[h/t to Peijin Chen] 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).......

We've talked a lot about the growing issue of Chinese obesity in the past few days, and Al-Jazeera seems to agree with us that it's a serious problem. This video (see the second part, after the jump) delves into Beijing's changing culinary culture and how China's booming economy is bringing a corresponding weight jump, with 200 million Chinese reported as obese. From street food to fast food, Al-Jazeera takes a look at why the......

Caijing Magazine shares some startling statistics on cancer in China, where smoking, poor diet, water pollution and environmental problems have caused the nation's cancer death rate to rise 80 percent in the past 30 years. The statistics come from an exhaustive survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology. According to the survey, cancer is now accountable for 25 percent of all urban deaths and 21 percent of all......

From France24: Twenty-five years after China opened up to the west the Chinese are paying a price. Today the country has the fastest-growing obesity rate in the world and one quarter of its urban youth is overweight. Previously on Shanghaiist Chinese obesity balloons......

With all the talk about green house gases and global warming at the G-8 summit and the announcement of China's future economic dominance, much of the world is coming around to recognizing the nation as the most likely next world superpower. But China may be on track to overtake the U.S. in more than just production and pollution. A new study in the July/August issue of the journal of Health Affairs reports that the nation's......

Turns out that the ever-miraculous Viagra can do more than help you get it on: recent findings show that the drug increases blood flow to the lungs, potentially enhancing performance on the field, as well as in the bedroom. But Olympian users of the famous little blue pill, or "Vitamin V" as it's known in the athletic world, shouldn't have to curb their habits just yet, since testing is probably still in too early a......

A friend of ours went to the Huashi Pharmacy, at the Portman, to purchase the inhaler she uses due to asthma. She didn't have a prescription, but she never needed one before. As long as she had lived in Shanghai, such meds were always over-the-counter, perhaps because of the excellent air quality found in the city. But on Saturday, the workers at the pharmacy told her she could no longer buy the inhaler she needed......

In February we marveled when doctors in Urumqi removed a parasitic twin from the belly of this baby girl. The rare abnormality has occurred again, this time with an infant in Henan province. The fetus in fetu was discovered after the boy was born with an extra penis on his back, which was removed in a three-hour procedure on June 6. While the case was the first of its type at the Tianjin Childrens’ Hospital,......

The Shanghai stock market hit its largest one-day drop in the past 12 months, prompting Newsweek to worry about China's volatile economy as U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced intentions for "robust engagement" aka whining about trade deficit, bullying the PRC to revalue its currency and, if all else fails, tattling to the World Trade Organization.A local clinic was http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200806/20080611/article_362763.htm"> sued for 230,000 RMB for failing to inform a mother of the possibility of a......

A TCM doctor in Nanning by the name of Wei Shengchu (韦盛初) has stuck 2008 needles in his head to "welcome" the upcoming Beijing Olympics in a wild, wacky publicity stunt. From the Business Times 《时代商报》:50多岁的韦盛初自幼酷爱中医,2002年9月25日，他在报纸上看到一条消息说加拿大一名男子在自己的左右手臂上扎下了420针，并成功申报吉尼斯世界纪录。韦盛初十分感慨，在他看来，在手臂上扎针并没有什么难度，而且420针也不算多。据统计，如果韦盛初一边消毒一边扎针，那么每分钟大约可以扎 5-7根针，如果预先把针消好毒后连着扎，那么他每分钟可以扎12根针，这是最快的记录。经过反复研究、试验，韦盛初决定在自己的脸部和头部扎针，从1380针到2100针，韦盛初对自己头上扎针的技术越来越有信心，并多次当众表演。 50 year old Wei Shengchu has loved traditional Chinese medicine since young. On 25 Sept 2002, he read on the papers that a Canadian man had stuck 420 needles on his rigt and left arms and successfully clinched......

The total number of reported HFMD cases has risen to 27,500 and the death toll has edged up only slightly to 34. 22 of the deaths were reported took place in Anhui.The situation in Fuyang, Anhui Province, which was the first city to experience a major outbreak of HFMD, says the Ministry of Health. For the first time, patients discharged in Fuyang has outnumbered those checking in to hospitals.Meanwhile, the number of reported cases in......

China nixes major academic conference ahead of Olympic Games [AP] "Without giving a specific explanation, Chinese organizers have pulled the plug on July's world congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, the latest in a slew of events to be canceled or postponed ahead of the games in August."Japan, China agree to regular summits on landmark visit [AFP] "The leaders of Japan and China agreed Wednesday to resolve a territorial row and......

Xinhua says that a total of 12,164 Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD or 手足口病) cases have been reported so far this year. 26 fatalities have been recorded. Outbreaks have been recorded in twelve provinces and municipalities: Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Beijing and Chongqing.Danwei cites another Xinhua report that all 18 districts of Beijing have reported outbreaks of the disease, with 1,482 infections recorded. Two kindergartens in the capital......

Since the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD or 手足口病) first hit Fuyang in Anhui Province, more cases have been reported in at least five other provinces — Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Guangdong.622 new cases of the intestinal were reported in Anhui on Saturday, bringing the total number of cases to 5,151. 22 children have died in Fuyang and all kindergartens have been ordered shut.In Foshan, Guangdong Province, a third child has died from......

