Look what we stumbled on. Why, it's a 'Young Lust' No 5 comic book from 1977, featuring 'Red Guard Romance', a sexy underground comix look at the Cultural Revolution! more ›

Long a staple of Western internet humor, the rage comic has finally found a foothold in China via rage maker site baozoumanhua. more ›

Attention geeks and enthusiastic people watchers, the China International Animation Game Expo returned for its 7th time in Shanghai yesterday! more ›

Happy weekend Shanghai! It's the middle of July, and you know what that means! No? Well it's all nerds and musicals from here on out. This weekend you can catch the Comic Expo over at the China Pavilion, and the first all-Chinese Mamma Mia is premiering tonight! more ›

One of our favorite web comics, xkcd, has updated their map of the internet if it were represented as a planet and - lo and behold - there's an entire section dedicated to the Chinese internet. Love the details like a "Ma Le Ge Bi desert" and "Grass Mud Horse Bay" - somebody's been reading up on Chinese internet issues! The entire map can be found here. more ›

This week Shanghai Cinemas are pleasing us with a new movie from the man called "Hong Kong's King of Comics", Wong Yuk-Long, also known as Tom Wong. Therefore, we'll use this week's Cinematheque as an excuse to go through some 漫画 (manhua) history. more ›

• Wealthy people in high-rises are publicly protesting Shanghai Film Group President Ren Zhonglun's plans to build more high-rises. Good on them? [Shanghai Scrap]
• Shanghai-based Nial O'Connor talks about his new comic “Jing Squared” (晶²), which will be available in mid-2009 and is designed specifically for viewing on mobile phones. [56minusone]
• A man reflects on his days as a 22-year-old student in Shanghai during the 1989 student movement. [Fool's Mountain]

Editor's Note: Sorry, forgot to send these out last night in our rush to get to the Sonic Youth show.

• Leading Chinese Enviro Activist Detained
  "In the meantime,here, from today’s Wall Street Journal, is another thing all those green minded local officials are doing: locking up irksome environmental activists"
• China to keep 2008 Olympics 'dry'
  "Beijing will use aircraft, missiles and cannons in what could amount to a massive umbrella over the city to keep athletes dry during next year's Olympics, state media reported on Friday."
• U.S. knew about China's anti-satellite test, chose not to act, says N.Y. Times
  "U.S. intelligence knew about preparations for January's test in China of an anti-satellite weapon but the U.S. government chose not to intervene because of insufficient leverage with Beijing, The New York Times reported on its Web site Sunday."
• Speeding, Overloading Blamed for Road Tragedy
  "The guardrails on each side of the bridge were only ten centimeters in height, far lower than the minimum height of 46 cm required by law, Li Yizhong, Minister of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), said at the scene of the accident."
• Beijing to destroy its oldest Peking Opera house
  "The Guanghe Theatre, which sits in Beijing's historic Qianmen quarter, will meet the wrecking ball, making way for the capital's "remorseless" onslaught of modernisation, Xinhua news agency reported."
• Foreign banks offer tea,insurance to lure Chinese
  "For those Chinese rich enough to open an 80,000 yuan ($10,350) account, Citigroup Inc and Standard Chartered are now promising an alternative to the long queues at China's big state lenders."
• Doing business in China: Popular Shanghai restaurant falls prey to joint venture dispute
  "The lights at Renren Restaurant now are dim all the time. The once thriving cafe has fallen prey to a dispute between the Hong Kong company represented by Ho, a Canadian citizen, and its mainland Chinese partners, who want him out."
• Top 40 blogs according to Zhuaxia stats
  Chinese blogs. Keso is No. 1.
• China delays climate change plan indefinitely
  "China has delayed indefinitely its national 'action plan' on climate change, which was due to be released on Monday after exhaustive consultations among ministries in Beijing and provincial and local governments."
• Shanghai signboards call for Chinese
  "The all-English signboards are catering to a false admiration for anything Western. Some people tend to think it's a high-end shop if the name is written in a foreign language," said Huang Anjing, an editor of a local monthly journal, Yaowen Jiaozi.
• 9 Tough Tricks, and a Title for Shanghai
  "This year’s world bridge championships are in Shanghai beginning Sept. 29. And one week ago Shanghai won the Chinese Contract Bridge Association Open Teams championship, beating Qinggong in the 96-board final, 239 international match points to 211."
• Image damage
  "Xuhui District People's Court ... ordered the Shanghai Normal University to compensate 9,000 yuan (US$1,166) to Francesca Manganelli [who] said the institute used her photo without her agreement in an advertisement for student recruitment in June 2005."
• 非常真人's photo-comic blog
  "非常真人，非常娱乐 (Very Real People, Very Entertaining) is a blog that posts short, amusing photo-comics of every day life in Beijing."
• China Yields to Inquiry on Pet Food
  "China .. has given American regulators permission to enter the country to investigate whether Chinese suppliers exported contaminated pet food ingredients to the [US] earlier this year, leading to one of the largest pet food recalls in American history."
• China aims to further tame Web
  "Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of 'unhealthy' content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported." This happens every week, no?
• China molten steel tragedy highlights lax industry
  "Lax safety measures, unsuitable equipment and 'chaotic' conditions have been blamed for the deaths of 32 steel workers engulfed in molten metal, Chinese investigators announced, warning that such failings were common."
• Letter from Beijing: Enemy of the State
  "Jianguo was arrested and tried in the summer of 1999, and I remember with perfect clarity the moment I learned what had happened."

Has the destruction of Wujiang Lu got you down? Need a quick picker-upper? If so, you might think about heading down to Henry's Brewery & Grill for a nice dose of comedy to turn that frown upside down. Does Henry's sound familiar to you, oh dearest reader? That's because it will also be the host of Shanghaiist next Happy Hour. Okay, that's enough self-promoting. This isn't the first time there's been some stand-up comedy on... more ›

There is really no more to say. This incredulous story from The SMH (and yes, we did check the date for April 1st): more ›

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. more ›

We started out the night getting one of those haircuts that looks atrocious and sends you rummaging through your closet for a good hat. It took us forever to get a cab too, and we might have lost the one we did catch if the cop that yelled at us for almost jaywalking -- "过马路不看灯呀？" "Don't you look at the lights when you cross the road?" ... we pretended to not understand -- had decided to fine us. Getting our pictures shown in public would have been bad, especially since this was near Julu Lu -- could we ever have lived that down? more ›

Along with new duds from the Hello Kitty and Peanuts fall collections, another item has found its way onto the back-to-school lists of Shanghai high-schoolers: a set of good manners. more ›