The first post-earthquake panda birth took place Sunday when twelve-year-old Guo Guo gave birth to twins at the Bifengxia Giant Panda Base outside Chengdu. Guo Guo was one of 63 pandas moved from the Wolong Nature Reserve to other facilities after the quake caused the death of one panda and damage to the reserve, endangering the province’s 1,800 pandas. But new mother Guo Guo isn’t the only one getting congratulated — the quake pig’s protector,......

Chinese official, on his knees, begs parents of children killed in quake not to protest [AP] "The image was startling: A Chinese official on his knees, begging. The Communist Party secretary of Mianzhu city pleaded with protesting parents — whose children were killed in a school collapse during China's recent devastating earthquake — not to complain to higher authorities, the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported Monday."China finds escaped quake panda [Reuters] "China has recaptured a......

As reported earlier, the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake was not only near the city of Wenchuan, but it was also very close to the Wolong Panda Reserve. Xinhua informed us that some pandas at other facilities were safe, but the status of the Wolong pandas was still known. Luckily we have good news. We received this email from Karen Rose, Chairman of Pandas International:We have a report from the Bifengxia Panda Base that......

Few animals get tabloid coverage of their sex lives splashed across international media like our furry friends the pandas. Their being few is what the fuss is about. And now their enclosures have become Big-Brother-animal-sex episodes where their lack of procreativity is monitored as scientists continue to ply panda eyes and orifices with strategic tactics. Chuang Chuang watches the filth-movie from metro.co.uk Panda sex labs are coming up with yet more odd behavior—not on the......

Since Thursday, mallrats visiting Citic Plaza on Nanjing road may have noticed the greeting card and painting exhibit on the ground floor, right across from McDonald's. We were struck by how atypically childlike the artwork was, and then we found out why: they were all produced by children. The event is called the "Share Your Love" Art Charity program and is organized and hosted by the SMIC Private School in Pudong. We'll let the website......

This is just waaaaay too cute. If these three videos aren't enough for you, then hop over to Life in the Fast Lane for more amazing pictures and videos of baby pandas from day 1 to day 120 of their birth that made us keel over from an overdose of cuteness. Have a fabulous Thursday, Shanghai.......

Have you ever wondered what life must be like for someone who is watched everywhere she goes, whether she's eating, drinking, sleeping, shopping? It's the reason why Shanghai photographer Don Yap has tagged her "jailbird" in one of his recent portraits of her. Watch Paris eat xiaolongbao at Nanxiang and sip tea at Yuyuan, and go shopping at Lu Kun's (the greatest PR coup scored yet by any Shanghai-based designer!). The Shanghai municipal government......

Oldest profession flourishes in China [Washington Post] No longer limited to well-known bars or a growing number of karaoke parlors, prostitutes are everywhere in China today, branching out onto college campuses, moving into private residential compounds and approaching customers on mobile phone networks. Mattel recalls 9 million toys made in China [NPR] Mattel issues a recall affecting more than 9 million toys made in China, citing magnets that could be swallowed and possible problems with......

Jackie Chan, China's most famous actor/singer/producer/cartoon character/matchmaker (whew!) finds himself one sino-franchise poorer this week, as government officials have blocked mainland distribution of his newest flick, Rush Hour 3. E! News reports: The official word on why the Brett Ratner-directed sequel won't be making it to the big screen is that the country has already imported too many American films this year for it to be a profitable acquisition, but some officials are attributing the......

Entrepreneurial researchers from the world's largest giant panda research base in Sichuan Province have put the 300 tons of droppings produced by 60 giant pandas each year to good use - making photo frames, bookmarks, fans and panda statues out of them and then reselling them. Apparently, panda poop doesn't smell too bad and it took the centre 6,000 yuan each month to clear the poop. Now, it is "carefully selected, then smashed, dried......

China chokes on e-waste Guiyu is a modern day gold rush town. But instead of panning for gold in babbling streams, workers shift through piles of broken old computer parts in acrid smelling shacks, smelting down parts with crude equipment to extract valuable metals. Giant pandas 'expanding habitat' in China Researchers in China say they have seen encouraging signs of an increase in giant panda numbers in the country's largest panda reserve. As concerns......

Because we know you had trouble sleeping last night wondering what the latest Survivor China news was, here's what Shanghaiist reader Louise emailed to tell us last week: Via Survivor Skills: "A reliable source has revealed to SurvivorSkills that the production for Survivor 15 will be based in the Jiangxi Province of Mainland China. The filming locales, and base camp should be around 40 km (24 miles) from the capital of Nanchang ...”They have unveiled......

