Results tagged “detroit”

• Someone has taken issue with the thug guards at Xintiandi, which allegedly harassed not only a poor kuadi delivery guy who had his bike stolen, but also a group of Taiwanese kids just looking for a place to sit. [Access Asia]
• Lost Heaven just had the grand opening for their massive four-story Bund location. Urbanatomy's I Love Shanghai blog was there to check it out. [Urbanatomy]
• Shanghai has started selling World Expo-themed welfare lottery tickets, with a top prize of 300,000RMB. All profits will be donated to the earthquake-affected areas of Sichuan. [Xinhua]

• Kashgar's Old Town Bulldozed; Is Uyghur Culture in Danger? [FarWestChina - gfw] "Within the narrow alleyways of this Old Town lie thousands of years of Kashgar’s history. Aged wooden doors and cobblestone paths have witnessed the passage of innumerable donkey carts, small Uyghur children and, in recent times, many foreign tourists. On the outside, these mud-brick walls seem at peace with their place in history but just beyond the padlocked door a crippling truth emerges. Squinting through the cracks in the doorway it is possible to see that these walls no longer house Uyghur inhabitants. Instead, they hide the heartbreaking destruction of Kashgar’s Old City. Over two-thirds of the city has already been leveled. History has been replaced by rubble; donkey carts by bulldozers."
• Chinese Singing Show To Go On, With a New Name and Conditions [WSJ] "While hugely popular, the shows also triggered hot debates. Some celebrated them for representing the victory of grassroots culture over official or elite culture, while others believed the show just encouraged young people to seek out overnight fame. Along with popularity came increased government scrutiny. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft) released a series of specific measures to regulate entertainment programs (particularly talent shows) in 2007 and a planned 2008 season of Super Girls was cancelled. A spokesman for Hunan Satellite Television told the media late last month that a revival of the televised singing competition had been approved by the Sarft, though not without several conditions attached."
• Singapore promotes Mandarin [Danwei] "According to a survey conducted on incoming primary students by the Singapore Department of Education, the number of Chinese-language households in Singapore has been declining since the 1990s. Today, only 40% of households use Chinese as a primary language, while English-language households have climbed from 26% in 1990 to 60% today. To reverse this trend, the Singapore Promote Mandarin Council launched The Chinese Challenge on March 30, fun quizzes that let Singapore citizens and permanent residents personally experience the breadth and depth of Chinese culture, deepen their understanding of Mandarin, and improve their grasp on the language."

The man who invented one of the most influential forms of modern music plays Shanghai tonight. Juan Atkins, from Detroit, USA, first started tinkering with synthesizers and drum machines back in the early 80s, and played the leading role in creating a brand new genre of futuristic, forward-thinking and cutting-edge music which would later become known as "Techno".

Are you starved for techno? Real, honest-to-gosh techno? Well, Shanghai's Void crew has you covered. Several times a month they fill up LOgO and The Shelter to bring you the foot-tappinest, head-noddinest, neck-snappinest techno you ever could lay ears on. They've showcased both DJ Nomadico and Jason Hodges in Shanghai, and this Saturday March 1st they bring a little bit of Detroit and Berlin to The Shelter.

Image credit: Nature abhors a vacuum

Underground Resistance's first foray into mainland China last Saturday at The Shelter was truly a significant milestone for Shanghai's underground scene. DJ Dex aka Nomadico unleashed a set that's been described as a "real history lesson in dance music" — one that took the 800 or so revellers from the pre-electronic routes of modern dance music in the shape of parliament and James Brown, right up to the proper "electro" from the Advent ("program da...

In our 10 years of clubbing life we have never seen anything like this:

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 a record ￥2.6 trillion(USD $355 billion) of funds looking to buy shares. The actual amount raised, based on projected ￥37/share and 1.8 billion shares offered would fall somewhere in the neighborhood of ￥66.6 billion, still a lot of zeros.

OK, we've never heard of East Star Airlines before, but it has just become the first private airline in China to be authorized to operate international flights. A Xinhua report tells us that under Civil Aviation Administration of China regulations, new airlines may apply to operate international flights only after three years of operations. East Star has been in business less than two years, but it beat rivals Okair, Ueair, Juneyao Airlines and Spring Airlines to be the first. Hmm... we wonder what made them bend those rules!

With a few honourable exceptions, quality electronic music in Shanghai is hard to find. In such a commercial city, bars and clubs have high rents to pay. So obviously, events where there isn't anyone from the top 100 ranked DJ list playing are rubbish and not worth going to.

Didn’t take long for our first new year wish to get squashed. On Tuesday, United Airlines won preliminary approval from the US Department of Transportation to operate a daily non-stop flight between Washington, D.C. and Beijing starting this March, beating out proposals from fellow carriers Northwest (Detroit to Shanghai), American (Dallas to Beijing) and our favorite, Continental (Newark to Shanghai).

Photo by 2 dogs taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site.

A few weeks ago, we told you that several US airlines are jockeying for one opening route to and from China early next year: Northwest from Detroit to Shanghai, United from Washington, D.C., to Beijing, American from Dallas to Beijing and Continental from Newark to Shanghai.

Northwest Airlines has submitted a proposal to start nonstop service between Shanghai and Detroit on or about March 25, 2007. The report says they have filed their request with the U.S. Department of Transportation. We're not quite sure how this clearance works, but wouldn't they have to get approval from China, too?

GigShanghai: Booty, 'touching guitars' and Supergirl?!?

GigShanghai: Noisy Sundays, females unite, and free BEP tickets!

For our recent trip to the US, we decided to check out American Airlines' nonstop service from Shanghai to Chicago, which they launched in April. Since moving here in 2002, we have primarily used Northwest Airlines' Shanghai-Tokyo-New York route, save for a couple legs on JAL and Air Canada, whose website is embarrassingly incompatible with Safari. American is now our airline of choice for flying home. Here are some notes on our travel experience:

GigShanghai: The scoop on the city's live music scene

Pictured is the Geely Beauty Leopard, a sporty sedan from the first Chinese automaker to display a car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It sells in China for US$15,125 and comes standard with a karaoke player. Geely cars aren't available for sale in the U.S. yet, and if they ever will be, it won't be for a couple of years. Same goes for the cute little Chinese Chery cars (profiled by Peter Hessler in The New Yorker), expected to cross the Pacific in 2007. But, according to this TIME story, making waves in America won't necessarily be easy for Chinese car companies:

The China Daily reports that an expansion to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport is expected to be completed by 2007 and cost $1.23 billion. The expansion includes a third runway and a new terminal, upping the airport's capacity from 20 million passengers per year to 60 million. Eleven million used the airport last year.

The VIP Room filled up quickly Thursday night as several hundred locals and a healthy smattering of Scandinavian expats gathered for an all too rare night of Finnish electro.

UPDATE: China's Haier just dropped its controversial $1 billion bid for Maytag.