By Kenneth Tan and David Feng Not good news: Tudou may be in for a squashing by the Chinese mainland authorities, specifically, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television. A Sohu IT report claims that the presence of porn -- a big no-no on the Chinese Internet -- was all that it took for the potato (which is the Chinese translation of "tudou") to be squashed. The squashing is long-term and has no set......

Diving queen Guo Jingjing (郭晶晶) has been slammed left right and centre for her less than stellar behaviour at a press conference after taking home the silver for the women's 3m springboard final at the "Good Luck Beijing" FINA Diving World Cup where she was edged out by team mate Wu Minxia (吴敏霞). Guo was described by the media as highly "inattentive" at the press conference attended by over 100 local and foreign journalists, looking......

Shanghaiist is happy to learn that we finally have a chance to break free from the shackles of political impotence and actually make somewhat of a difference in the increasingly heated U.S. presidential campaign. Democrats Abroad, the overseas branch of the U.S. Democratic Party, is holding its first global presidential primary from February 5th through the 12th. For the first time, expatriates who are American citizens have a chance to vote in the Democratic primary......

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......

Two weeks ago, when we told you that China's new labour law was going to be a big, big thing, we had no idea it would also be the cause of some serious blood-letting. Local gangs and triads have been attacking the Shenzhen Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre which has been instrumental in providing legal advice for rural migrant workers and informing them about their rights under the new labour law. In separate attacks, they shattered......

The space station, the Olympic pigs and white-collar wages Shanghaiist scans thousands of China headlines every single day, and believe us, we do want to believe all the news we read here in China, but every now and then, we come across something that makes us remind ourselves to take EVERYTHING we read with a great pinch of salt, no matter how authoritative the source may sound. Just yesterday, for instance, China Daily reported that......

The Chinese Communist Party, the world's largest political party with some 64 million members opened its 17th Party Congress yesterday. With over 2,200 delegates from all over the nation, the congress was opened by parliament chief Wu Bangguo with the national anthem, followed by a moment of silence marked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other "martyrs of the revolution" before President Hu Jintao began addressing the......

Woohoo! It looks like a Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is coming our way soon that will cut travelling time from 13 hours to under five hours! Shanghaiist can't wait! This will undoubtedly give those darned Beijing-Shanghai "air express services" a run for their money! In other travel news, ANA will commence a code-sharing agreement with Shanghai Airlines and Air China on flights operated by ANA and Shanghai Airlines between Tokyo's Haneda Airport and Shanghai's Hongqiao......

On the left, you have an image submitted by the Yangzhou Evening News to the 17th Annual Chinese Journalism Awards, for which it won a Class I award in the Best News of Jiangsu province, as well as a Class III photojournalism award in the national round. Lots of inspiring pictures and smart captions that would befit any award-winning page (see details of pictures here on ESWN). Some smart chap then decided to do......

Earlier this year, the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada suffered a huge diplomatic embarrassment at the inauguration of a US$40 million China-financed stadium built as a gift from Beijing when its police band decided it would perform the Taiwan anthem instead of the March of the Volunteers. This time, Japan has repeated the gaffe by playing the Taiwanese anthem at the ongoing Asia men's basketball championship in Tokushima. From the IHT: A Japanese diplomat in......

[*WARNING: Not recommended for current/ex/recovering teachers as this gave us flashbacks of our own students from hell.] The Beijing Haidian District Art Vocational School (北京市海淀区艺术职业学校) has found itself in the centre of a controversy when a video clip of several students abusing a 70-year teacher was circulated online on video sharing sites and enraged netizens across China, sparking a debate over the state of the morals of Chinese youths today. Angry netizens have overwhelmed the......

The 7th Chinese National Games for the Disabled concluded on Sunday in Kunming city of southwestern China's Yunnan province. With 815 gold medals in the Games this year, Chinese athletes broke 91 world records in track and field, swimming and weightlifting. Over 4,000 athletes from 31 provinces and municipalities as well as Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions participated in the event. The National Games for the Disabled are held once every four years.......

Guangdong, China - 25 year old Chinese woman Yang Huiyan is now Asia's richest woman and China's richest person after her father transfers his shares to her and the company debuts on the Hong Kong stock exchange. At $9 billion, Yang is richer than George Soros, Steve Jobs of Apple and Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. But sorry guys, she is already married!Singapore - Founding father of modern Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, acknowledging the view......

Ear Scope turns wax removal into primetime entertainment "Imagine if you can the wild and crazy times you could have with the company's line of Ear Scopes, which combine a pick with a small video camera and allow you to actually watch what's going on while you scrape around and try to avoid puncturing your eardrum." Cabbie held after Swede overcharged "Christoph Johamnes arrived at Pudong International Airport early Wednesday morning for his first......

