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“I want to see your elections with campaign flags flying all over the place. Taiwan and China are one country. How can you arrest me for illegal entry?” more ›

The restaurant could be be the latest item in a long list of revealed-to-be Chinese inventions! Formerly misattributed as Western creations, gunpowder, printing, and even New World exploration have all been claimed thoroughly as Chinese in origin. more ›

On July 15, 1971, a historic day for both China and the United States, President Richard Nixon announced his intention of traveling to China and meeting with Chinese premier, Zhou En Lai, to discuss normalizing relations between the two superpowers as part of a campaign to ease global tension in the testy "Cold War" political climate. Nixon, a formerly staunch anti-communist, proclaimed; more ›

With the 62nd anniversary of the People's Republic now behind us, another very important date is coming up. October 10 marks the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 which ended in the overthrow of the Qing Empire and the abdication of Emperor Puyi. On the other side of the Taiwan Straits, "Double Ten Day" is commemorated as National Day of the Republic of China, and this year, massive celebrations are expected. more ›

Sohu Vice-President Liu Chun (刘春) laments in a post on his Sohu Weibo profile about the anti-Japanese propaganda productions that are shown every September 18, anniversary of the Mukden Incident in 1931, which subsequently led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria:

September 18 -- I'd like to plead with China's film industry workers. Please stop making those obscene, mythological anti-Japanese films where a child destroys a dozen (Japanese) devils, a farmer hundreds, and a guerilla thousands. Are the (Japanese) short-legged or brain-damaged? Each scene requires hordes of cameos to act as (Japanese) corpses. Please, pay a bit of attention to history. Stop turning a 14-year-long brutal war which caused the death of tens of millions into a game. more ›

The culture of calisthenics is everywhere, and it likely begins at school, where kids are forced to go through morning exercises on a daily basis (occasionally they're also works of genius and timing). more ›

Why visit the real Lhasa when there's a fake one closer to home? Richard Bernstein, of The New York Review of Books, visits Chengde, not far from Beijing, where Kangxi, the great Qing Dynasty emperor, built a replica of the Potala Palace. Tourism authorities have in recent years developed the place as a monument to Kangxi and a quasi-theme park that is now teeming with Chinese tourists. Bernstein describes what he saw in the Kangxi Ceremony, a "ultra-high-tech theatrical extravaganza" that now plays nightly in the new amphitheatre:

In one scene, accompanied by a revolving, luminous model of the solar system, Kangxi learns astronomy from the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. In another scene, one of the show’s most lavishly produced, a huge procession of Tibetan lamas, marching to the music of rumbling bass horns and headed by the Dalai Lama, arrives to demonstrate their fealty to the Chinese emperor. Did these events actually take place? more ›

Some random facts about Shanghai's most iconic landmark: more ›

Earlier this year we brought you some rare color photographs from Shanghai in the 1980s. This time we have another collection from 1986 for your nostalgic viewing pleasure. more ›

Thanks to a group called 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors based out of San Francisco, we now can watch the first ever musical rap version of Chinese history! And they do it all in under four minutes. Full list of lyrics on Youtube. more ›

"I don't have to answer this question. We should focus on tennis today... And actually, I don't really know what happened." more ›

Yesterday, June 4, was the 22nd anniversary of the government crackdown on pro-democracy student leaders in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Here's a quick roundup of links:more ›

Take a look at some rare color photographs taken around Shanghai in the 1980s, including an old view of Nanjing East Road, where you can see the Peace Hotel and little else obstructing Shanghai's skyline. The photo on the Huangpu is taken across from a very bare-looking Lujiazui. There's also a shot of an old Huaihai Lu restaurant, a clothing market on Huating Lu, and a military parade through People's Square! more ›

Yangzhou has opened a new Marco Polo Memorial Hall, a museum dedicated to the 13th century explorer, but a minor tussle has already erupted between Croats and Italians. more ›

Sorry about the delay in getting out the latest part of this series. In case you'd forgotten (and rightfully so), we've been searching through a list of 155 unprotected heritage sites in Shanghai. Here is Part I (Baoshan and Hongkou) Part II (Huangpu, Zhabei and Putuo) and Part III (Luwan and Jiading). Part IV is about Minhang and Yangpu. more ›

Take a look at a series of postcards called "Manchurian Beauties" (满族美人) - they include everything from geishas and courtesans to officials' daughters and women in 'cultural dress'. See if you can tell the difference! more ›

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Part III of an ongoing series taking a closer look at all of Shanghai's 155 "important heritage sites" that are currently unprotected. Here are the locations in Luwan (French Concession!) and Jiading Districts - which housed the creator of the Chinese alphabet (bopomofo!), the poor discarded second wife of Chiang Kai-shek, and China's best art forger. more ›

