China's central government raised its poverty standard yesterday, to redefine all citizens making 2,300 yuan (362 USD) or less annually as officially poor. more ›

Martin Savidge of CNN reports on the story of Isabel, whose impoverished parents sold her and her baby sister to rich Taiwanese families when she was seven years old. Though Isabel speaks semi-fluent English (her owners eventually brought her to cook and clean for them in Southern California), she is still mostly illiterate and didn't understand how money worked when she first won her freedom, like a modern-day Kaspar Hauser. more ›

Chinese netizens are swarming over a story about an elderly woman with only 2RMB shown kindness and given a free bowl of soup by a conscientious waitress in a Chongqing restaurant. more ›

Seeing Red in China just put up a great post highlighting "what life is really like for the average Chinese person that has yet to fully reap the rewards of China’s rapid development." They break down the monthly expenses of a 20-year-old college student in Nanjing who is currently fulfilling a mandatory unpaid internship for her final semester. more ›

The video below captures a scene from bus 81 in Pudong last week that has sparked massive controversy online. It shows an elderly bottle picker who, after paying his fair and bringing his bags on board, is shoved around and yelled at by both the driver and a male passenger as they try to throw his stuff off the bus. The passenger continues to scream at the old man as the bus eventually moves forward, accusing him of stinking up the bus and inconveniencing others. At the next stop, the passenger grabs one of the bags and pulls it off the bus, tearing it and scattering the contents. The old man is left scrambling to pick up his livelihood before the doors slam shut. more ›

"Very few low-income households have their own cars. If tolls for roads and bridges were abolished, the government would still have to repay the banks. This money could be used by the government to develop other public or social security services. Would this then not be unfair to low-income families?" more ›

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More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here). more ›

To spread the Lunar New Year cheer, the central government has decided to distribute RMB9 billion worth of hongbao's (or red packets) to 74 million of the poorest residents in cities and villages as one-time disbursements meant to help them tide through the hard times. Villagers will receive RMB100 each, city dwellers RMB150 each, and those on state pensions/subsidies RMB180 each. All this money is coming straight from the Ministry of Finance and the central government has already given strict instructions to governments at all levels to disburse the monies in a "just, fair and transparent" manner. more ›

Here's an English news link:

CHINESE police have rescued 33 intellectually disabled people forced to work at a building site by slave labour merchants after the apparent suicide of a detainee alerted authorities.

1. university students who might be studying medicine and could use the cash, 2. people who want to further the cause of medicine (and who might be sick themselves, and thus have a stake in it), and 3. people who are in it just for the money. more ›

As ice is melting between North Korea and the United States, more and more Chinese businessmen have been rushing to the border with the secretive communist country, looking to cash in on its trade and investment potential. more ›

As the economic gap between China and North Korea widens, more and more young Chinese people are traveling to North Korea to see the sort of poverty their parents endured. more ›

People who made the news this week more ›

China’s August Consumer Price Index is out: a whopping 6.5 percent higher over comparable period last year, much higher than the 5.8 to 6 range economists were forecasting. The number, which measures inflation at the retail level, further breaks down to a 6.2 year over year price hike in major metro regions; but out in poverty stricken rural areas, goods and services are 7.2 percent more expensive than they were 12 months ago. In other words, poor people, who are always disproportionately hurt by rising inflation, are hit with the double whammy of even faster price escalation. While there is no golden standard for the CPI, most central bankers and economists are uncomfortable with a number above 2.5 percent. China has been trending between 3 to 4 percent for the past several months. The latest reading is a ten year high. more ›

World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Monday praised Vietnam as a "tremendous success story" in fighting poverty but said institutional reforms were needed as it seeks middle-income country status. more ›

Photo by Anton Berkovich. more ›

When you've got nothing left to sell, sell your blood. That's how many people in China, most notably in Henan, got AIDS. But as long as there's poverty, you can bet that there will be people willing to sell their own blood. In the town of Jieyang in Eastern Guangdong province, a recent expose lead to greater media attention, which meant that the authorities actually had some work to do. An investigation started, which lead to the suspension of three officials (pending further investigation) as well as the arrests of the blood-selling mafia's ringleaders (both reports in Chinese). more ›

