The Los Angeles Dodgers take on the San Diego Padres this weekend at Beijing's Olympic baseball stadium. Seating capacity is limited to 13,000 spectators, and sure enough Emma has sold out their allotment of the cheap seats here in Shanghai. We're curious as to the scalper situation in Beijing, but for the risk-averse, other Chinese ticketing websites still have a small number of tickets left. A little internet sleuthing can still get you into the......

China currently has no privacy laws, but that may change, if lawyer Yu Guofu from the Beijing-based Internet Society of China has his way. In an interview with the China Youth Daily 《中国青年报》, Yu made the following comments:There is no privacy protection law in China so far, nor is there a single item in any laws and regulations that covers privacy protection... The only mention of privacy is in a judicial explanation by the Supreme......

...well, that is if that most beloved of governmental catchphrases elicits in your mind the reprehensible world of Disney. That's right, it's full Steamboat Willie ahead for the cloven-hoofed mouse and his sinister denizens and their scheme to move into Chuansha and Nanhui, according to China Daily. Plans for a Disneyland Shanghai were mooted in 2005, but put on hold due to the company's fears that it might detract from their Hong Kong park. Now......

The Xujiahui Cathedral (徐家汇天主教堂), otherwise known as the St. Ignatius Cathedral of Shanghai (聖依納爵主教座堂) is lit up especially for the Special Olympics. From Wikipedia:Designed by English architect William Doyle, and built by French Jesuits between 1905 and 1910, it is said to have once been known as "the grandest cathedral in the Far East." It can accommodate 2,500 worshippers at the same time. In 1966, at the opening of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards......

Left: The Shanghai Show is back with a great new segment that shows you the 3pm rush hour everyday, when parents and grandparents rush to public schools all around the city to pick up their little emperors and empresses. Amazing how much there is to see in a simple short clip like this. Middle: 100 people get into their element for a Rueda show as part of the Shanghai Salsa Festival at Xintiandi. Kinda......

The Shanghai Special Olympics concluded yesterday. Over the past two weeks, 7,500 athletes, 40,000 volunteers, and 3,500 event officials descended on the city to stage events for 25 sports. Highlights here. At the closing ceremony at Jiangwan Stadium last night, Kenny G played a rendition of “Butterfly Lovers” (梁祝) as women in butterfly costumes descended from cables strung to the stadium lights. When they reached the stage, they claimed a Special Olympian and escorted......

Perhaps you have noticed that Shanghai taxi drivers are wearing orange T-shirts these days. They are for the Special Olympics (which, we assume, local cabbies are more interested in than the Women's World Cup?) and on the back we're pretty sure it says "I Know I Can," which is the event's slogan. We asked one of our drivers today if he liked being able to wear a T-shirt instead of the usual cabbie outfit (some......

Hot on the heels of the FIFA Women's World Cup, yet another international sporting event, right here in Shanghai. The Special Olympics will open on 2 Oct at the Shanghai Stadium and run all the way till 11 Oct. We hear from the organisers:Award-winning producer and director Don Mischer has created a spectacular Opening Ceremonies event to mark the official opening of the World Games. The event will include star-studded entertainment, the Parade of......

Shanghai is back in Beijing's good books. Or so an article published by the People's Daily two weeks ago indicates, claims the Associated Press. The article, titled "Glad to hear the new good tidings from Shanghai", lavished praise on Shanghai for it's recent successes. "A golden breeze refreshes Shanghai; one important, auspicious event after another" gushed the lead article. It is a sign, claims AP, that the fallout from last year's pension scandal has started......

World Car Free Day, September 22 Ever thought of what you're doing to offset your carbon footprint? This Saturday, instead of driving your car or taking a taxi, why don't you try taking public transport, cycling or walking instead? Residents will be asked to avoid driving private cars within the Inner Ring Road, and while compliance is not mandatory, driving will be banned outright in some areas. Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), September 25 As the mercury......

Pigs are back in the headlines once again, and with a vengeance. Here is an interesting juxtapose of three pig-related news stories found via the informative China Digital Times. We first read on the Beijing News that a "Zero-Profit Pork Alliance" consisting of about 150 supermarkets in Chongqing that came together on Aug 10 in a bold move to slow down and reverse rising pork prices has all but collapsed: The participating stores did surprise......

This weekend is the next stop for Olympics hopefuls at the Gymnastics World Cup stop in Shanghai. The action begins tomorrow with the preliminary competition, which will determine the eight finalists that will compete on the four apparatuses for the women and six for the men. Since this is a World Cup event, there will be no all-around competition. Tomorrow's preliminary competition will be followed by the event finals on Saturday and Sunday. With the......

Notorious NBA bad boy Yao Ming has done it again. He's late for national team training — and China's official sports association has made it clear they are sick and tired of his Rodmanesque antics: The Houston Rockets' star was faulted for taking too much time off to recover from his last NBA season. The government's All-China Sports Federation also said he spent too much time planning his wedding and making appearances for the Special......

Worker beaten to death in strike for unpaid wages An unpaid migrant worker has been beaten to death at a building site in South China's Guangdong Province and hundreds of his workmates who were striking to get delayed salaries were bashed by thugs hired by the building owner. Beijing Olympic venue catches fire A fire broke out on Monday at the nearly completed table tennis venue for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but damage appeared limited......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

Send your close friend who doesn't have a sweetheart a box of chocolates and sign it anonymous. Really, Valentine's isn't just for boy- and girlfriends. Send a heartfelt Valentine's Day card to someone you haven't seen in a long while or someone who has inspired you in a special way. Spend time with kids at an orphanage with him/her. Who says candlelight dinners are the only way to celebrate Valentine's? Make it a special one......

