On Friday night, we set out to rub shoulders with Shanghai's glitterati, nouveau riche, assorted celebrities, politicians, and captains of industry at the Millionaire Fair, where we watched them splurge their hard-earned, unearned, or ill-gotten gains on some of the priciest merchandise in the known universe. There were stretch hummers, Scotch whiskey, French wines, US$350,000 diamond necklaces, and quoting from the New York Times, "Blüthner pianos, private islands off the coast of Dubai, beluga-size speedboats, snub-nosed sports cars. It is a woozy carnival of excess, with Cuervo cocktail shakers hurtling through the air and vaguely Soviet floor shows to delight or repulse, depending on how you like your entertainment served." more ›

Shanghai. It is all happening. Here's the proof: more ›

Tradeshows are big business in China and here in Shanghai there is at least one trade show per year per industry, regardless of how obscure it maybe. However, the one tradeshow that is sure to catch people’s attention and make Bund partygoers salivate next weekend is this one. more ›

Pictured at right is Shen Lijun, who, according to "many netizens" is the "No.1 Beauty in Shanghai." (Shanghaiist thinks she is so 2006.) more ›

That's the way it was back in the 1930s and 40s. They even had a board game to that effect -- it was called "Shanghai Millionaire" (pictured). We learned about this Monopoly clone via the weekly newsletter of market intelligence firm Access Asia. You can read the current newsletter here, but be warned that it will switch to the next newsletter at the end of the week (how about an archive, guys?). more ›

It can be debated whether the supposed "super-models" who appeared at the recent Millionaire Fair sold their souls by agreeing to be paid money and follow the instructions "just stand there and look whorey", in order to impress the male bon vivants, or whether that isn't the case at all, and in fact they were treated as real people, and were asked about their thoughts on ... the life of Socrates, and other high-brow issues. more ›

Having never purchased a real Gucci product, we have no idea whether "hang dry" is mentioned in the product care instructions as what to do after hand washing your handbag with a bar of Omo in the sink outside. We have to assume it is, since we highly doubt any owner of a Gucci handbag would fail to follow the rules, considering how expensive Gucci merchandise is. We couldn't see the labels on the other items hanging on the line -- a windbreaker, some panties and a pair of porn shorts[1] -- but we are assuming they were Gucci, too. As we said, we are not very familiar with Gucci's product line. more ›

Heard of the "Millionaire Fair"? We hadn’t either, but apparently it’s coming to Shanghai. What is it you ask? The fair’s website had this to say: more ›