Shanghaiist has often wondered what China would look like if it had complete religious freedom, as in the freedom to organise and set up religious denominations and associations outside of the five "official religions", and to have all these religious groups enter the free-wheeling marketplace with their books, CDs, video programmes and what not. This weekend, we caught a glimpse of that when a woman claiming to be "Jesus' sister" was arrested in the Guangdong province. She charges upwards of RMB100,000 to "heal" each cancer patient and owns three fancy villas. more ›

It's the beginning of December in China and "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" keeps playing in the grocery store (damn you, Lotus ... or should we say Blotus?) so that can mean only one thing: Christmas is quickly approaching! So here you are preparing for the holiday season. You've already purchased your real tree. And, you've been preparing your killer rum apple cider recipe, that turned your last holiday party into a sleepover (good times!). But wait, it seems that you forgot something ... the gifts! Look no further than to a recent addition to Shanghai — Toys 'R' Us! more ›

UPDATE: Show canceled? more ›

Members of the Fangzhou Congregation, a house church in Beijing's Chaoyang district (they gather in apartments or other non-official sites to meet and worship) received some surprise visits last Sunday afternoon, January 15. At around 4:30 pm, two uniformed Beijing police officers and two plainclothes police (well, no one knows if they were really police) came in and said that they had to do some investigation of this congregation. The police accused the church of “disturbing the peace" (扰民）and illegal assembly, owing to the fact that the place where they had held the Sunday services had not been officially sanctioned. The usual type melee ensued, with accusations flying back and forth and tugs of war with video cameras. Why all the brouhaha over some small, insignificant house church? Because of the people in it, who are all notorious troublemakers. Yu Jie is an outspoken writer and intellectual that founded China's first PEN association, a pro-freedom of expression writer's group. Gao Zhisheng is a lawyer, and Wikipedia has this to say about him: more ›

Shanghaiist is in a fury. No, not because of the freezing weather, but because of a recent thread in a pet website we frequent. more ›