Photo by Les Izmore Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

Photo by Sabershadezero After a long and sometimes chaotic winter, the recent heatwave has been much celebrated around the city. Outdoor dining is back, the windows are open, and the locals are sporting this season's hottest pajama fashion. But with all the good weather there's a silver lining or, perhaps more accurately, a poisonous death haze. This is that magical time of year where all the tiny particles in the air heat up and......

Taikang Lu has developed rapidly in the last few months — expanding from the original alleyway into a sprawling collection of labyrinthine lanes populated by galleries, arty shops, and some great restaurants. However, the revitalisation of Taikang Lu hasn't been welcomed by everyone. Yesterday, on a gloriously sunny afternoon that saw large numbers of people flock to the area, some local residents decided to voice their dissent against the ongoing development. Three white and blue......

During his discussion with Kerry Brown and Duncan Hewitt at the recently held Shanghai International Literary Festival, Paul French quoted British environmentalist Jonathon Porritt as saying that "the biggest problem with the environment in China is that nobody in China could care less about it". China's environmental woes are well-documented and, despite attempts to convince the world otherwise, the country is still rarely seen as a leader on environmental protection. Having twenty of the world's......

Not too surprising, we suppose. They broke ground on this at the expo site today, More from the Shanghai Daily: The structure is named as "the crown of the East" as its most distinct feature is the roof. It will be made of traditional dougong brackets, which have a history of more than 2,000 years. ... China Pavilion's design was chosen from 344 entries submitted from all over the world and revised by experts, the......

Time to top-out your public transport cards, all RMB 999 folks, Opening Day is upon us! The Shanghai metro system will soon be welcoming into the family "three lines and two segments," as the opening as been nicknamed, consisting of new Lines 6/8/9, the 2nd northern extension of Line 1 and the final stretch of the Line 4 loop line. Thanks to "planning with Chinese characteristics" it is still unclear whether the first day of......

The state media had reported around May of this year that the proposed Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev was canceled. In the report just linked to, it says that the official reason why the thing was canceled was because of health and environmental concerns, while the supposed "real reason" was that residents in the maglev's path were starting a petition. Reading over this report reminds of how this issue has been ping-ponging back and forth for years. We......

Where to go, where to go: Shanghaiist is still trying to figure out where to carb up for our big dodgeball game tonight (that's right, patches, dodgeball). Pure, the fancy new Japanese restaurant that is part of The Collection at Xintiandi, has been offering their new sushi menu for 50% off since last Thursday. The special ends tomorrow night, however, so if we enjoy ourselves tonight we may find ourselves there tomorrow as well. On......

It may only be a spit away by plane, but for those of us too cheap environmentally concerned to fly, getting up to Beijing for the weekend is a bitch (despite our love of munching through a bottomless nosebag of sunflower seeds to looped pan-pipe renditions of Celine Dion songs). Which is why we don't go. So the proposed high-speed line between Shanghai and BJ, which will reportedly cane it along at 350km/h and take......

For those of you that haven't been able to pluck yourself out of that sinking feeling, Xinhua has a scientific explanation for it — our city has been sinking! In fact, geologists say it's sunk 7.5 millimetres this year, with "severe subsidence" of 8.3 millimetres detected in downtown areas. The sinking's been caused by heavy construction as well as water being pumped out of underground aquifers for "industrial and agricutural purposes" which has now been......

PLUS LEE KUAN YEW AND HIS ROLE IN SINO-SINGAPORE RELATIONS The last week has seen top leaders zipping between China and Singapore to cement ties and sign new deals. Let's take you through the high-profile visits one by one before diving deeper into more detail (Warning: Long article!): Goh Chok Tong visits new Shanghai party chief and the Singapore-Suzhou Industrial Park Last week, Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong swung by Shanghai to visit her......

Tiger eats tiger in NE China zoo [Xinhua] A Siberian tiger at the Shenyang Glacier Zoo was killed and eaten by four tigers it had lived with for five years over the weekend. Apparently, the cash-strapped zoo has not been able to feed the tigers with sufficient food for the last two years.'Spiderman' Scales Part of China Mountain [AP] A daredevil French climber nicknamed "Spiderman" scaled part of Hunan province's Tianmen Mountain using only his......

The propaganda department is definitely going into overdrive this week. First, if you still didn't know that China has political parties other than the CCP, the People's Daily has an interesting backgrounder of the eight parties, with short descriptions of the history of the parties and their membership size and make-up. These parties are namely: the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (RCCK), China Democratic League (CDL), China National Democratic Construction Association (CNDCA), China Association......

Metro news from the local press: The case of the young man who was squeezed to death between the metro train and the glass security doors on the Shanghai Stadium Line 4 platform will begin pretrial procedures tomorrow. The People's Daily has published an overview of new developments in the Shanghai newspaper industry, including a paragraph highlighting the success of the free commuter paper I-Metro Express (I时代报), the only newspaper to be distributed for free......

On Saturday, Oct. 27, the same night as our Halloween extravaganza, police raided and shut down Shanghai's popular gay club, Club Deep (commonly called "Deep"). Word on the street is that some Deep patrons were indulging in some not-so-legal substances during Deep's "Decadent Halloween" party, sponsored by i-Candy. According to our sources, between 20-30 police officers (initially mistaken for costumed go-go dancers, it was a Halloween party after all) arrested around 10 people, all suspected......

