We've mentioned before that we will continue to support the baby tiger cause on this site, if only because we feel they always get second billing to baby pandas, despite being evolutionarily superior. China Daily has an absolutely adorable photo gallery up on its site of South China tiger cubs that were bred in Henan province. Four cubs were born at the Wangcheng zoo in Luoyang in April, and now that they're two-months-old and doing very well, they are being called “a major breakthrough in the artificial breeding technique of the endangered species.” The LATimes had more info about this specific tiger breed, noting that South China tigers are physically smaller than their Bengal and Siberian tiger cousins and with more widely spaced stripes. Chairman Mao was not a fan of them, ordering them eliminated because they were "pests." Their number plummeted in the following years and they were thought to be extinct until one was spotted in the wild for the first time in decades in 2007. Go tigers! more ›

Four men were arrested yesterday for allegedly kidnapping a real estate mogul and taking a 5.8 million yuan ransom for his release. The four said they had gotten the idea for their scheme from a television drama. more ›

Fresh off the press: A video of the secret police who watched over AIDS, environmental and democracy activist Hu Jia (胡嘉) day and night while they were under house arrest from July last year to March this year has just been released (h/t to CDT). more ›

At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognise automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity. more ›

Henan Province's Qilu Television recently featured 24 year old Wang Chengke (王成科) who claims he has been eating glass since he was six. In the video clip on the right, he starts by smashing a Tsingdao bottle on the ground, then eating it piece by piece. Subsequently he smashes a glass ashtray on the ground, eats it and comments that it doesn't taste too bad at all! Like us, some commenters on 56.com were cynical and expressed their disbelief, what with the recent fake news reports and all, but we googled around a bit, and found that Wang's story has been reported in many other media outlets. In fact a Google search for the search terms 王成科 (his name) and 吃玻璃 ("glass eating") registered 173,000 search results! (Then again, one could always argue that this doesn't come as a surprise considering how much the Chinese media copy from one another!) In this story from Qingdao News, a doctor is quoted as saying that Wang's gastric acid is 5 times stronger than the average person's and estimates that he must have eaten about a tonne of glass by now, while another story on Jiangnan News way back in 2003 tells us that he's even found a talent agent for himself (we hope the freak show makes them both lots of money)! Just plain bizarre, or yet another fake news story? We'll leave it to you to decide for yourself! more ›

Image of algae in pond by Wandering in China. more ›

• 3 in US accused of enslaving Chinese acrobats
  Three men enslaved more than 20 Chinese acrobats, feeding and paying them little to work, and confiscating their passports and visas.


• 'Mass incidents' on rise as environment deteriorates
  Chinese people's refusal to accept an ever deteriorating environmental situation has resulted in a rising number of "mass incidents", the country's chief environment official said on Wednesday.


• Becoming Bill Gates' right-hand man
  Showing signs of genius even as a young boy, it was not surprising that Dr Zhang Yaqin would rise to become a right-hand man of the world's most powerful billionaire.

As Shanghaiist recently reported, AIDS in China continues to be a serious, rapidly growing problem. Much of the current epidemic stems from illegal blood selling in Henan Province during the mid 1990s. Dr. Gao Yao Jie , an activist for AIDS patients in Henan Province, estimates that up to1 million people are infected in Henan province alone. In spite of this, HIV/AIDS still has a reputation in China as a disease of “marginal groups” like drug users, prostitutes, and men who have sex with men. This stigma keeps many infected persons from getting tested or informing their families/friends/lovers of their condition. more ›

• While no real progress has been made in cementing a deal with Disney, Shanghai continues its game of one-upsmanship with Hong Kong--our fair city's proposed site (only 6km from Pudong airport) is eight times the size of Hong Kong's park.
• Chinese women play U.S. to 0-0 draw in Algarve Cup.
• Have you noticed how hard it is to get a cab these days? Officials say soaring gasoline prices and Shanghai's growing public transportation network have cut into drivers' profits, leading many of them to quit.

discipline of martial arts. more ›

Shanghaiist was (un)fortunate enough last December to go to Shangcai prefecture out in Henan, which is where the famed "AIDS village" (艾滋病村）is located. We were shown around the hospitals and schools, always under the supervision of officials. Even though we never paid for the sumptuous meals downed with numerous bottles of beer and rice wine, and were often pestered at night by the hotel staff wanting to know if we needed a "massage", we were inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, at least in terms of moral character, to the officials -- they are skimming, no doubt, crooked, yes, but at least not to a degree that makes them utterly reprehensible, right? Wrong. Maybe -- check out this report (in Chinese) which investigates Shangcai, and tells stories of officials skimming money from overcharging for medicines, not delivering basic promises of patient care, skimming money from the salaries of doctors, and of course, not letting people with a penchant for speaking the truth mouthing off at inopportune moments out of their homes. They said that when one of the most corrupt officials quit his job, the local people set off firecrackers and that it was "more festive than Chinese New Year"! 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 ›

If -- unlike Shanghaiist -- you watch kung fu films for the technical proficiencies of the martial arts sequences rather than for the hilarious subtitles ("You bastard! Try this melon!"), then you'll probably get a kick (literally) out of this month's visit by the Songshan Shaolin Temple Wushu Institute. more ›

Thrill seekers in Pudong will have to stick to the street food for the forseeable future -- Universal Studios has shelved its much-ballyhooed plans for a Shanghai theme park, Reuters reports, adding that Universal's announcement opens the door for Disney to formalize its Shanghai park plans -- which aren't happening until after 2010. Don't fear, folks, there's always The Mummy Returns Live over at Zhongshan park if you feel like buying an overpriced ticket for something. more ›