The secret is out and her fifteen minutes are up: yesterday, Global Voices and ESWN reported that Wang Zifei (王紫菲), more commonly known as the 'Obama girl' who sat behind the US President when he delivered his speech at Shanghai's town hall, was in fact the subject of an online hoax. The story behind her overnight transition to celebrity status: her boyfriend had actually paid 100,000RMB to hire a Beijing Internet promotional strategy company to take advantage of Obama's speech and create what became the ‘Obama girl.' more ›

For all of you who actually watched President Obama's town hall last week, did you notice this woman? Because instead of paying attention to questions like "Can you use chopsticks" and Obama's thoughts on why he can't use twitter (his thumbs are too clumsy), a certain cameraman was starstruck by this Chinese beauty taking off her coat. more ›

• In one of the most hilarious pieces of news to hit the weekend, customs officials in Los Angeles stopped a shipment from China that was listed as Christmas ornaments but turned out to be... $2.6 million worth of bongs and pipes. Somebody hit that, man. [LA Times]
• Daniel Gross waxes on about how companies in China have decided to solve their lack of export demand problem by *gasp* selling to the Chinese. [Slate]
• Ooooh, the U.S. and China are getting cozier and guess what? India's getting J.E.A.L.O.U.S. [Financial Times]