Yesterday, Shanghai Daily reported that there were 155 historically significant homes in the city that are currently unprotected. These houses were previously used by Shanghai's most influential politicians, industrial tycoons, scholars and such, but are now in a dilapidated state (though, luckily, not yet torn down). Interestingly, many Chinese newspapers printed out exactly which 155 homes these were, so I thought I'd document them. more ›

35 years ago today, China's first premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来) passed away from cancer at the age of 77. A skillful negotiator and able diplomat, Zhou quickly rose through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party and became crucial in its rise to power. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhou's efforts at containing the Red Guards earned him great popularity among the people. This led to a protracted factional struggle between leftist radicals led by the Gang of Four (which included Mao's wife Jiang Qing), and the moderate camp led by Zhou. After he was diagnosed with cancer, Zhou began to delegate his responsibilities to his protege Deng Xiaoping (邓小平), who would later on become the paramount leader of the People's Republic. Zhou's death, some eight months before Mao, led to massive protests against the Gang of Four (who had by then gained control of most of the central government) when they banned all displays of mourning. This eventually sparked off the April 5 Tiananmen Incident of 1976 (not to be confused with the 1989 protests). While Zhou remains arguably the most popular politician among China's first echelon of leadership, new biographies and reports have appeared in recent years, suggesting that he frequently caved in to Mao's whims instead of mitigating them and protecting all those he could have. more ›

Many of you more avid Shanghaiist readers already know my thoughts on Sinan Mansions, the high-end hotel and restaurant location that is unfortunately located on a street that's historically dear to me. Now that Expo is almost ending, the demolition of my grandmother's house is drawing ever closer. This photo, by Sue Anne Tay, is a striking example of the ephemeral mingling of the old-old with the new-old. more ›

With California governator Arnold Schwarzenegger coming over to China to "research railroad technologies," historians have mused about the irony of the Chinese helping California build its transportation once again. Andrew Leonard at Salon has put together a great little retrospective on reports from the mid-1800s and news analysis now. As he points out, say what you want, but he personally "feels a lot happier taking Chinese financing and know-how instead of human lives." more ›

Oh gosh, here's some really sad news. Remember Ever-spring Hall, which we featured a photo set of just a couple of days ago? The last couple of rainstorms were not kind to it - according to Shanghai Daily, its roof has completely caved in. more ›

Shanghai has hosted all kinds of people - revolutionaries, capitalists, politicians, soldiers, artists, and gangsters. Shanghai has also hosted revolutions, assassinations, love stories. more ›

The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club last night played host to Jia Zhangke, the man NPR recently dubbed "the most important filmmaker working in the world today." The evening began at Shanghai Film Art Center with a special screening of Jia's latest film, the Shanghai-focused documentary I Wish I Knew (《上海传奇》), released to coincide with the ongoing World Expo. The viewing was followed by a Q&A with the director down the road at Cotton's on Xinhua Lu. You can listen to to that 76-minute session right here (in Chinese with English translations). more ›

Archeologists in Henan province have discovered a tomb in Mengjin County, Luoyang City belonging to general Cao Xiu of the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 A.D.), says Caijing. Cao Xiu is recorded as having died in 228. The tomb, discovered late last year, measures 50 meters long and 21 meters wide, and contains human bones belonging to a 50-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman along with pieces of chinaware, copper, cups and jugs. more ›

21 years ago today, students in Beijing launched an unusual bicycle demonstration, probably the first of its kind, to call for press freedom. A week prior to this day, on May 4, 1989, about 100,000 students and supporters had staged a successful demonstration on Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 70th anniversary of China's first student movement. Today, they would enter the square again but on bicycles, many with huge banners and red flags strapped to them. Of an estimated 10,000 bicycle protestors, 5,000 were said to be from Peking University (Beida) and 2,000 from Jiaotong University. On the square, they shouted slogans such as "The People's Daily is deceiving the people!" Many of the over 1,000 journalists who had signed a petition to the Party Central Committee to call for press freedom the previous day were also present in this demonstration. Read the account of May 10, 1989, by Philip J Cunningham, author of the book Tiananmen Moon, here. more ›

Homeless children in Shanghai in the 1920s: more ›

Last summer, we brought to your attention a movie called Building 173, which profiled the transformation of a certain Shanghai apartment block from high-society penthouses to middle class family homes and finally to tenements for the working poor. Highlighted, too, were the external factors - namely war and politics - which underlay and, in some cases, directly caused this metamorphosis, narrated in the most accurate and vivid way possible: directly from the people who lived in the building through it all. more ›