Most of the time when we need liquor we head to Carrefour, City Supermarket, or any of those types of places; but we are now happy to report that we found one more option: 9519, a Chinese somewhat upscale liquor store that's stocked with baijiu, huangjiu, vodka, gin, vermouth, red and white wines, beers, and even some fancy old-fashioned wine sets (ceramic, similar to a sake/wine set). The name is meant to sound like 酒,我要酒......

South Korea starts construction of space centre [Channel News Asia] Asia's space race is heating up with China's latest launch of its first lunar orbiter. And neighbouring South Korea is working hard to catch up.Malaysian police officer denies illegally amassing US$8m in assets [Channel News Asia] The head of Malaysia's Commercial Crimes Investigation Division has denied allegations that he illegally amassed more than US$8 million in assets. India rediscovers East Asia [Asia Times] The visit......

In the local press recently: By year's end, the Zhongshan Park Line 2/3/4 interchange station's single intra-station passageway between the Line 2 and Line 3/4 platforms will be joined by a new passageway added to relieve passenger congestion. Since the opening of the Line 2 extension, passenger traffic on Lines 2 and 3 has been grown markedly and the pedestrian traffic during rush hours is almost unbearable. The new passageway will be located on the......

China Construction Bank’s A share began trading yesterday. The ￥6.45 IPO closed at ￥8.53 , a whopping 32 percent gain, eye popping in any Western markets, but here in China, a big yawn. Two other smaller companies went public on the same day, both advanced 200 percent plus, cha-ching! CCB was the largest China IPO to date(￥58 billion), but that title will soon belong to Shenhua Energy, the nation’s largest coal miner. The offering attracted......

China Construction Bank, the second largest state owned bank, priced its highly anticipated A share offering last night, at 6.45 yuan a piece, hitting the upper range of the forecast. The nine billion share sale will raise 58.05 billion yuan(USD $7.72 billion), the largest offering ever in the domestic market. Shares were 40 times oversubscribed by retail investors and 32 times by institutional investors. Analysts estimate CCB shares will fetch between 7.8 to 9.6 yuan......

The Aluminum Company of America, better known as ALCOA sold its entire 7 percent stake in its largest Chinese counterpart, Aluminum Company of China, or CHALCO for short (ALCOC just doesn’t quite have the same pizzazz, not to mention potentially misleading). ALCOA acquired the Chalco stake for roughly USD $200 million back in 2001 when the Chinese firm went public in Hong Kong. And six years later, the same stake just exchanged hands for 10......

Shanghaiist really needed a break and what better place to take that break than... the Venetian? I know what you're thinking: biggest casino in the world + gambling Chinese tourists = a big fat headache. Well, it wasn't that bad, really. The Venetian was fully booked over the weekend so we could only get one night at the Vegas transplant... which was quite enough for us. The casino is an exact replica of its Vegas......

The basic structure of the World Financial Tower's observation deck was recently completed. Construction has started on the 101st and final floor. Photo from dbmboise. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.......

The free Metro Express commuter paper has a big front-page spread today on the People's Square metro interchange make-over. The headline announces that "People's Square Three Line Interchange Hall To Open By Year's End", which is old news to those who have been following the progress of the new metro Line 8. Instead, the reason for the story being published today is that the Shanghai Rail Transport Construction Headquarters just released a bunch of numbers......

This week's Adoptable Pet from Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghaiist's adopted animal charity. From the SCAA: Jude is a one-year-old male cat found at a construction site three months ago where he had been surviving only on the scraps of food kind people left out for him. When his foster mom found him he was covered in motor oil. She took him home, but he wouldn't stop crying until she started to sing The Beatle's......

Fire broke out today at the US$910 million 101-storey tall Shanghai World Financial Center in an elevator shaft on the 40th floor at about 4pm today. Eight fire trucks were dispatched to douse the fire, and it was eventually extinguished by 5.42 pm. There were no reports of injuries or deaths. An AP report offers an excellent recap of the numerous travails that have faced the wedge-shaped building in the last few years (some of......

Gold, silver, bronze? Nah. According to Bloomberg.com athletes the world over have smog on their minds when it comes to the quadrennial Olympics competition next year in Beijing. Gunn-Rita Dhale, Norway’s reigning world champion for women’s mountain biking had this to say about her future host city, It's probably the most polluted place I've ever competed. Your mouth and throat dry up because of the dust. It's not good for the system. Clearly, Ms. Dhale......

China tipped to be main driver the global economy this year [The Times] China will become the biggest driver of global economic activity this year for the first time, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday as it raised its already bullish forecasts for growth. China 'rejects Vatican call on bishops' [The Age] China rejects the Vatican's demand that it stop appointing bishops without papal approval but is willing to talk, a state newspaper said on......

Jakob Montrasio points us to a most unbelievable ranking of the world's top 25 cities with skyscrapers published by the German magazine Spiegel: 1: Hongkong, China. 7422 skyscrapers. 2: New York City, USA. 5445 skyscrapers. 3: Singapore 3503 skyscrapers. 4 million people. 4: São Paulo, Brazil. 3012 skyscrapers. 10 million people. 5: Seoul, Korea. 2831 skyscrapers. 6: Istanbul, Turkey. 2093 skyscrapers. Over 10 million people. 7: Tokyo, Japan. 2074 skyscrapers. 12 million people. 8: Rio......

Part of Huaihai Lu to be shut for 20 months due to subway expansion A section of Huaihai Road W. between Xinhua Road and Huashan Road will be shut down for 20 months starting on Saturday due to construction on a new subway line, metro officials said yesterday. Use of transport card to be expanded Local residents will be able to use their transport cards to pay taxi, bus, and subway fares in Nanjing and......