AsiaPundit » Blog Archive » iPhone Now Available in China "Even though the official Asian launch date for the Apple iPhone is not until 2008, users of the China’s Taobao auction site can already buy the ‘revolutionary’ phone. No wonder Taobao could beat eBay in the China market ..." (tags: china iphone gadgets tech taobao) Syphilis epidemic raging in China, says study - Yahoo! News "Syphilis, virtually eradicated in China under Mao Zedong, has......

Good Boonna Café: We miss bohemian charm like we miss an old-fashioned milkshake. Luckily, Boonna Café (open in two locations; Boonna 1 is on Xinle Lu, Boonna 2 on West Fuxing Lu, directly across from JZ Club) has both in spades, not to mention attentive waitstaff, a Mac G4 (how often do you see one of those in a coffee shop?), and no cell phone rings set to the blare of (bad) Korean pop. Yet.......

It may seem that we just can't get enough of blowjob jokes, but the Shanghai Daily's headlines are just too doggone funny. The above article is about the delegations that are in Shanghai now to participate in the 2006 Special Olympics invitationals, which are a precursor to the 2007 (October 2-11) World Special Olympics, to be held here in Shanghai. According to a report (in Chinese), Special Olympics President and CEO Bruce Pasternak came and......

And are interested in photography? Join the upcoming flickr meet up this Saturday, details of the event are posted here. Just show up and we'll be more than willing to shoot you. Don't worry, you can fire back at us. So what happens during a meet up? Well, we practically shoot everything in sight. But more than that, it's a great venue to make new friends, learn about your camera, discover photography tips, find your......

4 million tourists flocked to Shanghai. Crowding People's Square, Nanjing Lu, and the Bund. And they spent a whooping RMB 2.7 billion, mainly on shopping. Meanwhile, locals watched skater exhibitionists, had near-death experiences snowboarding, checked out the flowers in Century Park, sang their heart away, went to their favorite bars, and, well, did their laundry. For more images of Shanghai during the Golden Week, click here. Special thanks to: theshanghaieye, D.POP, gtmojo, Jakob Montrasio, Pat1982,......

How do you say "casting couch" in Chinese? A young actress named Xiao Qiong started a firestorm after writing on her blog about how she was propositioned by a director who offered her a role in a TV show if she slept with him. An insider says that 60 percent of young talents are affected by this practice.An 11 -year-old Chinese girl has been given a book deal with Harper Collins for a fantasy novel......

We're not sure what prompted us to buy a bottle of REEB Antarktik Beer the other day. We don't normally buy beer at Shanghai convenience stores. We don't normally buy Chinese beers. But it was exceptionally hot and humid on Saturday. We were thirsty, and perhaps got suckered in by the photo of ice caps on the label. Or maybe we just thought it was cool the way they used Ks in the word "Antarctic."......

After filling up on bagels, sausage, eggs and Bloody Marys at the Shanghaiist Brunch Happy Hour at City Diner (details at the bottom of this post), we plan on heading over to DDM Warehouse for the Rock for Charity concert, all profits from which go to Shanghai Sunrise. It's a great cause, and a great lineup of bands. Mint and Ferris Wheel played at the last Shanghaiist Happy Hour (video clips), The Living Thin were......

With so much attention being focused on that other film shot in Shanghai, Asia Pundit fills us in on another movie featuring our city that you may have overlooked (and probably should continue overlooking based on what he says). It's the latest Milla Jovovich vehicle UltraViolet: Shanghai’s architecture, in spite of the city being “Ground Zero in the Blood War being waged between humans and her kind in what’s left of Shanghai,” looked good. That......

A friend pointed us to this amusing and probably pretty accurate post at a blog called DiligenceChina, which appears directed at Americans looking to do business in China. This post deals with what they call the "Lexicon of China-Business Entry Terms" and offers blunt definitions of terms like "Greater China," "Special Chinese Method" and "Chundits." What initially caught our eye, however, was this entry: Kitto-ed: Verb. Derived from Mark Kitto — well known Shanghai publisher,......

Shanghaiist feels lucky that we will stay home for Spring Festival after reading this Sohu report (in Chinese) about the annual holiday transportation peak between January 14 and February 22. Ticket prices for trains, buses and boats are up 20-100 percent during this season and everything is going to packed, uncomfortably packed, like can't fight your way to to the toilet packed (and then if you finally make it to the toilet, you'll wish you......

The English translations of the top 10 phrases used in Chinese newspapers in 2005 are: Education to maintain the advanced nature of Party membersEleventh Five-Year PlanShenzhou VIConservation-conscious societyPeaceful developmentBasket of currenciesOil price hikeOne World One DreamLien Chan and James Soong's mainland visitsAbolishing of agricultural tax We figured something about a tsunami would be in there somewhere. And no "harmonious society"? These were the results for the "general" category. There were other lists for more topic......

Since Shanghaiist kicked off in July this year, we've inflicted opinion after opinion on you, our faithful readership. Here comes a whole bunch more. This time we've taken it upon ourselves to inform you about the best music released in 2005. Specifically, the top 25 albums of the year (summed up in exactly 25 words each). The list was painstakingly compiled by five Shanghaiist contributors. We say painstakingly because some of us absolutely loathed the......

America's favorite action star and advocate for the mentally handicapped, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, isn't the only US governor on a trade mission to China this week. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is here too, just nobody seems to notice. AFX reports: "When (former pro wrestler) Jesse Ventura was our governor, he got a lot of attention in China because he was a celebrity," said David Metzen, a member of the University of Minnesota Board of......