Sure, we're all aware of the large number of farmers being kicked off their land, but we probably forgot it'd have an affect on our produce prices! Authorities in Hangzhou are scrambling to protect farmland from developers for fear that the disappearing land will only increase already high vegetable prices. Half of the vegetables here in Shanghai are imported, while almost ninety percent of Beijing's have to be shipped in to the capital, so we can all expect prices to rise any where from 1.20RMB to 1.60RMB a kilogram. So next time you're on a country road and you seen an inexplicable villa development, be sure to thank them for your higher food bills. more ›

When the world first heard of Farmer Yang, it was a tale a gruff but resourceful rural McGuyver who had begun protecting his land from hungry developers with a homemade artillery - fireworks and maybe a molotov cocktail or two (reports varied). The next time we heard about him, it was through the increasingly depressing tweets of Al Jazeera correspondent Melissa K Chan. And now we know exactly what happened. more ›

If the tweets of Al Jazeera correspondent Melissa K Chan are to be believed, Farmer Yang, the man who protected his land with homemade cannons and bombs has run afoul of the local government. more ›

Some farmers you just don't f@&% with. Yang Youde in Central Hubei area has been protecting the land he had leased until 2019 from developer thugs. His weapons of choice: a system of homemade heavy artillery - cannons and petrol bombs. more ›

We always thought farming was a pretty exciting lifestyle- all that cyclical plowing, sowing, cultivating, picking and selling sounds like a blast! If you're actually farming, though, the charm wears off after a while, and you feel the need to move on to something more adventurous. Building walking, talking robots is old news, so why not up the ante and build a submarine, an airplane or a tank? more ›

• On Foot in the Mystical Mountains of Yunnan [NYTimes.com] "It was for a moment like this that I had made the long journey last fall to northern Yunnan Province from my home in Beijing — which has the dubious distinction of being both one of the most polluted and one of the most populous cities in the world. Back home, looking at a map of the rugged Tibetan areas of western China, my eyes had fallen on the deep river valleys of Yunnan, where three of Asia’s great waterways come tumbling down from their glacial sources in the mountains of the high Tibetan plateau."
• Getty’s $100,000 Tab for Chinese Photos Signals Bargain Time [Bloomberg.com] "Wang Qingsong’s theatrical, large- scale photographs have been a hit with collectors, rising in price to $864,943 from $40,000 since 2006. Now, with prices for Chinese contemporary art eroding, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has purchased three prints by Wang and six by Hai Bo, who contrasts photographs of friends and relatives taken during China’s Cultural Revolution with their recent portraits."
• Sichuan Earthquake Memorial Museum To Cost 2.3 Billion [chinaSMACK] "The complete plans for the Beichuan National Earthquake Ruins Museum that has been the subject of much attention by citizens from all walks of life have been released, with a preliminary budget requiring a ~2.3 billion yuan total investment/cost. The moment the design plan was introduced, it immediately caused huge amounts of heated discussion from all walks of life in society. Some netizens have questioned whether using vast amounts of money to construct a museum amounts to an “image project.”"