In Shanghai on the Bund BY RYAN POLLACK
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Xinhua: Rule on living Buddhas aids religious freedom more ›

Shanghaiist has just touched down in Beijing. And just as we were wondering if it was just us, or if the air in the Jing was really that much worse *cough*cough*, this is what we read:
• Birth defects in Chinese infants have soared nearly 40 percent since 2001
• There is one Chinese baby born with birth defects every 30 seconds
• In Beijing, the incidence of breast cancer has increased 23 percent in 10 years, with about 45 women out of every 100,000 diagnosed with the disease, says the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In Shanghai, the figures are even worse, at 55 out of 100,000, up 31 percent in the past decade.

The Shanghai Daily reports that cabbies are going to get plastic bags in their cars so that they don't have to spit outside. more ›

Most of you know that the earthquake off the coast of Taiwan has severely disrupted telecommunications, including phone and internet, all over the Asia-Pacific region. The 7.2 earthquake messed up some of the submarine optical cables that connect Asia with much of the rest of the world. In response, there's been an attempt to reroute and use backup systems to get traffic flowing again, albeit slowly. The New York Times ran a report about this, reminding us of how dependent we are on this sometimes fragile form of technology in our businesses and daily lives:

In Beijing, Wang Yifei, an independent television producer, sent instant telephone messages when her Internet connection was down. more ›

In Beijing, Changsha, and Xi'an, a certain group of people has decided to take on what they see as the coldness and apathy of human relations in the big city -- by giving out free hugs. They wear shirts and carry large signs that say things like "come and give me a hug," and while they attraction attention in public places, they haven't been all that successful -- in Xi'an, two hours of standing in a plaza in the cold only got them around 10 hugs and most of those were from children. Adults were either uninterested or embarrassed. One Mr. Li said that hugging was more of a foreign thing, not something that Chinese people do all that often. However, when several young Americans passed by and learned of what was happening they seemed rather nonplussed and didn't participate either. more ›

Photo by raincontreras taken from 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. more ›

July 31 was "Chinese Valentine's Day" or qi xi, and in a calculuated attempt to subvert the hegemony of the Western version of the holiday, there were loads of public qi xi activities across China's cities. For example, what better way to celebrate love than a kissing contest? We found mention of three, in Beijing, Wuhan, and Taipei (all of these come with pictures, it's worth a look). more ›

In Beijing, a Norwegian exchange student has suddenly found himself in the epicenter of a campus wide crisis, with thousands of students calling for his expulsion. more ›