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 ›

We were surprised to read from the China Briefing blog that ShanghaiExpat.com has been reported to the Chinese Network Security Police:

The social expatriate website Shanghaiexpat.com has had a legal case against it lodged with the network security division of the Public Security Bureau in Shanghai for libel and ‘disrupting social harmony’ it has been reported today. The site, which last year celebrated its fifth anniversary, has proved popular with local expatriates yet has consistently drawn criticism for its generally negative online forums and it’s sometime racist portrayal of Chinese nationals and the general living environment in China, it has been alleged. more ›

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. more ›

While this semester's Fudan University course on homosexual studies is not the first gay-themed course to be offered by the Shanghai institution, it is the first one open to undergraduates. This is also the first year enrollment has surpassed the five student mark. more ›