From the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey Really strange results just in from the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey this year: 78% of the Chinese have sex weekly, but only 24% were able to achieve an orgasm everytime they had sex. Any sexperts out there wanna tell us what insightful analysis one can make based on the above two statistics?......

From nocas via our Contribute page:today we went to the restaurant downstairs and finally took a picture of this gem in the menu (which i dont think neither of us would have the courage to taste). and just now i found out that this same virus is actually lethal and killing children in anhui province. not nice. Xinhua says the enterovirus 71, which can cause the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) has hit......

France24 uncovers a heavily-polluted town called Xiditou 300km southeast of Beijing, where lead levels in the water are 300 times the recommended safe amounts. This is one of dozens of "cancer villages" around China, and a whopping 10% of the population have died so far. Even that stray dog towards the end of clip looks so sick. Yikes.......

Yet another fake of everyone's favourite racist toothpaste. Some background from Golden China Brands:Darlie, (黑人, hēi rén, or “black people”) is a toothpaste brand of the Hong Kong-based company Hawley&Hazel. Meanwhile it belongs to one of the US based multinationals. The original name when I started using it (about 25 years ago) was “Darkie”. Darky, or darkie, meanwhile is a racist term used primarily in America and the UK to refer to black people.......

Photos here and here Recently we've had the pleasure of dining in two local restaurants in Qingpu Town, technically part of Shanghai but very close to Jiangsu Province, and both times our plates, bowls, cups and spoon came vacuum packed in plastic, supposedly "sanitized" for our pleasure. We had never seen this before, despite having dined at our fair share of greasy spoons throughout the country. But the folks we ate with last night......

Police have arrested four men and one woman for trafficking in methamphetamine, or "ice" around the Fengxian District. While the nation's very first anti-drug radio programme aired here on Sunday, an increasing number of celebrities are getting caught for drug abuse. Zhang Yuan, one of China's most popular directors, was arrested two months ago on drug charges. And recently, singer Xie Dong, himself an anti-drug volunteer, was detained after testing positive for meth along with......

This video clip from MSNBC has one shocking statistic — China has one third of the world's smokers. That's 350 million, more than the population of the United States. This also comes as news to us: that Beijing is going to ban indoor smoking from May, ahead of the Olympics. Whether this will work remains to be seen. One restaurant chain that has enforced the smoking ban ahead of schedule is already complaining that it......

Doctors at the Xinjiang Children's Hospital in Urumqi have removed a parasitic twin growing within the belly of a four-month old baby, making her look as though she were pregnant. The fetus in fetu was about the size of a bowling ball that weighed 1.25kg, had the shape of a head and an underdeveloped musculoskeletal structure. Such an abnormality occurs in about 1 in a million. The parents of the baby only discovered 40 days......

By Mike Chen Where: Shanghai Renji Hospital When: June 2007......

From 163.com [Translation by CDT]:Before the founding of the People's Republic, people with leprosy were killed to prevent them from spreading the disease to others. In the 1950s, this disease could be cured and in the 1980s, medicines were handed out to leprosy patients for free. Even though the disease can be cured, the lasting effects, and discrimination, still stay with the patients. Leprosy communities are looked on as demons and are often not accepted......

抗癌药被污染致残上百人厂方瞒报事实加重药害_网易新闻中心 via kwout The above is from a report about the cancer patients affected by the corrupted medicine from Shanghai's Hualian Pharmaceutical. According to an article from Jan. 10:Under the guidance of and with the participation of a joint investigation team set up between the Ministry of Health and State Drug and Food Administration, concerned departments in Shanghai identified the cause of the accident: Hualian's staff mixed Vincristine Sulfate into Methotrexate for injection and Cytarabine......

Thanks to the commenters on that last post, especially the one that alerted us to videos of the protests/marches that were on the Taiwan Youtube site. There were two that we found, embedded below. The first one is just a short clip of people walking around during the day. The second is from Xujiahui in the evening, with more chanting, from the evening of January 6. Oh yeah, and to the commenter who mentioned that......

A little girl from Hunan province born with her heart outside of the body and rib cage has come to Shanghai for medical treatment. The congenital defect, known as ectopia cordis, is extremely rare. In China, only two cases have been recorded and worldwide, over 200. The girl's heart is protected by only a layer of skin and nothing else, and we imagine that sleeping in any other position than on her back would be......

We who live in Shanghai have to have a soft spot for Filipino cover bands — there could be one waiting around just about every corner in certain parts of the city. And so despite having nothing to do with Shanghai (or China), we thought we'd post this tip we got from reader Ryan Martin this morning via email: I don't know if you guys covered this but the singer of a Filipino cover band......

Since making a Snake Plissken-style escape from Pudong, the Puxi landmark that has inexorably drawn our eye as we survey the okay-for-the price view from our garret hasn't been the Sauronesque spire of the Marriott, nor the guy who does his Ghost Dog workout on the roof opposite each morning, but rather an advert for pants. Or "briefs" to those of you who've escaped the yoke of Queen Elizabeth II. Calvin Klein briefs, to be......

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......