after the country has invested a lot in them," the official newspaper China Daily quoted one of the report's authors, Li Xiaoli, as......

With a title like that, who could resist? The Shanghai Daily report in question discusses the recent controversy surrounding noted professor Li Yinhe (李银河) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The article is an opinion piece written by Jiang Yunsheng and says that while he/she respects Li's research on sexuality ... I think some of her opinions on marriage and sex are ill-timed. In fact, the following viewpoints issued a challenge to the......

Robots will perform tai chi at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo: "Our advanced robots will perform with Chinese characteristics," said Chen Jiaxiang, a senior engineer of the service robots project of the Shanghai Electric Group, at an Eastern Forum of Science and Technology. The Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering are also developing the robots. Chen introduced two human-shaped robots -- they can play music and perform shadow boxing. "We......

Shanghaiist went to Big Bamboo early this morning to watch a ref from Uruguay dominate the World Cup match between the U.S. and Italy. Shortly before the 3 a.m. match time, we plopped ourselves down on stools upstairs with a prime view of the bar's only big screen TV. That's when we were told that they were closing the upstairs part of the bar and asking everyone to watch the match downstairs, because they wanted......

Shanghaiist is pretty sure that this has something to do with the Da Vinci Code fever that swept the world in the last few years. While not many Chinese will lay claim to being descendants of the Son of God (making them descendants of God as well!), there are quite a number that could possibly be descendants of another thinker. One was the son of a virgin and the other was born out of wedlock,......

Now take a wild guess: Which occupation is the most dangerous in Shanghai? According to this report (in Chinese) by the Shanghai Evening Post, journalists, corporate managers and scientific researchers are the top ones in danger now. Why? Xiong Sidong, director of Immunology Institute of Fudan University explains Shanghainese are threatened by a variety of physical ailments and karoshi (guolao si 过劳死 or "death from overwork"). And the three occupations listed above are the most......

Liaoning Province now has a personal robot to go with all of its sex toys: Liangliang, an argentous robot of about 80 centimetres tall, is able to walk and navigate through obstacles at ease and can even perform duties instructed by humans. Its developer, the Shenyang-based Xinsong Automation Company affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the personal robot is able to provide services of education, entertainment and security and as a personal assistant.......

Shanghaiist is Shanghainese -- well, this one is -- but unlike many other Shanghainese in this city, we don’t actually own a tiny apartment. Our parents do, but we don’t live with the parents anymore. Our friends suggested we buy an apartment in Shanghai because paying down mortgage is better than paying rent as the money eventually goes back to us (in theory). After some serious consideration, a few rounds puzzling over how exactly we......

This doesn't explain why Shanghaiist's taxi driver the other night had never heard of "Xintiandi" -- "I'm from Pudong" was his excuse -- but it might explain why so many behind the wheel in Shanghai drive like assholes. They're just angry, is all ... because their car's GPS navigation system uses a fake city map that is just plain wrong: The government is aware of the problem but is at loss over how to handle......

In New Orleans, we have seen the devastation that can come from failing to heed scientific warnings. Will Shanghai be the victim of a similar stubborness regarding the Three Gorges Dam? Well, here's another warning: To tell you the truth, I have tons of concerns. I am extremely worried about Shanghai, situated at the mouth of the Yangtze River. In my view, Shanghai is the place that will be most affected by the Three Gorges......

Sexual harassment, which apparently had been legal in China, is now on its way to becoming a crime, according to Xinhua: The draft amendment to China's Law on Women's Right Protection, with provisions to ban sexual harassment, was submitted to the nation's top legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), on Sunday for first deliberation. According to the draft amendment, no one shall be allowed to subject women to sexual harassment and......