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All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: It's Golden Week! And to celebrate the holiday Shanghai has a slew of ongoing events throughout the next few days to keep you busy, including fireworks, forest park shenanigans, Swan Lake, local rock, and a Yanni concert! Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

It isn't everyday that we get to show you what fireworks can actually do to a building, so here you go. That's what the Dynasty Wanxin Hotel, the tallest building in Shenyang (and possibly the tallest in all of the northeast), looks like today after stray Chinese New Year fireworks gutted it last week. more ›

Another day, another building on fire. This time, the victim is the historic Fahai Temple in downtown Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province, built over a thousand years ago in 945. No casualties were reported in the fire, which was put out by a team of 150 firefighters in an hour (armed by the jet-powered water cannon, perhaps?). None of the cultural relics in the temple were said to be burnt, although looking at these pictures, we can't say we can be sure of that. more ›

WARNING: This video contains graphic images. more ›

Chinese New Year celebrations light up the night time sky of cities all across China. more ›

Awesome fireworks, marred only by the awful commentators. Don't miss the Oriental Pearl Tower transformed into a fiery phallus towards the end. We thought for a moment it was going to blow up: more ›

Did you know that you could actually still buy fireworks in the city? Despite the Spring Festival being over for about a month now, fireworks and firecrackers can still be found at downtown-area stores... but not for long! Shanghai has ordered that they be pulled off shelves by the end of this month as part of the efforts to ensure a safe Expo. In April, you'll have to go outside the Middle Ring Road if you want to engage your inner arsonist... so, maybe you ought to set off a few for good fun now, while you still apparently can? more ›

• While it's long been tradition for the elderly to be looked after by family members in China, it seems that more and more senior citizens are opting for elderly homes. [Channel News Asia]
• John Garnaut profiles Yu Jianrong, a respected Chinese scholar who has, among other things, lived as a petitioner in Beijing's petitioner village to record how problems get solved (they don't) and researched mass unrest in the country. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• ESWN translates a story of a fireworks disaster in Guangzhou Province. A rich family who had bought several hundred thousand yuan worth of fireworks (without a license, of course), ended up killing 13 people and injuring 49 when something went wrong. [EastSouthWestNorth]

Chinese New Year has come and gone and despite all the fireworks going off dangerously close to buildings all over the city, the only actual fire (at least, reported fire) was one completely unrelated to celebrations - a recycling center was set aflame on Sunday, killing six people and injuring eight. Investigations found that it did not have a license to store flammable chemical substances, and the fire was triggered by an explosion of chemical containers during the waste treatment process. The city is now checking potential safety problems at businesses, with Mayor Han Zheng stating that for each severe accident, there could be 300 mild accidents, 300 accidents that failed to happen and 1,000 potential safety problems. Officials are aiming to have all businesses across Shanghai safe by March 1. Hmmm. Good luck with that. more ›

• China will prosecute 23 people for the CCTV tower that was set aflame last Chinese New Year... someday. Apparently no trial or hearing date has been set yet. [AFP]
• While much of the press about the Winter Olympics has been about Zhou Yang winning China's third gold, 2nd gold winner Wang Meng's disqualification is barely being whispered. [China Sports Today]
• Oxfam is now being blacklisted in China by the Education Ministry for allegedly having a "hidden political agenda." [Washington Post]

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

So those of us who've lived through Spring Festival week in China knew what to expect: tons and tons of fireworks, set off from both homes and commercial establishments, into the wee hours of the morning and - usually - the rest of the week. In fact, last night, being the night to welcome in the Fortune Goddess, was quite a doozy. more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

This week and the next, Shanghaiist takes a look back at their favorite shots from various Shanghaiist contributors through 2009. If you want to contribute your photos to us, it's a super easy process - just tag your favorite Shanghai shots with "Shanghaiist" on Flickr or send it to us by email (photos@shanghaiist.com) and it'll show up in our Flickr pool. more ›

Sometimes it seems as though there is nothing the government can't do. As we know, Beijing is going out of its way to ensure National Day celebrations run as smoothly as possible. With everything planned so meticulously and all those security measures put in place, we would hate for it to rain on our National Day parade. more ›

This Lantern Festival, villagers in Nanchuan, China carried out a 500-year tradition - throwing molten iron against a wall to create showers of fireworks. The act, called 打树花 （da shu hua - or beating a tree for flowers), looks dangerous. But the throwers insist that it's not as long as you're not afraid to die. more ›

Caijing has a spectacular article looking at some of the troubles still shrouding the CCTV fire from last month, and they don't all have to do with the destroyed building. The blaze that gutted the TVCC building on February 9 may have also uncovered questionable financial deals made by high-level CCTV executives. more ›

12 people have been detained by Beijing police over the illegal fireworks that allegedly burned up the TVCC complex. Four CCTV staff members and the eight employees connected with the company hired to fire off the fireworks display have been detained for their suspected roles in causing the fire. CCTV said the fireworks had been powerful enough to require a special permit, but the broadcaster had not applied for one and deliberately ignored police safety warnings. Source: AP more ›

While some of us spent Chinese New Year's Eve enjoying grilled seafood on a beach in the Philippines, Luis Tapia of Shanghai-based Daedalum Films was lugging his camera to a Shanghai rooftop to record the fireworks. The results, as you can see above, are beautiful (be sure to watch in HD). Thankfully, the video does not include actual sound (you probably got enough of that last night). Instead, the soundtrack is "El Pico" by Ratatat. You can buy that song on iTunes. Enjoy. more ›

[Monday, 10pm] People are currently aTwitter with news that that Beijing's CCTV headquarters has gone up in flames, and from the following pictures snapped and uploaded by various eyewitnesses (including some amazing on-the-scene photos by real estate tycoon and CEO of Soho China Pan Shiyi), the fire looks pretty damn bad and appears to have engulfed the part of the complex that houses the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Beijing. Given that today is Yuanxiao Jie (元宵节) which marks the culmination of the Lunar New Year festivities, it is not unlikely that stray fireworks were the cause of this disaster. Follow what the China Twitterati is saying at #cctvfire. Videoclips after the jump. more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

• About 30,000 cleaners swept up 1,200 tonnes of fireworks debris left over from Sunday night's big celebrations.
• Originally scheduled for launch in August 2008, the much-touted luxury hotel Jumeirah HanTang Xintiandi Shanghai, will now be open for business sometime this year.
• Chinese government officials have denied U.S. Treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's allegations that China is manipulating its currency.

Welcoming the New Year a tad prematurely, a fireworks stall on a busy Xi-an street ignited, setting off a chain of explosions that went on for about 20 minutes, burned up at least seven cars and reduced about 100 meters of similar fireworks stalls to ashes. more ›