The Los Angeles Dodgers take on the San Diego Padres this weekend at Beijing's Olympic baseball stadium. Seating capacity is limited to 13,000 spectators, and sure enough Emma has sold out their allotment of the cheap seats here in Shanghai. We're curious as to the scalper situation in Beijing, but for the risk-averse, other Chinese ticketing websites still have a small number of tickets left. A little internet sleuthing can still get you into the......

If you like your basslines rinsin' and your selektas rewindin', you'll be in broken-beat heaven this weekend. On Friday the 15th, Hospitality Shanghai sends Logistics and Cyantific to disinfect Club Bonbon. The duo will storm the emergency care ward to celebrate Bonbon's new status as a resident stop on the Hospitality tours. Cyantific is bringing an extra turntable just for us and will showcase his own brand of three-deck trickery. Still not satisfied? Then head......

Cyber dissident Wang Dejia was arrested for "subverting state secrets" (what else?), which means penning too many articles critical of the government. Some of those critical essays pertained to the upcoming summer Olympics:In recent months, Wang also gave an interview to the Epoch Times, a media group backed by the banned sect F@lun G0ng, in which he claimed the Olympics would exacerbate the sufferings of Chinese people and leave them "living like dogs and pigs."......

By Julien Bertrand: On his first official visit to China, French President Nicolas Sarkozy must have been dizzy, witnessing the signing of contracts worth 20 billion euros in total, comprising of 160 Airbus aircrafts, two EPR nuclear reactors (to be built in Taishan, Guangdong, by 2014) and signal equipment for Shanghai’s future 36-kilometer metro line #10, a long-awaited deal between Alstom and Shanghai Metro that will link New Jiangwan Town to Hongqiao Airport. In an......

Underground Resistance's first foray into mainland China last Saturday at The Shelter was truly a significant milestone for Shanghai's underground scene. DJ Dex aka Nomadico unleashed a set that's been described as a "real history lesson in dance music" — one that took the 800 or so revellers from the pre-electronic routes of modern dance music in the shape of parliament and James Brown, right up to the proper "electro" from the Advent ("program da......

Or more specifically, Hilton, which was rendered as Hiton in a recent issue of The Bund (外滩画报). They ran some pictures and an interview with Paris Hilton when she was here, but unfortunately, it's only in Chinese. She has some interesting thoughts about dark matter in the universe, which she's been exploring for her upcoming novel. On the other hand, it seems that she won't discuss where her money comes from, or if she's saving......

Here, Shanghai, were your favourite stories for the month of November: Most voted: 1. Public pocket pinball 2. Yahoo China takes jibe at Baidu with latest banner ad 3. Panda-monium 4. The Red Laowai 5. Interview: Nanheyangrouchuan, blog commenter Most commented: 1. Interview: Nanheyangrouchuan, blog commenter 2. Cal Kitchen: Going back to Cali? I don't think so 3. Fatburger cometh soon? (and other food news) 4. Is Yahoo a moral pygmy? 5. China 15 years......

Despite the fact that Kevin Rudd - the fluent Mandarin speaking leader of the Australian Labor Party - is widely predicted to romp it in at the Australian Federal election this coming Saturday, it seems he's not taking any chances. The latest salvo in Rudd's "earnestness offensive" according to the Sydney Morning Herald, takes form in a seven-metre billboard of The Great Rudd (see right) that has been suspended above Cameron Road in Hong......

New Burger on the Block: Thanks to the always up-to-date Christine Lu from the China Business Network, we learned that Los Angeles based burger joint Fatburger is planning on expanding big into China, starting with their first restaurant at the Venetian in Macao. From their press release: Additional Fatburger restaurants are scheduled to open in Hong Kong in the coming months: the first on Queens Road East and the second at Jia Hotel in Causeway......

Nanheyangrouchuan is the most unabashed China-basher and the most hated commenter/troll in the English-language China blogosphere. If you still haven't heard of him by now, check out the trail that he has left all over the Internet, and some of his comments left on this blog. This is possibly the most unconventional interview we've ever done on Shanghaiist (not to mention the "riskiest"), and some of you are probably going to wonder why we are......

If you thought all Uighurs/Xinjiangers were fighting for the independence of East Turkestan, this video might be of interest to you. The Opposite End of China brings to our attention an excellent PBS documentary China from the Inside which features some very interesting footage such as a rare interview with Ismayil Tiliwadi, Governor of Xinjiang and new Uighur members of the CCP taking the communist oath. For some of them, the experience is akin to......

If you guys have passed by CITIC Square on Nanjing Lu in the past month or two, you'd surely have seen that Mont Blanc has taken over the ground level store that used to be occupied by Starbucks, and apparently, they are building the world's largest Mont Blanc boutique right there. All Roads Leads to China reveals that Mont Blanc is paying US$11 per square metre per day, which works out to about US$250,000 per......

By Adam Skuse By the time you read this, the descendant of the ridiculously legendary Django Reinhardt will already have landed in the city. Hot on the heels of the JZ Festival, the Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Quartet will be performing a series of shows from today until the end of the month. Apart from the world-renowned grand-nephew of Django Reinhardt, the quartet also includes guitarist Doug Martin, a stalwart of the local gypsy jazz......

Via China Net Investor, this interview of the founders of Shanghai-based dot.com Tudou.com, Gary Wang and Marc van der Chijs, serves up one very juicy tidbit of information — that Tudou.com is already streaming more minutes of video content every month than YouTube (15 billion minutes per month versus 3.5 billion)! Then in a self-deprecatory turn, Wang turns around to say that those numbers are never really accurate. Those numbers should really be cause for......

