The curtain is falling on Hong Kong's last dedicated Cantonese opera theatre which will fade into history after its final show this week: more ›

Every Friday, Weekendist brings you our picks of the best of what's coming in the next three days. more ›

Google and Yahoo have long been lambasted for the censorship policies they employ in China to appease the CCP, particularly when Yahoo handed over email information to party officials in order to convict a Chinese journalist. Now critics have shifted their attention to Microsoft's Bing search engine. more ›

Distract yourself from the rapidly dropping temperatures in Shanghai this week with a smattering of eclectic events, from Chinese performing Hitchcock and Koreans performing Italian opera to Norwegian jazz and the International Puppet Festival. more ›

Screw Shakespeare and forget that Chinese opera business - right now, preparations are underway to bring a sing-song version of Karl Marx's Das Kapital to the Shanghai theater. more ›

In March we introduced you to the "mother" of Chinese opera, Kunqu. This weekend Shanghai residents will have a chance to see if this ancient performing art can be transformed into something — how shall we put it — easier on the ears by blending in a touch of Jazz. more ›

And now a diversion away from the earthquake news. After playing around with the actual performance date, the Asphodèles Theatre Company from Lyon, France, will perform a unique show this Thursday at Fuzhou Rd's Tianchan Yifu Theatre. Under the tag "Harlequin's trip to China," the show is part of the French and Chinese Cultural Festival called "Croisements." more ›

With a 600-year long history, Kunqu (崑曲) opera is one of the oldest extant forms of the Chinese opera and known as the "mother" of a hundred operas. Although dozens of professional Kunqu troupes used to operate across China, only a handful remain today in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chenzhou and Yongjia. Kunqu has been awarded the title of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO, which also recognises that the art form is in grave danger of extinction. Shanghai Opera Dreams, a production by Discovery Channel, follows several Kunqu experts in Shanghai on a mission to raise interest among the young, to uncover talent and to keep the art alive. more ›