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists. We start with SFist which broke the -ist record for comments with nearly 500 comments on a post about our Mayor's girlfriend. She responded back on charges that she's not a "girl's girl" and, whoo boy-- the floodgates? They did......

Shanghaiist may be accused of going with the flow on occasions, and one of those areas might be to do with our narrow mindset on the lovely, cute and adorable panda. We've applied our finest available powers of research to bring you the following snippets on the flipside of China's panda tail, and yes, it is mucky in there. So let us be accused of panda-ring no more. Yes, this is reporting with bite. The......

Sure, your wife/husband/partner might slap you, but assure them that this is not a fanciful excuse, because it could really happen to you. If you were at Long Hua Temple on the 5th day of the new year, which was Thursday, you would encountered huge crowds of people and a miasma of incense. People go to temples and set off firecrackers that day in order to entice the god of wealth (财神) to work some......

Beijing retailers told to mind their manners with customers or be found violation of the law.Beijing has opened what we believe to be China's first pitch-black restaurant—where diners eat in complete darkness and the staff use night vision goggles.300 new bao mu's are being trained for deployment during the Chinese New Year, when many of the city's bao mu's are heading home.Was it climage change that brought down the Tang dynasty?A Shanghai production of the......

Last month, our DCist colleagues celebrated the “one year of cuteness” for a panda named Butterstick (aka Taishan). Not to be outdone here in the mother country, though perhaps with a little less fanfare, Shanghaiist brings you a panda story of our own, about a week-old, unnamed female cub. (We shall call her Butterball.) While pandas are just as much adored here as they are the whole world over, the birth of a baby panda......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

And we're not talking about those wild 20 year olds looking for man meat from the state of Washington -- we mean yaks and wolves and the like: The government would auction licenses based on types and numbers of wild animals, ranging from about $200 for a wolf, the only carnivore on the list, to as much as $40,000 for a yak, the Beijing Youth Daily said. These licenses are being sold with the cooperation......

That’s right, Shanghai’s No. 1 fag hag ran into a sleuth of bears or "pandas”, as they prefer to call themselves, right in the heart of the French Concession. As Shanghaiist has previously mentioned, the city has its very own bear bar, Bobo. (See here for updated address.) Located in the basement of a swanky apartment complex, fortunately or unfortunately, the small drinking establishment was not filled with wild, gigantic, hirsute men as in Shanghaiist’s......

Good to see Chinese entrepreneurial spirit is still going strong -- this time in Hunan province. Thirty-five-year-old Pang Zeng Sheng has seen a gap in the panda diplomacy market, and has bought 16 website domain names that are related to the two pandas that China gave Taiwan -- Tuantuan and Yuanyuan (maybe Jen Chung would be interested?). He has set his sights on 500,000 yuan bounties for sites featuring both names, and 100,000 yuan for......

Some random Google/China links we have come upon: "Google Is Destined To Fail In China" from ChinaTechNews.com; "How Much Did Google Agree to Censor?" from Google Blogscoped; "An Open Letter to Google" from Andrew Shieh; and "How to Outwit the World's Internet Censors" from The New York Times.The lift of the fireworks ban in Beijing is "redeeming people's excitement and appetite for the New Year." Meanwhile, at least 16 were killed and hundreds were injured......

A recent survey found that more than 21 percent of Chinese people -- some 273 million people -- have one of three surnames. Li is the most popular name and is shared by 7.4 percent of Chinese. Wang comes next at 7.2 percent, and Zhang is third at 6.8 percent. The survey covered nearly 296,000 people in 1,110 counties and cities. Included in that sample were 4,100 different family names. The story claims that China......

The giant pandas are finally ... um, probably ... going to Taiwan after 19 years waiting. Um, probably. According to a press conference held in Beijing late in the week, China finally unveiled the panda pair from 23 nominees today as a gift offer to Taiwan. The panda couple, both less than two years old, were raised in the Wolong China Giant Panda Research Center in southwestern Sichuan Province. The male panda, first son of......

Shanghaiist has received several emails about pandas recently, mostly from slightly-older-than-middle-aged women. It seems a baby giant panda was born at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, in July -- and since pandas are Chinese and Shangahiist lives in China, we are supposed to care. And, although it has nothing to do with Shanghai, the birth is kind of a big deal. Giant pandas are critically endangered, with only 1,600 currently living in the wild.......