Speaking earlier this week at a sustainable development forum at Tongji University, the director of city urban planning and land resource administration announced a plan to cover half of Shanghai with green space by 2020 . According to Shanghai Daily, “nature reserves, wetlands, forests and farmland will cover half the city's 6,787- square-kilometer area.” more ›

★ John Pasden checks out the Shanghai Sculpture Park in Sheshan and, despite the cost, finds it to be pretty awesome. more ›

The old ladies and fellas you see dancing in the parks in the morning, China´s "forgotten generation", rarely gets a chance to be the central subject in Chinese movies. Director Ye Kai is now presenting an exception to that rule, by creating a feel-good comedy about a charming group of elderly amateur dancers, caught up in a quest to win a competition that will let them take part in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. more ›

• It’s Mid-Autumn Festival time and you know what that means, yes mooncakes! By now you’re probably swimming in them, why not share the wealth and donate some of those delectable morsels to someone who really needs them. [City Weekend]
• If you’ve grown tired of the usual eats or if you have adventurous taste buds, there’s a bunch of new restaurants in town. Bon appétit! [Smart Shanghai]
• Need a good workout after sampling all that food, well waltz your way over to ballroom dance phenomenon Burn the Floor. How can you go wrong with Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Swing thrown into the mix? Simple you can’t. [Shanghai Talk]

Jonah Lehrer's piece in the Boston Globe got us thinking (or, at least, trying to think — our brain has been subject to Shanghai for six years now): more ›

Shanghai-based Daedalum Films takes you on a walk through the Song Qing Ling Memorial (宋庆龄陵园), a little known cemetery in western Shanghai home to the remains of Song Qing Ling, numerous other Chinese personalities — and scores of foreigners who came to Shanghai mostly during its early boom years in the mid-1800s and early 1900s, some identified by simple gravestones, and some anonymous. more ›

You heard that right, ladies and gentlemen... Our city's foresighted urban planners, God bless their hearts, have looked into their glassball and decided that Shanghai needs another Lujiazui — and really, soon — in three years to be exact. Well if they were able to build Lujiazui I in ten years, we have every confidence they can build Lujiazui II in three. Never ever ever doubt the ambitions of Shanghai city planners. Just build first,... more ›

WARNING: CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGES more ›

We’re sure everyone has forgotten due to a lack of media coverage, however, Shanghai will be hosting the 2010 World Expo. In order to prepare for Shanghai’s debut on the world stage, several construction projects are underway. After all, Shanghai has to upstage former World Expo hosts, such as Knoxville in the US, Hanover in Germany, Aichi Prefecture in Japan, and the main rival, the 2008 host Zaragoza, Spain. more ›

It's true, the outdated but once beloved term "W.C." is going to be flushed down the crapper of history (at least in Beijing) before the Olympics, to be replaced by the more widely-used "toilet." But more interesting than that is what they are planning on doing with road signs:

Also on the list are road signs. Use of the romanized form of Chinese, known as "pinyin," will be replaced by the actual English word, except for proper names, the newspaper added. Out will go Dong Changan Jie and in will come East Changan Avenue.

Late last year, Shanghaiist ran several stories on the abhorrent Animal Olympics event held in Shanghai. Such was the media and public backlash against this event, we didn't expect to see performances of its ilk again in Shanghai. Optimists like us are often proven wrong. Shanghai Wild Animal Park, the organisers of last year's Animal Olympics, appear to be up to their old tricks. more ›

In a city with dirty air and very little sunshine, why not start building public parks underground? That's the thinking of Shu Yu, deputy director of the Shanghai Urban Underground Space Development Institute, which has already started working on China's first "green park" located beneath the Earth's surface. When do they plan on completing this project? If you said "2010" you are today's big winner. more ›

There's a few things in this life that start with the letter M that Shanghaiist doesn't like. Malingerers, marmite, and men with no moustache but full beards (OK, the last one is a bit of a stretch M-wise). Some would say that these are irrational and ill-conceived categorisations, but there is another one on the list that isn't — and that is mosquitoes. And it looks like Shanghaiist isn't going to enjoy our coming summer evenings. more ›

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! more ›

What would be your response if we were to pose the question, "what is better than a black bear and a white Siberian tiger sporting traditional sevillanas dresses, adorned with flowers and dancing a Spanish Flamenco under the bright lights of a ballroom platform, televised for all of the world to see?" Well, if you're like us, then kangaroo boxing and monkey-ostrich pair jousting may come to mind. But, now, it seems that some international group of party-poopers* known as "animal rights advocates" have deprived Shanghailanders of the one sure-fire joy of living in China: the Shanghai Animal Olympics has been canceled. more ›

After Shanghaiist learned from Shanghaiist that street names changes are in the works, we thought it appropriate to post about something we recently found at a Chinese bookstore: a series of maps of old Shanghai. more ›

But bars, saunas, nightclubs and mahjong parlours, serving people aged over 18, will be exempted from the ban till mid-2009. London, Dublin, New York, Hong Kong -- one by one, they all fall down. Can Shanghai be far behind (there's only one correct answer to that one).

Imagine this: A high school parking lot in Irvine, a small city in southern California. It's the mid-1990s and Shanghaiist, who in his wildest dreams had never thought he'd grow up to be a blogger, is busy scraping a faux-"handicapped" sticker of a stick figure in a wheelchair smoking a bong off his car. So this is what teenagers do to relieve their boredom in the O.C. (Orange County or 橙县). 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 ›

A couple items of interest from the ever-unlinkable South China Morning Post's online Mainland news rundown. These are quick hits that often leave many facts open to interpretation: more ›

Government data for licensed cage homes (or "bedspaces") put the number at 29 apartments providing 1,292 cages for 878 people. more ›

Although Shanghaiist finds the Lujiazui area of Pudong rather charming (in a freaky Jetsons-on-acid kind of way), we are also aware that many people find it to be a tacky mess. So if you thought Lujiazui was a frighteningly gaudy freakshow before, this news certainly won't ease your fears now. Shanghai Daily reports that city officials are planning to add, get this, "THOUSANDS" of lights to Pudong New Area very soon, in an effort to turn Pudong New Area into "the beacon of the city": more ›

Via p2pnet.net (and also seen on chinatechnews.com and Pacific Epoch) we learn that the Ministry of Culture has banned four video games: Blood Rayne II, Obscure, AV Mahjong and Kong Bu Lao Long (Horrible Cage). more ›

A couple stories that you may have seen on Shanghaiist recently have ended up in the mainstream media. more ›

Now that our personals site is up and running, we have once again been reminded just how many hot chicks women this fine city of ours has to offer (single or otherwise), and getting in shape has skyrocketed on this Shanghaiist's to-do list -- just below finally getting around to watch Lost. With our new found enthusiasm for anything workout related, this article , “Shanghai’s top 5 jog spots”, in the latest issue of City Weekend piqued our interest. more ›

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. more ›

This is from the website of Shanghai Racquet Club and Apartments: more ›

Good ol' Micah, who hasn't posted on Shanghaiist for quite some time, is busy working on a translation of the above titled essay. Here's how it begins: more ›