In their 2011 retrospective, NetEase takes a look at the lives and dreams of six Chinese people: a factory worker, taxi driver, village official, doctor, office worker, and father. They all seem to zone in on one overarching emotion: frustration. more ›

As we've said before, one of the things we admire most about the Chinese is their ability to sleep anywhere and everywhere, at pretty much any time. Apparently we're not the only ones - we stumbled across this gallery in the Netease forums and felt compelled to share a few selections with the rest of you. Enjoy! more ›

These disturbing images appeared on Netease showing a 13-year-old girl chained up by her parents inside their noodle shop in Shanghai. Her mother and father claim they were left with no other options when she refused to stop stealing. more ›

Despite having an audience here in China that makes up half of its international player base, Blizzard Inc. has had little luck getting its popular expansion of the World of Warcraft franchise onto Chinese shores... until now! That's right, Chinese WoW players, you can now FINALLY play the Wrath of the Lich King expansion - almost two years after it first came out everywhere else. more ›

In a country where freedoms are carefully chosen, China's internet has remained one of the few places where individuals can freely operate. Well, sort of: a good analogy would liken the internet here to the wild west, a place where disorder and unbridled individual liberty is always being chased by the law in one way or another. But China's net police seem to have taken a pretty drastic step in their ongoing efforts to tightly regulate the internet. more ›

President Obama's itinerary has just been released, with a little under a week before his first visit to the mainland. And the best part? He's going to start his tour in Shanghai! more ›

According to a statement released by Netease earlier today, the General Administration of Press and Publication has suspended government approval for their operating World of Warcraft. As if WoW players didn't have enough problems earlier this year, the GAPP cited “gross violations of regulations” as the reason behind suspending NetEase’s operating rights to the massively popular online game. more ›

So China has finally lifted the World of Warcraft blackout, no doubt to the joy of both Blizzard and its four-plus-million Chinese fans. Betcha didn't know that half the WoW players in the world are from this country! more ›

China Hush has published its translation of a Netease interview with Lou Jing (娄婧), the half-black Oriental Angel contestant who was the subject of a lot of online netizen character attacks, most of them extremely bigoted. more ›

• Bruce Lee's siblings authorize Chinese biopics [AP] "Bruce Lee's older sister and younger brother have authorized a Chinese company to make a series of biographical films about the late kung fu icon, saying they want to produce a historically accurate account of their brother's life. Phoebe Lee and Robert Lee appeared at a signing ceremony with J.A. Media in Beijing on Monday, 36 years to the day after Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at age 32 from swelling of the brain."
• Chinese News Sites Go Down After Reports on Gov't Scandal [IDG News Service] "Two of China's most popular technology news Web sites went offline Tuesday after carrying news reports that linked the son of China's president to a corrupt African deal. The technology news sections disappeared for several hours from major Chinese portals Sina.com.cn and NetEase.com early Tuesday afternoon, when they started redirecting viewers to general news pages. Both tech sections had carried reports on a state-owned company accused of bribing Namibian officials in the last day, but those reports were missing when the Web pages reappeared."
• A Verdict in China Faces Court of Public Opinion [WSJ] "A local court Monday meted out a three-year prison sentence for Hu Bin, the 20-year-old Hangzhou college student whose reckless driving and reported lack of remorse incited outrage on Chinese Internet portals back in early May. Prosecutors elected to charge Mr. Hu with vehicular manslaughter... rather than “endangering public security,” a much more serious crime punishable by death. The three-year sentence was met by general cynicism (in Chinese) on one of China’s main Internet portals, with many anonymous postings claiming that justice had been bought rather than served."

• “Zhejiang University Girl” Exposed By Human Flesh Search [Chinasmack] "On the evening of April 11th, through the human flesh search of netizens, the person who concocted “Zhejiang University Girl” came forward to apologize. The netizen passing as Zhejiang University Girl is “河谷渔风” ["He Gu Yu Feng"], from Jinhua in Zhejiang province, a male, born 1976 December 17. He admitted “Zhejiang University Girl” was fabricated. Reporters contacted and interviewed “河谷渔风”. “Writing this post was simply a fenqing vent. In the beginning it was posted on Tianya, there was no intention to target Zhejiang University, and even less to point at Professor Zheng Qiang.”"
• After Olympics, national spirit soars while human rights lag [USATODAY] "Not everyone agrees the billions spent on hosting the Summer Games was worthwhile. "I hoped the Olympic Games could improve my life, but they only brought disaster," says Zhang Wei, whose home was demolished in 2006 to make way for an Olympic makeover project just south of Tiananmen Square. She applied for a permit to protest but instead was sent to detention for a month. "The police told me it was because I told the truth about the demolition of my property to journalists," she says."
• Will Ditching The9 Help World Of Warcraft Get Past Chinese Censors? [Business Insider] "Starting in June, NetEase (NTES) will get exclusive operating rights to run the game in mainland China, replacing Blizzard's longtime partner The9 (NCTY), according to reports in Chinese media. Hopefully a new partner will help Blizzard through what's been a difficult period in its relations with the Chinese government. Blizz's latest Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, still isn't on sale in China."

From the Netease forums comes the story of 皖怀希望小学 (Anhui Hope Elementary School), a grade school for migrant workers in Shanghai that was mysteriously vandalized and then shut down earlier this year. more ›

Netease has released a "Top Ten Musical Singles" list, compiled from the data generated from its 200 million or so Chinese users. So what have the Chinese been listening to a lot this year? Unsurprisingly, Beijing Olympics songs, Sichuan Earthquake songs and... Jay Chou. In fact, he was so popular that his album, Capricorn, mysteriously took 7th place on a list of "singles." more ›