Oops..we have been sitting on this a few days, all the beers and amazing shows made Shanghaiist a little loopy and unable to sit down and type. The entry below comes via Emily Moy who had a chance to sit down with Talib Kweli and Ozomatli at the Yue Festival press conference last Thursday........ Its 3:30p.m., I’m running up and down The Bund and, I’m LATE. My interviews with Talib Kweli and Ozomatli are to......

... at least that is what Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas would have us believe (h/t to Danwei). She recently wrote in to China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou after reading his opinion piece on recent comments by Chinese celebrity Sun Haiying (孙海英) who not too long ago ignited a huge debate with his comments that homosexuality was unequivocally "criminal in nature" ("同性恋就是犯罪“):Dear Raymond The very day that Godless China decriminalized......

Has Cosette finally found a reason to smile in China? Richard Spencer of the Daily Telegraph shares with us some juicy moments at a press conference announcing the signing of a joint venture between musical impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh and the state-owned China Arts and Entertainment Group, including the following anecdote from the Vice Minister of Culture, Ding Wei: Ding Wei also said he was of course delighted to be overseeing the arrival of musical......

We just got word that Blue Frog will be opening a restaurant at the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel on August 28th. From their press release: blue frog bar & grill is strategically located on the main casino level of The Venetian, which opens its doors on August 28. The stylish 6,500 sq ft, 200 seat venue, will offer all-day dining from breakfast, lunch and dinner to afternoon snacks, wines and cocktails. “While incorporating the classic elements of......

We recently read a report on China's water/environmental problems, based on reports from Singapore's Straits Times. Despite living in China and developing some measure of immunity to dismal statistics, there was one that managed to shock us: environmental experts claim that without some drastic change, pollution might, within five years, make the Yangtze River just about inhospitable to all forms of life. The baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin, was only the latest victim: according to......

Yes, it is that time of the year again! The Fourth China International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition returns at the Shanghai International Exhibition Center this weekend in Hongqiao from Friday to Sunday. For the first time in the history of the fair, renowned sex expert and founder of China's first sex museum Liu Dalin, will bring about 300 exhibits with him and give FREE talks about the history of sex and culture in......

Closing Dish: Although we haven't ventured out into the heat to check with our own eyes, we did hear from a very credible source that, at least for the 12 minutes he was standing in front of the place, Rendezvous Cafe appears closed for business. Apparently, all the lights were out and a sign written in Chinese had been placed on the locked doors. It wasn't too long ago that Rendezvous was duking it out......

Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere: Imagethief is glad to hear via the China Daily that CCP members are taking public-relations courses to better equip them in their relations with the media. He imagines what one of these PR training tools, a role-played interview, might look like with senior party officials. Looks like he doesn't have much faith that things will change overnight. Beijing Newspeak writes on the difficulties......

What Crossing the Line - a documentary by VeryMuchSo Productions with Koryo Tours Synopsis Witness the stories of four US army defectors who abandoned their homeland to seek out a new life in communist North Korea in this fascinating documentary from filmmaker Daniel Gordon. It was August of 1962 that Private First Class James Joseph Dresnok crossed the heavily fortified border from South Korea into the North. Now, more than forty-years later, the last......

Gil Kim is a professional baseball player from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, which we are sure you all know is the home of Yuengling Lager (and is not too far from Bloomsburg, which we are sure you know is home to the Bloomsburg Fair). After graduating from Vanderbilt University, where he was "primarily a role player," Kim spent 2006 playing with the Omron Pioniers, a minor league team in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 2007, he was signed by......

GDP grows 11.9% in second quarter China's annual economic growth surged to an 11- year high of 11.9 percent in the second quarter, cementing expectations for tighter policy to keep the world's fastest-growing major economy from overheating. Beijing also blistered ahead, growing at 12.1% in the same period. Vatican: Beijing bishop a ‘very good’ candidate Despite not being chosen by the pope, the new Beijing bishop is a “very good” candidate, the Vatican said Wednesday......

Plucky film star / delusional hologram Bai Ling—she of Shanghai Baby, multiple personalities, frequent public nudity, and one monstrously awkward dancefloor seizure caught on tape—announced yesterday that a tell-all memoir is in the works, and slated to publish with HarperCollins. Given Ms. Ling’s historically troubled relationship with truthfulness, we’ll believe it when we see it. A lazy-eyed Bai Ling scratched her head and tugged at her Mandarin collar (must she always dress like an extra......

Much has been said about the Shanxi province slavery scandal, and China (and the world) has been shocked by footages of child slaves being beaten and whipped and forced to work under harsh conditions in brick kilns. For those of you who have not caught up with what's happened yet, EastSouthWestNorth offers an excellent translation (and a must-read!) of an article that first appeared in yWeekend detailing how Henan journalist Fu Zhenzhong (付振中) uncovered the......

"People say they love hip hop, but then they go to Guandii. To me, we’ve never had hip hop in China. We just took things from the States. It’s never been homegrown. And I really hope we can have a scene to call our own." Those are the words of one Gary Wang (aka DJ V-Nutz), local hip hop hustler and pusher. Wang, along with partner DJ Fortune, runs The Lab, a non-profit studio dedicated......

You may be wondering when a high speed third generation mobile network (3G) is coming to China. We are jealous of our friends in other countries who can use their cellphones to make video calls, stream music, download podcasts and even find lost dogs. Mobile Internet browsing with current technology (2G) often feels similar to driving home along Shanghai's busiest roads during rush hour. The industry is trying to make 3G services available in time......

Sh Shanghai: 200-yuan car horn fines "Shanghai is about to become a quieter city - from June 1, drivers of cars, mopeds and bikes will be banned from blaring horns within the Outer Ring Road." We don't see this being enforced. Two city spots crowned in China's list of top scenic sites "Shanghai's Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Wild Animal Park were crowned as two of China's top-grade scenic spot, according to a list......