“There is an artiste; a world famous artiste who has donated the most to philantrophy causes, who is also the most misunderstood and suffered the most pain in the world. You may guess many names but actually, this one is Michael Jackson, the superstar of the United States. more ›

While I had already added her as a bonus to my picks of China's Got Talent earlier this week, to be honest, Michael Jackson Grandma deserves her own post. This charismatic 65-year-old is a wonderful testament to the often overlooked fun-loving spirit of the aging Chinese populace. Plus, her act was just rife with opportunities for amazing animated gifs. more ›

China's Got Talent is back, with the same three judges and in the same city! It's premier show aired Sunday night on Dragon TV and the entire episode has now been put up on Youku. Since we covered last season's premier, I figured - what the heck - I'll watch it again and pick three performers you really ought to check out. more ›

Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai may have replaced prime-time television dramas with communist propaganda and assembled thousands of people to sing red songs with him, but here at the local primary school in Duping Village of Chongqing's Wushan Town, it's Michael Jackson the kids are dancing to. Every morning 10am, students at Duping Primary School will assemble in neat rows on their school field, set amid the verdant hills of rural Chongqing, and move to the King of Pop's Dangerous as part of their daily calisthenics routine. Here's the scene on a recent morning:
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Every day at 10am, instead of the normal calisthenics routine, 700 Chongqing grade schoolers dance to Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" for their morning exercises. Neat. more ›

Take a quick break from work to watch this brainless but very entertaining video from the Beijing police bureau. Since it's the last day of Chinese New Year, the official Beijing police Sina Weibo account 'Peaceful Beijing' (平安北京) has posted up a short holiday message and this video of their officers getting their groove on to Michael Jackson and the Wonder Girls 'Nobody'. Classic! more ›

All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: Drinks for charity, a Michael Jackson album party, and a host of awesome movie nights. Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

Awwww, wouldja look at that? A four-year-old dancing sensation appeared on American talk show Ellen to chat with her (through a translator) and show off his Michael Jackson dance moves. Wang YiMing (王一鸣), also known as Xiao Bao (小宝) has his own fan page on Youku and has appeared on various other talk shows before being discovered by Ellen, including Asia Uncut and Youku's own 2009 牛人 (Niu ren... which we supposed can be translated to something along "Crazy awesome people") gala. more ›

Looking back on the year in review, we've had a lot of wonderful videos that could use a second viewing. In fact, some of our favorite content from the past year has been in video form: from the crazy ghost town of Ordos to utterly ridiculous Chinese viral videos, these videos have caught our collective fancies. Without further ado, Shanghaiist presents the best videos of 2009. more ›

Currently making the rounds on Youku is this music video showing China's most talked about internet people of 2009 set to Guang Lian's Fairytale (童话 tong hua - 视频) and what do ya know? The first person featured is none other than the prettiest bus auntie ever. This young lass surprised netizens in September by being a beautiful, youthful girl who happened to be giving out bus tickets in Shanghai. The others: more ›

Not that this should surprise anyone, what with the flash mob tribute, the Chongming Island Neverland Ranch and the myriad of other ways China has shown its love for the King of Pop, but This Is It has proven to be a spectacular hit in the country. Tickets sold out within days of going on sale, severely trouncing the last Chinese megahit, Transformers 2. In case you want to see a gallery of what the premiere in Shanghai looked like, this is it. more ›

Oh good heavens, the new Michael Jackson documentary is here! For all of us who have spent hours in nostalgia, watching old videos and performances and nervously followed the news around his passing...here comes finally something yet unseen. This Is It is the recordings around the popstar´s preparations for his planned 2009 tour with the same name. The movie will be screened at cinemas during two weeks only, so you better get moving! more ›

MJ has officially "Beat It" into China's exclusive film import quota. Premiering globally on October 28, the Michael Jackson documentary, "This Is It," was able to snatch one of the last of China's 20 annual foreign movie import slots. Chinese censors approved the film before National Day, just in time for China's premiere date on October 30, says the AP. more ›

We're sorry to have inundated you guys with all this 60th anniversary news. Don't worry, once everyone else stops reporting on it, we will too. In the meantime, here's something decidedly NOT 60th anniversary related to wash the taste (of patriotism?) out of your mouth: more ›

China, the youthful and ever growing country that it is, has taken many lessons from the rest of the world. As a result, great men from other countries have come to be revered by the Chinese for their advancements: from Issiac Newton to Michael Jordan, many have made lasting impressions on the Chinese psyche. In preparation for the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the Global Times compiled a list of the sixty most influential foreigners in the country's short history. We'll give you a few guesses. more ›

The Grand Opening of the Channel One mall complex is this Saturday, September 19, and to celebrate, it'll be running a "New York Impressions" week. more ›

Ah, Shanghai on the weekend. Once a desert for those of us interested in catching an act or two, now so bursting at the seams with great music that we virtually spread ourselves thin every Friday and Saturday trying to take it all in. So we've looked through what's going on and picked the events we think sound the best. more ›

Oh no! Apparently we haven't been checking Chinasmack enough recently because we completely missed out on this Michael Jackson tribute. On July 12th, at 5pm, a bunch of fans gathered at People's Square on Xizang Lu and Nanjing Lu to “complete MJ's unfinished dance” in one minute. So for a total of 60 seconds, a crowd of people jamoned and moonwalked and crotch grabbed and acted completely crazy! more ›

