Jonathan Watts, the China correspondent for The Guardian, has recently put in his year so far article about the internet here. It covers a lot of familiar ground and quotes Zonaeuropa and Danwei.org, among others, as sources. One of the most quoted facts in these kinds of articles is the world’s most read blog being “Lao Xu”. Lao Xu is the Sina.com blog of actress/writer/director Xu Jing Lei 徐静雷. So what’s going on at the......

All ye lucky yuletide souls whose employer's lack of the Scrooge gene has enabled ye to escape Shanghai over the Xmas break, rejoice! Those of you flying back into China after January 1 no longer need to fill in that pesky health declaration form. Although Shanghaiist kind of enjoyed the pre-landing self-diagnosis ritual. Just how many avian flu carrying fowl had we fraternized with over the past month? And could the hail of sputum from......

Japan's idea of 'broader Asia' partnership irks China [Sydney Morning Herald] The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has called for a "broader Asia" partnership of democracies to include India, the US and Australia but omit the region's superpower, China. Jailed dissident's wife under house arrest in Beijing [The Guardian] The wife of jailed Chinese activist Yuan Weijing is under house arrest tonight less than 24 hours before she was due to fly to the Philippines......

Call to abandon wooden chopsticks [China Daily] Restaurant owners and patrons should abandon the use of disposable chopsticks for the good of their health and the environment, an official with the China Cuisine Association (CCA), has said. The country produces and discards more than 45 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks every year, at a cost to the environment of about 25 million trees. Protective pig takes bite out of man's penis [Shanghai Daily] A......

Income disparity getting worse: Report [China Daily] China's Gini coefficient, a standard measure of a country's overall income inequality, rose to 0.473 in 2004 from 0.4 in 1993. Dream of high-speed rail may prove Shanghai politician's final nightmare [IHT] "I have a dream," Chen Liangyu, Shanghai's Communist Party secretary - since disgraced and removed from office - was fond of intoning before his aides, consciously echoing the words of Martin Luther King Jr. And as......

China's disabled children are sold into slavery as beggars [The Guardian] As Beijing prepares for the Olympics, racketeers live well off their street army of exploited teenagers. China overtakes Germany as world's No 3 carmaker [The Guardian] Figures show China increased its vehicle output by 30% last year and is closing in on Japan's No 2 spot. Huaihe River faces severe flood-control challenge [China Daily] The middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe River, China's......

Part of Huaihai Lu to be shut for 20 months due to subway expansion A section of Huaihai Road W. between Xinhua Road and Huashan Road will be shut down for 20 months starting on Saturday due to construction on a new subway line, metro officials said yesterday. Use of transport card to be expanded Local residents will be able to use their transport cards to pay taxi, bus, and subway fares in Nanjing and......

Briton Nick Young, founding editor and publisher of the China Development Brief (we're surprised this website is still up and running), has been ordered to shut down his politically-sensitive newsletter here and has been accused of 'conducting unauthorised surveys'. He also faces possible deportation and a 5-year ban from China. Danwei surmises that the shutdown may have been caused by a number of factors, including "a recent China Development Brief party attended by more than......

We ask because for our June 15 Happy Hour at Abbey Road we are piecing together a playlist made up of all Beatles songs sung by other people. Personally, we are partial to just about anything by Elliott Smith, but we know there are many, many options out there — the Beatles are the most covered band in music history (or so we read somewhere). Last year, The Guardian had a nice little rundown of......

You may remember (one of) 2006's big Chinese internet controversies regarding the alleged British male English teacher blogging about allegedly bonking Shanghai's finest, the enraged response from China's self-styled moral guardian Dr. Zhang Jiehai, and the subsequent online-witch hunt for the alleged perpetrators? Well, get ready for round two. Chinabounder's blog, Sex and Shanghai / 欲望上海, is back. In his first entry since the height of Chinabounder-gate, he's fired a broadside at the Chinese internet......

Even though we've long put our public relations days behind us, we can't help but think what a day in the life of a PR executive at Starbucks must be like. They must all have been working overtime lately with the Seattle-based coffee company hitting the headlines like crazy lately. First it was the landmark victory against Shanghai Xingbake, then there was the trans fat issue. This week, little known CCTV-9 news anchor Rui Chenggang......

