This is either incredibly genius or incredibly desperate, but Zhang Li, a college student in Hubei province, has opened up a web store on Taobao to sell her "spare time". more ›

By Benjamin Cohen more ›

As Malaysia celebrates its 50th birthday, the unity of the nation has shown cracks along racial and religious divides. Meanwhile, former premier Mahathir Mohammed is recovering after heart surgery more ›

Sri Lanka is fighting against the threatened beheading of a teen maid in Saudi Arabia over the death of an infant. Saving her from beheading has become one of the most urgent issues in a country where nearly everyone has worked abroad or had a relative employed overseas. more ›

If we’re a day late picking up the buzz on Xu Haojia—the 16-year-old girl auctioning her breasts for charity—it's because the story was so baffling, it took us 24 hours to sort it out. more ›

From Engadget, a post titled "iPhone cases (not clones) already in China": more ›

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... more ›

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. more ›

Longtime Shanghai blogger (and head of eBay's Kijiji operation in China) Wang Jian Shuo has posted a comprehensive look at the current cost of living in Shanghai. more ›

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. more ›

For more del.icio.us links, visit the Shanghaiist Contribute page, which is updated throughout the day. more ›

We were checking something on Alexa's traffic ranking page today and we noticed a collection of country links. We hadn't seen this before so we decided to check out the most popular websites in China. Alexa says, "This list refers to the most popular sites among users in the country, not sites hosted in the country," but it's important to note that Alexa's traffic ranking, while widely used, are definitely not without controversy. According to Alexa, "Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users." Shanghaiist is not an Alexa Toolbar user — we can't be, because we are not Windows users, and if we were, we wouldn't use Internet Explorer. So, you see the numbers are a little skewed, but for China they might be pretty accurate, since everyone uses Windows and IE. Although we have no clue how many Chinese internet users use the Alexa Toolbar. Anyway, here's the Top 10: more ›

Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. more ›

The people over at Engadget went all ga-ga about a new mp3 player out of China. They called them "cheap-as-free": more ›

The above slideshow contains 51 party photos, all but four of which were taken by Peijin, who got glammed up for the occasion (we're assuming it was for the occasion). He's not the only one who got into the spirit of me-decade decadence: There was Ann, whose pink leggings earned her three tickets to Saturday's White Heat Party at the Dynamic Crystal Yacht Club; Tom, whose Rick Ocasek look was good enough to win some sexy men's underwear from MANifesto; and finally, Laura, from Manchester, England, whose Cyndi-Lauper-inspired outfit was impressive -- but, honestly, we awarded her the bottle of Solid XS Vodka, donated by Freelance, mostly because we got the feeling she would beat us up if we didn't. (And ladies, before you send us angry emails, Shamus was ineligible for all awards because he is a Shanghaiist contributor.) more ›

Photo by Shanghai Sky taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos 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. more ›

"Visitors in Shanghai are allowed to shoot hoops with Yao Ming, play football with David Beckham and Ronaldo, and sing with Hong Kong pop music band Twins." more ›

Photo by Ya Ya taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos 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. more ›

Shanghaiist isn't quite sure how this will affect us, but we are pretty sure that our American readers should go throw eggs at the corporate offices of Narus and Verso ... now. more ›

Via AsiaPundit we learn some breaking news: It has been confirmed where Xiangyang Market will move once it it officially shut down on June 30. Where? Online of course. Visit xymarket.cn for all your fake goods needs. Here's what Pacific Epoch wrote about the site: more ›

• Photos of three very different Chinese weddings.
• Bowing to pressure from competitors, eBay China is waiving transaction fees on its site. "Each market is different...Chinese people are very price-sensitive, perhaps more than any other market," an eBay spokesperson said.
• The Year of the Dog could lead to lots of abandoned puppies. Adopt if you can! (It's worth it.)

Here they are, based on total pageviews: more ›

Shanghai quarantine officials are reportedly "on the lookout for dangerous Barbie dolls" after German media reports said the plastic toys contained a cancer-causing chemical. The chemical in question -- Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate or DEHP -- is found in many plastics and is not considered toxic at the level at which it usually exists in the environment. That said, it could still give you cancer, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the U.S. government's Department of Health and Human Services: more ›

Following up on a previous Shanghaiist post, it turns out that a posting on eBay China offering babies for sale was just an "evil joke." The culprit, surnamed Wu, is from Jiangxi province and will have to spend seven days in the slammer. more ›

Last month, the developers and designers of the nearly-a-decade-in-the-making Shanghai World Financial Center (WFC) skyscraper in Pudong caved in to pressure from China's Japan haters and announced they had made alterations to the planned appearance of the building, which will be one of the world's tallest if it ever gets completed. Most notable among the changes -- the large circular hole that was to cut through the building's top floors was replaced by a large trapezoidal hole (uh oh, murderous cult alert). Some had complained that the circle design looked too much like the "rising sun" image from Japan's flag, especially considering the WFC's developer, Mori Building, hails from Tokyo. (Of course, the building's designers Kohn Pederson Fox -- three decidedly un-Japanese names -- don't have offices in Tokyo, opting instead for three other powder kegs of anti-China sentiment: New York, London and, er, Shanghai.) more ›

With the large number of unwanted babies in China and the increasing popularity of the internet, we assume this was just a matter of time. But come on, people. This is sick. They even said they'd sell you a boy, which makes Shanghaiist think it must be a hoax. Shanghai police are investigating the case: more ›

Yes, that's all, folks. Local weekly English-language magazine 8 Days -- that band of merry castoffs from the pre-awful-website days of that's Shanghai -- has published its last issue. (Grab a copy, put it in a Ziploc bag, and then 10 years from now throw it away when you realize it will fetch absolutely nothing on eBay.) 8 Days, which launched less than nine months ago, is disappearing with no formal announcement, no goodbye. Sure, rumors have been swirling for months and there were two pretty big hints on Thursday's cover -- headlines said columnists Tiffany and Mel were getting the axe. Although, to be fair, those moves could have easily been mistaken for sound editorial decisions. more ›

Via our friends at Danwei, we learn of BaiGoo, a search engine hack (we think) that presents simultaneous search results from Google and China's Google, Baidu, in a split-screen format. Cute. more ›

Shanghaiist is sure that this announcement will come as a relief to all of you misplaced upturned-collar-polo-shirt-wearing frat boys who swear by the Lacoste crocodile: a Shanghai appeals court has ruled that the French company will not have to pay that creativity-challenged Singaporean company, Crocodile, $1 and a public apology. So ends -- for now, at least -- an epic court battle over crocodile-use rights (involving an irritatingly petty punishment), only for the issue to be thrown over the wall to be decided by relevant trademark law. Shanghaiist doesn’t really understand why this wasn’t originally a trademark law issue. Apparently, any real decision, like which company actually gets to keep its crocodile in the Chinese market, has yet to be determined. more ›

We all know that eBay loves it some China. Well, soon it will be easier for China to love eBay back. eBay will launch PayPal in the electronic-payment-challenged country "within the year." The Motley Fool said this of PayPal's impending China debut: "It's a proven entity that now seems likely to enter an unproven yet potentially riveting new region." But the folks at Alibaba.com, which owns Taobao.com, eBay's top China competition, aren't exactly shaking in their boots. Said Alibaba spokesman Porter Erismann, "We're ready, we're prepared and not very concerned because they've got a lot of catching up to do." Oh snap! The online auction site gloves are off! more ›