Netizens beware! Posting salacious content on your blog could land you with a warning from the police, with the added bonus of the great firewall of china snaking its way around your site. A Shanghai blogger, surnamed Guan, has been warned by the police for 'spreading rumours' online, after a price list of mistresses from local colleges was posted. more ›

As many independent films aren't welcome on the cinema charts and often only get public screening in connection with film festivals, one should definitely take the chance when these low budget, yet high quality movies finally appear on a silver screen. Now this opportunity has reached Shanghai's own independent film director, Kevin Kai Huang (黄凯), and his movie Park Shanghai. Well, at least on Sundays... during the month of September... more ›

Oh, the irony! more ›

There isn't a live music update this week, but it's art shows galore TONIGHT. Three picks that aren't in your conventional Moganshan Lu / Taikang Lu destinations. more ›

Shanghaiist has posted before about the controversy surrounding the new high school history textbooks in Shanghai, which were thrown under the media spotlight after an article in the New York Times by Joseph Kahn claimed that the new history books were a big departure from the old books and went so far as to nearly remove Mao from China's history. You can read what the folks over at the Peking Duck thought about it this issue here and here. It seems that only one or two people there managed to compare the new history textbooks in Shanghai, which move away from the "great man" theory of history, with a somewhat similar movement in teaching of American history towards more social and cultural history, along the lines of (and this perhaps isn't the best or only example) Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. more ›

Howdy folks, and welcome back to this week's indie music preview, brought to you by Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский (that's Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky) and the letter Ф (English equivalent: f). more ›

China admitted earlier this week that the bird flu situation here is "grave," especially for the 2,600 dead birds found in Inner Mongolia. Now, quite suddenly it seems, Shanghai is starting to act like it is taking the threat seriously (and Shanghaiist is having SARS flashbacks, like when immediately after the government stopped lying to the people and Shanghai University gave all the foreign teachers a thermometer ... and vitamins). It was announced yesterday that all travelers arriving in Shanghai by air, land or sea will have the soles of their shoes sterilized. We couldn't find anywhere exactly how the shoes will be sterilized, or how they plan to pull this off -- that's a helluva lot of feet to clean. Luggage and packages will also be checked more thoroughly, sometimes by sniffing dogs with a nose for poultry. So, if you are in the habit of gnawing on those nastly looking vacuum-packed chicken legs they sell at all major transportation hubs in China, finish up and throw the bones out the window before crossing the border. more ›

Quasar, Hooters Girl more ›

First, 19-year-old Zhu Bin got expelled from Shanghai University because his teachers found him in his dormitory bed with his girlfriend back on March 24. Zhu said he was sick and his girlfriend was nursing him back to health. And although we don't really buy that story -- we've all suffered from that "illness," Zhu -- we feel sorry for the guy. And what the hell were his teachers doing in his dorm room? Zhu and his parents appealed the expulsion, but Shanghai University refused to reinstate him. Then, a private university accepted Zhu, but Shanghai University refused to issue the necessary transfer letter. Zhu found a job doing data entry, but was fired when his boss found out he was expelled from university. He now works another job for 5 yuan ($0.40) an hour, less than Shanghai's minimum wage. Oh, and Zhu's girlfriend broke up with him. more ›

Just not as much. Shanghai's Fudan University inched just a little bit closer to becoming the Cal State-Chico of China recently, as school officials will no longer immediately expel unmarried students who have sex, the Shanghai Daily reports: more ›