[Monday, 10pm] People are currently aTwitter with news that that Beijing's CCTV headquarters has gone up in flames, and from the following pictures snapped and uploaded by various eyewitnesses (including some amazing on-the-scene photos by real estate tycoon and CEO of Soho China Pan Shiyi), the fire looks pretty damn bad and appears to have engulfed the part of the complex that houses the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Beijing. Given that today is Yuanxiao Jie (元宵节) which marks the culmination of the Lunar New Year festivities, it is not unlikely that stray fireworks were the cause of this disaster. Follow what the China Twitterati is saying at #cctvfire. Videoclips after the jump. more ›

• Shanghai is the most popular destination for Chinese students returning from abroad. According to the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, 75,000 returnees have chosen to be in Shanghai, and the city also boasts about 4,000 enterprises founded by returnees.
• According to latest statistics released by the municipal government, Shanghai received a whopping 1.57 million tourists in the first three days of the Chinese New Year.
• Japan's NTT Communications will launch a data centre in Shanghai together with China Telecom to provide international wide-area ethernet service.

More photos on 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 (and here). more ›

Michael Manning of The Opposite End of China finds Osama bin Laden hawking face masks at a Chinese New Year fair at Ditan Park Temple yesterday. more ›

And, of course, Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, continues to relish every opportunity he has to practice his Chinese.
more ›

• About 30,000 cleaners swept up 1,200 tonnes of fireworks debris left over from Sunday night's big celebrations.
• Originally scheduled for launch in August 2008, the much-touted luxury hotel Jumeirah HanTang Xintiandi Shanghai, will now be open for business sometime this year.
• Chinese government officials have denied U.S. Treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's allegations that China is manipulating its currency.

more ›

Since when did this become a yearly political exercise, we wonder? more ›

This time last year, many people were prevented from going home to celebrate Chinese New Year with their loved ones because of the deadly winter storms. This year, it's the global economic crisis that threatens to dampen the holiday spirit for China's 200 million migrant workers, many of whom are now jobless as factories are shut down and jobs are cut. Kimberly Lim of Reuters speaks to a Shanghai-based couple who are unable to fork out enough money to return home to neighbouring Anhui province. (On a totally unrelated note, we found it interesting to see a cross adorning the wall of their small, bare room.) more ›

In this news report from Hunan TV, police opened the luggage compartment of a crowded long-distance bus bringing passengers eager to return home for the Spring Festival and found a huge surprise -- eight people were hidden inside, tucked inconspicuously behind suitcases and packages. With buses and trains fully booked out, and legal tickets hard to come by, some entrepreneurial Chinese bus drivers are welcoming the opportunity to make a quick buck from those desperate enough to get home in time. One young man that was caught in the luggage compartment told reporters that nobody forced them to do this and they were more than willing to travel this way. [h/t Youku Buzz] more ›

• The Spring Festival migration has started in earnest, with an estimated 9.2 million railway passengers having already headed home this past weekend. Follow the latest on Xinhua's new "Travel Rush" website.
• Little-known Chinese car manufacturer BYD has upped the ante in the electric car race with the world's first production plug-in hybrid. The F3DM will be unveiled tomorrow at the International Motor Show in Detroit.
• Land disputes are again cropping up in China: villagers in Jilin are forming an independent farmers' union to collect funds from appropriated lands, while the Economist reports on a potentially "revolutionary" land auction outside Beijing that turns out to be "little more than a typical story of a rural official trying to make money from land." The apparent problem in the latter case is that some 50% of the farmers in the area can't provide evidence of their land rights.

Over 2.3 billion passenger trips are expected to be made via land and water transport over the 40 days of the Lunar New Year season. 188 million trips are expected to be made via railway alone, up 8% from last year. As a result of the global economic crisis which saw many factories going under all over China, waves and waves of migrant workers started going home much earlier this year. Where these people will travel to after the Spring Festival remains a big question mark because most of these people still do not know where their next job will be. more ›

To spread the Lunar New Year cheer, the central government has decided to distribute RMB9 billion worth of hongbao's (or red packets) to 74 million of the poorest residents in cities and villages as one-time disbursements meant to help them tide through the hard times. Villagers will receive RMB100 each, city dwellers RMB150 each, and those on state pensions/subsidies RMB180 each. All this money is coming straight from the Ministry of Finance and the central government has already given strict instructions to governments at all levels to disburse the monies in a "just, fair and transparent" manner. more ›

Ok folks, it’s official! Now that the State Council has released its 2009 holiday schedule, we can start our planning and make full use of the precious vacation time for the coming year. more ›

Nasty. Nasty. Nasty. If we didn't have to walk the dogs, we'd just stay inside our (semi) warm living room all day. We know the miserable sleet (or is it freezing rain?) and slippery conditions are forcing some offices to send workers home early today. But winter's icy grip on China is far more serious than some missed work or a slip on the sidewalk. Here's a rundown (and, please, feel free to add to this list in a comment): more ›

China Daily: Shanghai to base growth on service industry more ›

While the rest of the world is wondering how George W. Bush will further fuck up Iraq and where Becks and Posh are going to settle in L.A., we came across a report about a concert event in Las Vegas: more ›

After yesterday's confident announcement on China's ability to contain bird flu, Shanghaiist winced as we thought we heard rumbling overhead, and then we went straight to various sources searching for news of more bird flu outbreaks. The last time China tempted the gods made an announcement like this in November, Shanghaiist seems to recall the beginning of a rash of new outbreaks throughout the country. Just a day after yesterday's big announcement, China has reported its first new outbreak of bird flu in two weeks in Suichuan county in Jiangxi province. Along with this outbreak comes news of China's sixth reported human case of bird flu. more ›