Thanks to a group called 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors based out of San Francisco, we now can watch the first ever musical rap version of Chinese history! And they do it all in under four minutes. Full list of lyrics on Youtube. more ›

A 2,400-year-old sealed pot of "bone soup" (possibly) was discovered while digging up ground for an extension of Xi'an's airport. According to Chinese archeologists, it's the "first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history" and "will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC)." more ›

If you're tired of all the debate over whether China's headed to be the Next Great Superpower, fret no more! We found the answer, and we found in a place some of us (and probably most Chinese) never though to look: the Bible. more ›

The Economist has posted an interview with "Mao's translator," Sidney Rittenberg (李敦白). Arriving in China in 1944, Rittenberg befriended Mao, Zhou Enlai and other top Communists. During his long involvement with the Chinese Communist Party, Rittenberg was imprisoned twice. The first time in 1949, after being falsely fingered as a "spy" by Joseph Stalin, he spent six years in solitary confinement and the second time in 1968, for ten years when labelled a "May 16^th element" (五一六分子). more ›

The Guardian went on a Zheng He kick yesterday, with not one but two articles relating to the famous eunuch general. First, a discussion of Zheng He's voyages and their relation to modern maritime attitudes - China has recently been citing his voyages as an "envoy of friendship and peace," and urged that countries consider anything modern China does to be in the same vein. By doing so, they may be - surprise - really reinterpreting history. Meanwhile, Chinese archeologistsare now in Kenya to search for the remains of a Zheng He-led armada that may have sunk there 600 years ago. more ›

A flowery, pretentious narrator, archive footage and interviews with journalist, and the film's screenwriter, Theodore White and author Pearl Buck, make this 1967 documentary, brought to us by the CIA and the National Security Council, a misinformed gem. more ›

In my post about Confucius Institutes being featured on the Daily Show just now, I mentioned that, while there's no reason to be as paranoid as the people lampooned in the segment, there also isn't reason to think China's opinion of itself wouldn't be any less biased than that of an American textbook - with a link to the amazing award-winning resource Lies My Teacher Told Me. Then I found out the book was translated into Chinese for China. Also, that the author's preface for the Chinese version was censored out. more ›

• Terrorists, dollars and (polar) bears, oh my: why the United States should focus more on China's strong stance against the first rather than its less-than-perfect record on the last two. Reads a bit like something by Ann Coulter, but still worth reading nonetheless. [China Law Blog]
• The newest discovery RE: China's paleolithic dino-sty: more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, ranging in span from 10 to 80 centimeters, blanket the ground near Zhucheng "dinosaur city" Shandong. [Yahoo! News]
• China's Next Top...Antique Collector? Now that Mao's dead, those who went against his orders to destroy all things old are cashing in on their defiance, reality TV style. Instead of getting "voted off the island," however, your item must pass an "authenticity test," lest you smash it, Cultural Revolution-style, on live television. [New York Times]

Clocking in at only 99 pages, Shanghai: High Lights Low Lights Tael Lights is an excellent appetizer for those of us who generally dine on heavier reading fare. The authors, Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson, make their purpose known early in the book: in the preface, titled “an explanation but not an apology,” Karns and Patterson state that they have written Tael Lights “with the hope of enjoying ourselves, of making a little money, and of not committing ourselves to anything for which we might be sorry” (xx). They proceed to describe, with delightful if decidedly un-PC irreverence, the Shanghai they saw before them when writing the book in 1936. more ›

So we get that Google's really keen to gobble a little more market share from its rivals in China, and one of the most ingenious ways they've figured to do so is their free mp3 download service. We applaud that. What we don't applaud is their ads promoting the service, which seems to have taken the DIY ethic of viral videos to mean "crappy flash creations evoking the earlier parts of this millennium." Add that to Chinese history tales and you get G.cn's newest ad rush: more ›

One of the movies we're most excited about seeing is Building 173, a docudrama about one Shanghainese building and the people who lived in it. It'll be airing twice on Saturday, June 20 - once at 6.30pm and a second one at 9pm (with a discussion afterward). more ›

The Chinese government announced that they are going to be making some changes to the simplified character system （简体字） currently used throughout mainland China. According to the Shanghai Daily, the short list of revised characters is already completed and will be released sometime in the near future. more ›

Here's an interesting mash up between a Cultural Revolution-era Long March opera and "Ninja" by Jay Chou, created - if the video's to be believed - by Lee Tang (李唐) from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art two years back. Is the song choice supposed to be a little ironic, considering one of the parties the Long March ended just around the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War? more ›