Results tagged “hunan”

It took us two viewings to figure out what these kids from a Nanxiang County high school in Hunan were doing: sports moves! We saw some practicing for ping pong, badminton, volleyball and lots of basketball and then the video went from being really really weird to really kinda adorable.

What was meant to be a friendly game of basketball in Hunan Province has burst into a furious debate on the internet, after an American player tossed money out to a crowd of students... and some students actually scrambled to pick it up.

That's it. We're packing our bags and moving to Hunan. Not content with having the best TV station, a decent claim to the best food, and some pretty stunning scenery, the south-eastern province also has a pretty cool party official. Well, relatively cool we mean.

Yesterday morning, two young male to female transsexuals took to the streets of Changsha City, Hunan Province. They carried banners saying: "I want to have a sex change and live my life as a woman" and "Even if I die from it, I want a sex change, one day as a woman would be worth it".

By 2015 it could happen, GoKunming reports. The journey currently takes 37 hours. According to GoKunming, "the Shanghai-Kunming passenger line (沪昆客运专线) will connect Shanghai and Kunming via the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan, passing through the major cities of Hangzhou, Nanchang and Changsha. Its target speed is reportedly 350 km/hr."

Youku Buzz informs us that some entrepreneurial street vendors in Changsha, Hunan, are now selling fresh air from places like Inner Mongolia and Yangshuo at the really affordable rate of RMB50 per bottle.

Making it to the front page of Youku, the clip has been viewed 1.3 million times and garnered close to 10,000 comments in less than a day. Another clip uploaded by another eyewitness shows a huge crowd gathering to behold this most loyal companion.

Following up on our previous post entitled "Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan," we were contacted today by James Galvin, the unnamed American volunteer mentioned in the story which has now gone on to receive coverage by the Associated Press. In his email, Galvin provided his first-hand account of the alleged incident outside a Carrefour Sunday night in Hunan Province. He feels the story has gotten blown out of proportion. He called the initial email summary of the incident submitted to Shanghaiist by one of his fellow volunteers "sensationalist," adding the colleague "had only seen me for thirty seconds. That should have been enough to see I was not 'cut up.'" Shanghaiist ran the initial post on the incident on April 22 after receiving a copy of an official email from the volunteer organization's China field director — which spoke of a "mob mentality" and "punches" being thrown — that appeared to corroborate the initial version of events we were given. We had also seen an email from a U.S. Vice-Consul in Beijing saying she had spoken with the field director and that the Embassy was "highly concerned about what happened." We felt it was newsworthy and posted the story as a word of caution to our readers in various parts of China. We updated the story after the initial tipster contacted us again saying he was worried his account was "factually inaccurate in many ways."

Well, it's all over the news. Hunan TV is going to do a Chinese version of the hit US TV show Ugly Betty. According to a report from the BBC, the lead character—the Chinese Betty—has already been chosen. A Chinese article that we read, dated March 7, says that Hunan TV wants to hold nation-wide auditions to find the ugliest girl possible. So we're not sure what the case is, but in any case, whoever is chosen will soon have their identity known to the world, because the show is supposed to start shooting in April. The plans are to stretch the show out over ten seasons, with about 40 episodes each, for a total of 400 episodes. However, unlike in the US, there aren't going to be longish breaks between seasons (and presumably, no writers' strikes either).

Do yourself a favour this morning and read James Fallows' latest post. You will be glad you did. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com....