Shanghai Sunrise, a local non-profit charity established in 1995, is looking for board members and volunteers. Shanghai Sunrise aims to help remove Shanghai families from the poverty cycle by providing education scholarships for disadvantaged students. Despite China’s compulsory education law stating that no tuition fees will be charged for nine years of education, the reality facing many families in Shanghai and throughout China that this does not cover tuition fees for high school. Often, the extra costs incurred when sending a student onto high school and university can present overwhelming difficulties for families living below Shanghai’s poverty line. In situations like this, Shanghai Sunrise provides assistance so a student can reach their potential. more ›

The State Environmental Protection Agency said faster-than-expected economic growth meant that sulfur dioxide emissions increased by nearly 1.8 percent, or 463,000 tons, over the previous year, according to a report on its Web site. An even more damning report from Germany's magazine talks about how China's environmental failures are impacting the rest of the world. more ›

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting story about General Tso's Chicken, probably the most famous "Hunanese" dish that most people from Hunan Province (or anywhere else in Mainland China, for that matter) have never heard of: more ›

Just days after The New York Times gave us its take on budget travel in Shanghai, AskMen.com offers up its own tips for those without such limited funds. The concept here is interesting: what is a good way to spend US$10,000 in a weekend in Shanghai? And why not? According to writer Scott Mills: more ›

Have you ever considered the question: Are our children learning from that great resource of information that is the internet? If in some of the poorer countries the answer is a resounding no, that's mostly because computers are expensive and the last thing on the minds of people who are struggling under circumstances of poverty and deprivation. Nonetheless, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nicholas Negroponte had the idea of decreasing the digital divide by making cheap laptops that cost about $100 to make and selling these to poor countries. This became a UN backed non-profit called One Laptop Per Child. more ›

The Santo Chino Ride continues, and Christopher now finds himself at the base of Huangshan in Anhui Province, struggling to wake up early enough to climb the mountain (he's not a morning person). We'd like to make one clarification: In yesterday's report, we failed to mention the full scope of Hands on Shanghai's Rising Stars program. In addition to the mentor program we mentioned, the bulk of the money generated from the Santo Chino Ride will go directly toward paying for the educations of the urban poor -- children who come from families trying to survive on less than RMB 300 (US$36) per month. You can donate to the trip here. more ›

We have always heard the stories of ducks (ya zi -- 鸭子 -- slang for gigolos or male prostitutes) in the city, but have never met any. "Could women really pay young men to sleep with them?", the prudish male Shanghaiist has often wondered, curious and a touch excited that we could maybe use our God-given bed-time mediocrity to work ourselves out of poverty and get our necks above the rice-line. The Guardian seems to have recently done it's own research into the field, although the reporter, Tom Miller, fails to admit why he was talking to the ducks. more ›

• Shanghai's luxury hotels took a hit during the Chinese New Year period, and in order to recuperate some of their losses, cut their prices in late January by as much as 50-70 percent. For example, the Sheraton went down from 1600 yuan a night to 728 yuan a night, and the Portman's prices fell from 3000 yuan to just 800 yuan.
• Taobao, one of China's main online auction and shopping sites, is no longer permitting the sale of "original flavor underwear" (原味内衣), i.e. used or worn underwear. According to the reports most of the people selling these items were of the female persuasion, and the prices were generall 20-40 yuan, though some choice items topped the 100 yuan mark.
• Go here for some pictures of graffiti art in Beijing. Some of it ain't bad, artistically speaking, but is probably not good for the building of a harmonious society.

Shanghaiist is not about to engage in an argument on the socio-economic impact that China's one-child policy has had on all aspects of the country's existence and future. We recognize the importance of population control in a country that continues to struggle with large-scale poverty, underemployment, unemployment, a weakened social welfare system and disappearing farmable land to grow enough food for a 1.3 billion (and growing) population. We definitely don't want to get into a debate about that "deep-rooted Chinese concept that males are superior to females." But this kind of whitewashing of the one-child policy in a country that has the most unbalanced population ratio in the world can be called irresponsible at best. And it is certainly not going to help all of those poor, abandoned -- or worse -- baby girls: more ›