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Xinhua News Agency recently blew big money on ads in New York City's Time Square, but apparently people still have no idea what it is they sell. more ›

Hilarious story as told by our friends from Next Media Animation. More on what happened here. More NMA hilarity here. more ›

This is just plain hilaaaarious: Cops in NYC have arrested a worker at a funeral supplies shop in Chinatown that sells joss paper and other papier-mâché items that Chinese people the world over like to burn for their deceased family members. more ›

The new Miss Universe China, Luo Zilin, is in New York City, preparing for the big pageant and she's been living for the last few weeks in the home of none other than Yue-Sai Kan, the TV personality and businesswoman who has a cosmetics label named after her. more ›

If you have lived in Shanghai for more than a week, then you know the city's appetite for being bigger and better than the rest. Well, for those of you who love rankings, Shanghai has now become the 6th largest financial center in world, moving up from 8th place last year, according to the latest International Financial Centers Development Index. more ›

Now here's a bit of guerilla demonstration we can all get behind. Last week, in New York City, Cuban artist Geandy Pavon projected an image of imprisoned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's face onto the side of the Chinese Consulate building. This was the newest installment of "Project Nemesis," a project which, according to Hyperallergic, sets about to "impose the face of [dissidents] on buildings walls that house government offices" more ›

Our mothership Gothamist reports that on Sunday, "hundreds of people gathered by the Chinese Consulate on the West Side Highway to protest the arrest and detainment of artist Ai Weiwei as part of a worldwide protest against China. The protesters reenacted Ai's Fairytale: 1,001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs, an installation of 1,001 late Ming and Qing Dynasty wooden chairs at Documenta 12 in 2007 in Kassel, Germany." See all the wonderful pictures here. more ›

Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei points us to this video now circulating widely on the Chinese interwebs. In the clip, a CCTV News anchor speaks with Tong Ye, the channel's New York correspondent who has just stepped out of a press conference on the recent Times Square car bomb. Here's the dialogue as translated by Danwei:

Anchor: The press conference has just ended, we're going live to our correspondent in New York, Tong Ye. more ›

Since around March this year, a sad-looking panda has been spotted roaming the streets of New York City — on the subway, in Times Square, at various parks and around Wall Street's bull statue. Over the next few months, the Sad Panda has intrigued and fascinated New Yorkers — his short disappearance on Wall Street led a few concerned individuals to put up a missing notice, and his great makeover as Spongebob Squarepants did not go unnoticed. Turns out this Sad Panda is a 62 year old man from Guangzhou, Chen Jialing, who has now lived in the United States for many years. more ›

Editor's Note: This is an update to that flash mob we told you about earlier. The writer was the organiser of the event. more ›

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• SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others.
• Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list.
• Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island.

Photo of a Mummy 3 set in a Hebei Province desert from China.org.cn more ›

Jakob Montrasio points us to a most unbelievable ranking of the world's top 25 cities with skyscrapers published by the German magazine Spiegel: more ›

If you’re like us and already feel slightly guilty at how much you will be drinking at this Friday’s Shanghaiist Happy Hour, maybe it’s time to start thinking about how to have an active summer? Whether you’re a cycling veteran or you’re just looking for something to do to these coming months, there are a number of bike trips available to see more of the beautiful countryside (or Suzhou Creek). more ›

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. more ›

Some days, you just want to eat a big-ass burrito. Perhaps this is primarily an American craving (as many, we're sure some readers would point out, big-ass cravings are) but, trust us, sometimes the best cure for a Sunday morning hangover is an oversized soft flour tortilla filled with just about everything. We never thought this was an option here — Shanghai's selection of Mexican restaurants is ... well ... Shanghai really has no Mexican restaurants worth mentioning — until SH mag food guru Jarrett Wrisley told us where to go for our south-of-the-border[1] cravings: that's right, New York City Deli. And how does NYC Deli serve its "super burritos"? Of course, "California style." more ›

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... more ›

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... more ›

star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet. more ›

We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing. more ›

Happy Holidays! more ›

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. more ›

Our favourite news agency reports that for the first time, women are to be recognised as descendants of Confucius in a new family tree of the ancient Chinese philosopher. This fifth update of the family tree, according to Reuters, will add more than 1 million "registered" descendants of Confucius. more ›

DJ Syncity, mixtape princess more ›

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. more ›

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now. more ›

The week starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. more ›