We first learned of Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri's work earlier this year. His unique aerial tilt-shift photos look great online -- and we can't wait to see them in person. Starting tomorrow (Monday) at Bund 18, you can view his "Site Specific" exhibit. From MOCA Cleveland: In site_specific_, his ongoing series of films and largescale stills, Italian artist Olivo Barbieri creates unusual aerial portrayals of various international cities. Filming from a helicopter with a tilt-shift......

Judging from the comments on our first post on Chinabounder's now infamous Sex and Shanghai blog, there seems to be some who believe that the entire thing is a hoax. Everyone, it seems, wants to know who Chinabounder is -- even the BBC，which emailed Shanghaiist's editor asking for the scoop on Chinabounder. Bloggers often seem omniscient, but we're not, or at least not in the way that God is. The Inquirer states: Ironically, the bog......

Do you remember what you were doing on May 18? Let us help you: You were reading a Shanghaiist post about Sex and Shanghai, a blog started by one "Chinabounder", a British teacher living in Shanghai. In this blog Chinabounder wrote about his sexcapades, as well as scattered thoughts about sex and sexuality in China, Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and China in general. We wish we could show you some of what he wrote, but......

They are slaughtering dogs in Nanjing in the name of rabies prevention and public order: City regulations ban owners from bringing their pet dogs to public places and disturbing other people. The rules state that all dogs which enter public areas without a proper reason such as medical treatment or a public performance can be killed by public security bureaus or other units entrusted with the task. However, officials from the police bureau said the......

A British newspaper called Mail on Sunday ran a critical report (not online) on Apple iPod factory conditions in China, including one in "Suzhou, Shanghai" (is that like Greenwich, London?). Wired picked up on this and had this to say: According to the report (paraphrased here by Macworld UK), Foxconn's giant Longhua plant employs 200,000 workers, who work 15-hour days but are paid just $50 a month -- miserable even by China's standards. It claims......

On the 40th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, The Guardian spoke to Zhang Sizhi (you may or may not find most of those links are blocked): Zhang Sizhi - the country's most eminent lawyer - knows the horrors of that period. When the cultural revolution was launched on May 16 1966, he was already interned as a condemned "rightist" in a reform-through-labour camp. And after it ended with Mao Zedong's death in 1976 he was......

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......

From The Guardian: The Chinese authorities have compensated the mother of a youth who died after being beaten in police custody during the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, in the first known payment of its kind. A human rights activist said yesterday that police in Chengdu had reportedly paid 70,000 yuan (£4,800) as "hardship assistance" to Tang Deying, who has campaigned for 17 years for an official apology and redress for the death of her......

The Guardian today reports on another riot in rural China: Thousands of Chinese villagers have clashed with police over access to irrigation water, leading to at least one death and five injuries, the local media reported yesterday. Amid a rise in violent rural unrest, the authorities used water cannon and tear gas to break up an angry protest in the village of Bomei the southern province of Guangdong. According to the South China Morning Post,......

A British Museum touring exhibit, dubbed "Treasures of the World Cultures" is touching off a small controversy at its Beijing stop. Of all the world cultures on display -- Egypt, Greece, Ancient Rome, Africa -- one was notably missing: China. The exhibit featured 272 artifacts, none of Chinese origin. Ironically, the British Museum has the largest collection of Chinese artifacts outside of China and Taiwan, totaling 20,000 plus items. Why then weren’t any of the......

Will jailed New York Times researcher Zhao Yan be released soon? The charges against him have been "withdrawn," according to his lawyer.Mark Kitto's book about the That's Shanghai imbroglio was dropped by its publisher. Why? Depends on who you ask.Wal-Mart in China could be as big as it is in the U.S. in 20 years.We thought it was common knowledge, but Shanghai Daily reports on the planned closing date for Xiangyang Market -- June 30.China......

From the February 27 issue of New York magazine, we learn that Shanghai is the No. 1 destination New Yorkers are "fleeing" to (Nos. 2 and 3 are Budapest and Pittsburgh, naturally). Here's what the magazine wrote about our city: For aspiring Masters of the Universe, there is only one place to go: China’s hyperbolically bustling financial capital. “Everyone sees China in Bloomberg and Time and Le Monde and The Guardian and wants to be......

Anyone who has been following the circus surrounding the controversial report filed by The Guardian's new (maybe former?) Shanghai correspondent Benjamin Joffe-Walt needs to go read the explanation/examination filed today by Guardian ombudsman Ian Mayes. (Simon World has a nice primer for anyone who wants to get up to speed on the story ... or for all you Shanghai Foreign Corresponents Club members who have been deleting all those heated emails about the topic that......