As the ultimate tribute to Jacko, Shanghai's getting a little wacko by building a smaller version of the ex-King of Pop's Neverland Ranch on Chongming Island. The real ranch, located in California, contained an amusement park, a zoo, lakes, cinemas and an "Indian village" and housed Jackson from 1998 to 2005, when he moved out after police investigations into allegations of child molestation caused him to feel that Neverland Ranch had been "violated." According to the planners of the project, Shanghai's mini Neverland Ranch will have the same layout, and include a farm with an equestrian park as well as some Michael Jackson memorabilia. It is expected to cost around 100 million RMB. Source: Shanghai Daily more ›

If there was a world record for the quickest post-death biographies ever written, this one would probably win. Two Chinese writers have written an "instant book" on Michael Jackson spanning 130,000 words... in just 48 hours. Entitled "Moonwalk in Paradise - the Michael Jackson biography", the book became available for pre-order on Friday and landed on China's bookshelves on Saturday. The writers "didn't sleep for two days" and survived off of coffee and cigarettes until the book was done. Neither have ever met or interviewed Jackson, instead simply compiling the story from their "accumulated knowledge about the king of pop." Going by what our writing tends to look like after two days of no sleep, we bet the second half of this bio looks like brilliant, not-quite-lucid nonsense. Source: China Daily more ›

With Michael Jackson's death rocking the world, video sharing sites have been deluged with fans uploading their favorite Jackson tributes. One of the best ones making the rounds on the Chinese internets is this vid: a high school kid (in 2007) doing a really spot on rendition of Jackson's dance to Beat It. more ›

• Michael Jackson and China [Global Times] "Legends of the ilk of Michael Jackson die to leave behind both a legacy and an influence. For China, it is the latter, which is being discussed passionately today among thousands of his fans here after the music icon has passed away in a sudden cardiac arrest. There are all kinds of reactions to Michael Jackson's death here: shock, disbelief, grief or the feeling of being lost. But Ding Dawei, one of his numerous Chinese fans born in late 1960s, said he should have died a long time ago."
• Snitching for China leads to sorrow and exile [The Associated Press] "Dozens of small white scars mark the inside of Li Yuzhou's left arm, where he slashed himself repeatedly with a piece from a broken tea cup. The scars speak of his terror of being deported from Thailand back to China. Li has more reason to fear than most: He used to be an informant for China's secret police. When he learned his snitching had sent four innocent people to jail, he fled to Thailand. But now, after eight years, he and his family face being sent back to China, with his betrayals following them — first of his friends, and then of the Chinese government."
• Youth feel pressure of looking after aging parents [China Daily] "These young people were born into only-child families in the late 70s and early 80s under the national family planning policy and they now face the task of looking after two parents due to traditional filial piety as well as inadequate public services for aging people. A recent survey published by China Youth Daily found that nearly 70 percent of these young people feel incapable of taking good care of their parents because of pressures they face at work."

• A building in the Minhang district tottered over and collapsed after the riverbed it was built right next to rose. Surprisingy, it stayed almost completely intact. Sadly, one worker died. [ESWN]
• Things you probably won't see in the print version: CityWeekend visits a gay bathhouse to help hand out free condoms. [CityWeekend]
• Shanghai mourned the death of Michael Jackson with tributes at Shelter and a memorial event at People's Square. [EastDay]

If you think only Chinese people use Baidu, you're dead wrong. Recently, a friend of ours in the US complained that he was unable to find any more music through Baidu's MP3 search service. Not a surprise really, since that treasure trove of pirated music that is now getting sued for big bucks in a Beijing court by some of the biggest names in music including Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and their local subsidiaries,... more ›

Back in the late 1980s, we were of the opinion that the Oaktown (Oakland, California, USA) was a fetid, hopeless, de-industrialized, white-flight created shit-hole, but all of that was changed sometime around 1990 with the arrival of Oakland native MC Hammer onto the music scene. If America had gorged itself during a whole decade on the fashion excesses of pop stars, Hammer was like the long belch after the meal, but even if we had to squint and shield our eyes whenever MC Hammer was on MTV, before long, sparkle shirts, parachute pants, baggy suits, and spandex shorts with suspenders—standard issue Hammer wear—became firmly etched in American pop culture history, and in retrospect, we can say we are the better for it. more ›

Kaesong, North Korea: The managers of this capitalist enclave in communist North Korea are appealing for the world's support, saying their experiment in free markets can pave the way for regional peace. Kaesong supporters are aiming for the city to emulate Shenzhen, the special economic zone bordering Hong Kong, which kick-started China's economic boom, and say this will narrow the huge economic gap between North and South Korea with the help of foreign support. more ›

is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. more ›

That quote makes a lot more sense if you have just watched the long version of Michael Jackson's Thriller video (or at least the very beginning of it) like we just did -- hard to believe it really scared us back in 1983. But please, please, please watch the spectacular Indian take on Thriller (second video above) -- and a special prize goes to the first person who arrives at the Shanghaiist Halloween Party on Saturday sporting jheri curls, a red pleather suit and Dracula teeth. more ›

Roller Revival tickets! more ›

Remember when you misbehaved and your parents threatened to beat you senseless, send you to boot camp, or send you to Michael Jackson's ranch? Well, as soon as we read this article (in Chinese), all those memories came flooding back. This article from Southern Weekend is about the "Marching School", which is basically a school run like a military boot camp. more ›