This is just a rumor at this point. But it is a strong rumor. Not a weak rumor, or a flat out lie (like these). Basically, we think you can mark your calendars ... and use pen. Here are the details as we have heard them: March 2: Björk March 9: Harry Connick, Jr. March 22: Maroon 5 All shows will be at the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center, 777 Wuyi Lu near Zunyi Lu (not......

... and that is a conservative estimate, writes Bernie Leo of Shanghai Daily. We have to give it to him in the way that he succeeds to make a science out of the subject: Population figures for the city vary wildly but the latest I can find say we have 17 million permanent residents and four to five million migrants. Obviously not everyone is a spitter or expectorator. (And there is a difference. To spit......

The Shanghai Daily ran just a caption with the attached photo. Here is what they wrote: Fire fighters battle a blaze early yesterday which broke out in an former church converted into offices in Shanghai. No one was injured in the fire, which started about 2:30am. Crew from 18 fire engines took about an hour to extinguish the flames. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire, at the intersection of South Suzhouhe Road......

Our brothers and sisters at Londonist breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday — they no longer have to redesign their logo. They will remain, for the foreseeable future, the city with the biggest ferris wheel. Pop open the champagne, guys! They have Shanghai to thank. Our idiot city planners have decided to scrap plans to build a "spinning giant": The Shanghai Star Ferris wheel was to stand 200 to 230 meters above its Hongkou......

Here are Miss Chen's qualifications for the 2006 Da Er Wen (达尔文) Award: Currently on trial in Shanghai for murdering and dismembering her husband, He Lei, last August in West Lafayette, Indiana, where both, at one time or another, were graduate students at Purdue University.Chen, a Sichuan native, admitted to shooting He in the head with a gun she bought online using the name Jack Washington. "When I saw blood gush out of his head,......

What do you do when you write a book about running a business in China, you get a book deal and then the publisher backs out at the last minute? Well, after shouting several bad words, you get the book published piecemeal until another publisher shows interest. And so Mark Kitto, one of the folks who started the whole That's Shanghai "magazine empire" back in the late 1990s, only to have it "stolen by the......

It wasn't too long ago -- like late 2004 -- that professional boxing was banned in China. Too dangerous, the communists once said. Well, boxing must not be dangerous anymore, because now you can watch it at Super Brand Mall. On February 24, nine matches will take place in an event co-sanctioned by the World Boxing Association and the Pacific-Asia Boxing Association. Spectators are invited to "come and see who will take home the golden......

Shanghai Star -- which looks seriously f*cked on both of our browsers -- has a story about the uncertain future faced by two of Shanghai's old Russian Orthodox churches. The Mission Church, at 55 Xinle Lu, used to house a bar/club called The Dome, but has sat empty since that place closed nearly two years ago. And then there is St. Nicholas Military Church, 18 Gaolan Lu. Its latest tenants, restaurant/bars Ashanti Dome and Boca,......

It’s official, Xintiandi is the most popular entertainment street (even though it's not really a street) in the city according to 80 percent of respondents in a survey. Thirteen thousand votes were taken by mail, Internet and telephone from locals as well as “people from other places,” according to Shanghai Star (Nov. 10 print edition). We’re not sure if that means tourists, foreigners or aliens, but we do get a sneaking suspicion that the people......

Goodbye beautiful bunches of roses for 10 yuan. Goodbye piles of cheap Christmas decorations. Goodbye grumpy man who sold us a money tree. Goodbye woman who tied together beautiful corsages for our wedding, only to add the world's gaudiest bow at the bottom. Farewell. Adieu. You will be missed. The Jingwen Flower Market, which was at 225 Shaanxi Nan Lu (and also had a gate at Maoming Nan Lu, which was a happenin’ bar strip)......

A little more than five years ago, Shanghai police arrested Chen Genrong, the mastermind behind the underground production of fake Phoenix-brand bicycles. Shanghai Star reported then that daily around 1,500 bicycles used to be shipped from his secret warehouse on Gong Qing Tuan Lu in order to be sold nationwide. The arrest might have raised a few foreign eyebrows living and working in a country that managed to eschew the paradox out of such terms......

Just when you thought you were all grown up and could do things on your own, your parents find a new way to interfere -- at least that might be the case for hundreds of young adults in Shanghai, whose parents are worried that they are too old to be single. Taking matchmaking to the next level was a “parent’s chat meeting,” which, according to the current print edition of the Shanghai Star, started in......

Interfax is reporting that starting Sept. 1, all mobile phone and Xiaolingtong subscribers in Shanghai will have to register their numbers with their legal names. This directive from the Shanghai Communications Administration and the Shanghai Public Security Bureau extends to all current and future customers. All SIM cards purchased after Sept. 1 will require real-name registration and all pre-existing subscribers will be given three months to add names to their accounts at designated locations across......

Here's a useful tourist map of Shanghai -- it labels 14 choice spots to go kill yourself. Adapted from a location map for the 2002 4As Creative Awards Roadshow, this image began circulating online last year but has only recently caught the attention of the traditional media. Experts have been trotted out to decry the harmful influence it will have on the youth, and the subway option has attracted quite a bit of attention, since......

"Beijing or bust!" That's been the Summer Break 2005 mantra for foreign soccer clubs. Manchester United plays there today. Sheffield United played there last week. And just a few days ago, a Beckham-less Real Madrid squad sloshed its way to a 3-2 win over Beijing Hyundai. Depending on who you read, Beijing's 70,000-seat Workers' Stadium was either less than half full or just barely half full for that match, but everybody reports that Real Madrid......