Literary badboy and rally driver Han Han (韩寒) is set to take anti-fraud crusader Fang Zhouzi (方舟子) to court for claiming online that some of his works were probably ghost-written. more ›

In a new campaign for super-hip Nescafé, edgy it-boy Han Han hits the road in his bad-ass motorbike, searching for stories that inspire him: watching paraplegic racers, hitting on cute buskers, and helping build pretty autumnal-looking rural schools. more ›

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A friend in the state apparatus told me, “You’re all too greedy. Forty years ago, writers like you would’ve been shot. So you tell me, have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse?” I said, “No, you’re all too greedy. Ninety years ago, that kind of thinking would have gotten you laughed out of the room. So you tell me: after all that, have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse?” more ›

Alas, Baidu's ill-gotten intellectual property gravy train is coming to a screeching halt. more ›

There's been lots of rumours lately that literary bad boy and professional rally driver Han Han is going to write about Baidu's disrespect for copyright in his first column for the NYT. In his latest blog post, Han Han looks at all the victories that Baidu's been winning in court, and wonders aloud if CEO Robin Li's dad is Li Gang. Hilarious!

Yesterday, negotiations between several publishing industry representatives and Baidu broke down. In the early stages, Shen Haobo, Lu Jinbo and Hou Xiaoqiang had told me on various occasions that Baidu has been causing damage to the entire publishing industry, to which I responded: “Let’s sue them”. They then said several cases had been brought against them, none of which were won. Baidu has plenty of money and access, in effect they pretty much control the courts. They also have first rate public relations capabilities, so in addition they control what is being said about them by most media outlets. I sighed and wondered: “Could it be that Robin Li’s dad is Li Gang?” more ›

Han Han, professional rally driver and the world's most widely-read blogger, weighs in on Muammar Gaddafi:

More than a few people around me are paying close attention to the turmoil in Libya, and even one fan of Libyan football I know still thinks it's Belgium that has gone awry. China voted once to impose sanctions, and abstained in the vote to establish a no-fly zone, how wonderful. Now, today, people won't stop fighting over Gaddafi, and of course they have split into two camps: one says Gaddafi is completely evil, a corrupt tyrant who slaughters civilian and blows up airliners and ought to be obliteration by the Coalition. Then there's the other camp which says these are Libya's internal affairs and other countries should not interfere, that Western countries either just want to get some oil out of Libya or take the focus off their own internal conflicts, that they have ulterior motives. more ›

"The only difference is English-speaking countries treat the internet as technology, while Chinese-speaking countries treat the internet as medicine." more ›

Did you know that in some matrixes, blogger Han Han is more popular than actress Zhang Ziyi? And that he's now appearing for billboards for clothing site Vancl? Being an internet celebrity is great! So how do you become one? Little Red Book has broken the steps down, with certain internet celeb examples: Brother Sharp, Furong Jie Jie and Soccer baby Xinyu Zhang. more ›

Han Han's long-awaited magazine, Party, hit Chinese bookstores on Tuesday, but two days in and fellow writers of the 1980s generation have began rallying against it. The Global Times reported that several writers allegedly signed an online proposal calling on readers to reject Han's "pseudo literature." more ›

Forbes' Gady Epstein has written up a hilarious satire (complete with pictures!) calling into question what would happen if the devastating BP oil spill off the U.S.' gulf coast had actually happened in China. Would BP CEO Tony Hayworth have been executed for his role in this "atypical ocean event"? Hint: kind of. more ›

Shanghai blogger daredevil Han Han talks to CNN about censorship, knowing what not to say and how he feels about being on TIME's list of People of the Year. [h/t to Danwei] more ›

Haibao has given people a really bad headache. I'm not even talking about his image, just his design. Haibao's original two-dimensional design has created a really difficult problem for those tasked with making him three dimensional: what should his backside look like? Does he have a tail? Does he have a butt? Does he have a buttcrack? These are all unknown. That's why we can see towering Haibao statues whose fronts are all the same, but whose backsides, you will discover, may or may not have buttcracks. But recently, there are more without buttcracks because the buttcracks have already announced that they're leaving China [Note: "Buttcrack" sounds similar to Google in Chinese]. more ›

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It's been a long year filled with trivial fun, the best of which involves the antics of celebrities, musicians, writers, and generally anyone involved in the creation of China's vibrant culture. From poetry to death hoaxes, we've garnered a lot of enjoyment from covering the diaspora of China's creative zeitgeist. And in honor of the multitudinous wonderful, scandalous and noteworthy things we've watched, experienced and digested over the past year, here's a short breakdown of our favorite gems of cultural news. more ›

We make no apologies for professing our love of Han Han: there's something about unbridled angst and resistance to the status quo that really gets us going. Needless to say, that view isn't shared by everyone on the mainland, and we often find Han Han at the center of some controversy, which only makes us more intrigued by him. The most recent blow comes from China Daily's Raymond Zhou, knocking the "rebel without a cause" for his poor interview in Time magazine. more ›

• Gosh they're getting them while they're young - elementary school students in Shaoxing now have a chance to join the Chengguan Youth Special Forces and enact justice on street vendors. [Chinasmack]
• Daniel Gross, eat your heart out. Lawrence L. Allen, who worked for both Hershey and Nestlé in China, talks about the chocolate market's rise in China. [Danwei]
• Perhaps they misinterpreted what the public meant when they said they wanted officials with a more "beautiful image"; nearly one-fourth of one plastic surgeon's clients are male officials and their wives. [China.org.cn]

Han Han, our favorite novelist cum race-car driver, posted to his blog yesterday about an incident over the weekend in Minhang involving a woman throwing molotov cocktails at a demolition crew. It was one of the many instances where an individual violently protests against the forced destruction of their home by corrupt government officials (molotov cocktails aren't nearly as intense as setting yourself on fire, though). As much outrage as we could express over forcing people to their personal and physical limits to have themselves heard, we always know that Han Han can do it better. more ›

Another case of technology for perhaps technology's sake? Expo officials announced that all food entering the 2010 Expo grounds will monitored with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to ensure the quality and safety of the food. [Shanghai Daily] more ›

One of our favorite Chinese sites seems to have run afoul of the net nanny: vip.bokee.com has been on again off again, but perfectly viewable with a proxy. Using the proxy we saw an article about a list published in a Chengdu newspaper of the top-grossing authors in China, at least based on royalties from the sales of their books. At the top of the list was a Guo Jingming, a young author (born in... more ›