Our favourite Yiddish-speaking reporter from Forverts returns with an episode on old people in China. He meets lots of elderly folks who're a lot happier than the abandoned grandma we just saw, and should his mom ever visit him here some days, he says he's found the perfect game that will connect them. more ›

Remember that interesting Yiddish report, "What do Chinese people think of Jews"? Apparently it's part of web series called "A New York Jew in China" by the Jewish newspaper Forverts. Here's all six clips in the series so far, and part 4's "Jewish Shanghai Lost and Found" (after the jump) is a must-watch for those of you that don't have the time. Kick back and enjoy the show: more ›

China's first homegrown Jewish movie, "A Jewish Girl from Shanghai", screened last month at the 11th Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival, and is the first mainland China production to have received a nomination at the Jerusalem Film Festival for the Avner Shalev Award. A review of the movie at The Forward points out the odd way in which "it blends a little-known chapter of Holocaust history with the chipper naïveté of a Disney film". Watch the trailer below and you'll see what they mean by that:
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Very interesting report in Yiddish with English subtitles from Ross Perlin, correspondent with , a New York-based Jewish newspaper. more ›

"China has deployed more than 8,000 soldiers and military reservists to help search and rescue efforts in the south-west after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 killed 38 people." more ›

Israeli photojournalist and documentarian Dvir Bar-Gal speaks to Thomas Crampton about Shanghai's Jewish history and intrigues us with what he had to say about Dr Ho Feng Shan, the Chinese Consul-General in Vienna in 1938-9 who was named a "Righteous Gentile" by the government of Israel for using his position to provide visas to Austrian Jews seeking to escape from the Nazis while the consulates of other world powers refused to do the same. This letter by Dr Lotte Marcus addressed to "ex-Viennese Shanghailanders" throws up another interesting fact — in those days, you didn't really need a visa to get to Shanghai and anyone who had the means to come was welcome. By issuing those visas, Dr Ho had provided Jewish refugees the legitimacy of "official" documents which helped them to escape. more ›

Jesus seems to be making a comeback in the PRC. Since the introduction of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries to China, many of them to Shanghai, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Christianity has been a popular minority religion. While practice abated during Mao’s hay day, China has experienced a resurgence in past years. Just two weeks ago, we reported that Orthodox priests were allowed to lead a service in Shanghai for the first time in over four decades. An article by the Chicago Tribune shows this incident may be indicative of a larger trend of successful Christian advocacy, some of which may challenge the Chinese government’s role as supreme authority over its citizens:

As China's Christian population has climbed to an estimated 70 million, a growing number of lawyers and scholars have converted to Christianity and turned their skills to the issue of religious freedom. They are teaming up with churches to challenge the government in court, suing for the rights they believe are guaranteed under China's constitution. more ›

• Japanese investigators have found 'no abnormality' at the dumpling factory in Hebei Province at the centre of a food safety scare in Japan after hundreds of people suffered from pesticide poisoning from eating the dumplings. Traces of pesticide were found on the outside of the dumplings and not in the fillings, leading investigators to point to "deliberate poisoning, rather than accidental contamination". This idea, however, has been rejected by Chinese experts.
• The world's most powerful music labels — Universal Music, Sony BMG (HK) and Warner Music (HK) — have taken Baidu to court in Beijing for not removing links they say infringe on their copyrights. In a related ruling in December, the three firms lost their case against Sohu and Sogou. Meanwhile, Google is preparing to crack China open in the digital music arena. It is in talks with Universal to offer music downloads here. EMI and Sony BMG may join the deal.
• A statement from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry has clarified that the controversial new rules requiring online-video companies to be state-controlled don't apply to already-established Web sites, offering hope to privately-owned video startups such as Youku and Tudou which have raised tens of millions of dollars from venture capitalists.