Are you in the Chinese stock market? No, this isn’t a reprint of the post from last month. We ask because yesterday, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges dropped about nine percent, registering their biggest decline in a decade, surpassed only by the sell off the day after late reformist leader Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. A month ago, Shanghaiist told you about the national mania that is the local stock market. While both the......

From the Daily India we learn that China's statisticians messed up in their calculations of the national divorce rate.: China has halved its divorce rate after statisticians admitted that they had counted the number of people and not the number of divorces in the annual figure, state media said Friday. The official divorce rate is likely to drop from 2.76 per 1,000 in 2005 to about 1.3 per 1,000 last year, the official China Daily......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend Vince......

A survey found that Shanghai is the most shi shang (时尚, i.e. fashionable, hip) city in China. OK, to be more precise, the study asked the respondents to tell them what they thought the most fashionable city in China was. The respondents were made up of people in first-tier cities with 3,000+ RMB monthly incomes and 1,800+ RMB incomes in second-tier cities. There were some other noteworthy findings in this study. Like, 50.75% of Shanghai......

According to a recent survey, Shanghainese men spend on average 17.1 minutes per day looking at themselves in a mirror. That's 8.5 minutes more than the urban national average for men. We think 17 minutes seems like an awful long time (even if you stare into a mirror while blow-drying your pubes in the gym locker room .... yes, we're talking about you). And we also think this survey is sketchy at best — how......

It may come as a surprise to some people to learn that the national sport of Ireland is not, as is generally supposed, drinking. Nor is, it would be appear, soccer, given the country's 5-2 drumming at the hands of lowly Cyprus last week. No, the passion of the Emerald Isle forever lies in the great game of Gaelic football, an exciting, high speed ball game that is usually described as a cross between rugby......

Late last month, we told you about the Shanghai Wild Animal Olympics, and we probably didn't infuse the post with the proper amount of outrage. Thankfully, some commenters picked up our slack and even directed readers to the animalsasia.org website, which includes information on how you can help put an end to such disgusting displays. We will now quote that information here: What we are doing AAF is writing to the Mayor of Shanghai calling......

According to Reuters and other sources, Chinese Mainlanders are apparently outraged over Taiwanese actress “Jessy” Meng Guangmei’s recent comments concerning toilets and bathroom etiquette in China. In her August 31 appearance on the Taiwanese talk show Red Storm, Meng commented: "Many mainland toilets don't have doors and even when they do, most people don't even shut the door!" Meng said. She regaled the host with a story about a toilet in a Chinese city where......

Respect for elders is a traditional Confucian principle, but according to these photographs, it is apparently dead in Shanghai. Wow. (But are we supposed to give up our seats to elderly beggars?)The Japanese call it Karoshi, and it seems that death from over-working is taking China by storm. There is no statement to the age of this victim, who died after working continously for 21 hours.Yao Ming has complained about the China Basketball Association's (CBA)......

We hope you have had enough time to get over China's 95-64 loss to Greece in the World Basketball Championships (but if you are still feeling really bad, go ahead and check out the above video of happier times for the Chinese basketball team). Yao Ming is all smiles in that clip, but he had some harsh words for Chinese sports authorities (that would mean the government) after China was embarrassed by Greece. It's been......

August 13 set a record as the hottest day all summer: 38.6 degrees.Beijing University's EMBA program is so popular and profitable that they're bringing the show to Chongqing. Aimed at execs and entreprenuers in that region, the cost comes out to about 1,250 RMB per day. However, since one of the conditions of enrollment is that your business has to have a net worth in excess of 50 million RMB, these are people that can......

A small debate is raging on the internet about the place of street culture in Shanghai. This after a 24-year-old troubadour complained about being fined five yuan and kicked out of the Caobao Lu subway stop because Shanghai doesn't allow begging or any kinds of performances in or near subway stops. Wal-Mart employees in China have formed their own union. Says the report: Wal-Mart has long battled to bar unions from its stores, in the......

A few days back, Shangahiist wrote about how half of the city’s white collar workers rarely if ever go out, but we never quite explained why. While our staffs and half a dozen interns are still hard at work trying to pin down the exact reasons behind this sociological conundrum, we did just have our first breakthrough revelation: From our friends at the titillating and informative Asian-Sirens.com, we learned of this interesting tidbit: Where was......

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now. Londonist experiences the London of the future through the wonders of 3D modeling, but while the 3D guys are......

OK now, if you are over 18 years old, you have high school education, you have used internet for more than three years, you know internet pretty well -- sounds like us ... we're getting excited! -- you think you can accurately express your opinions, and most importantly, you care about establishing a "civilized internet", you are qualified be an internet supervisor, at least according to Beijing Association of Online Media (BAOM) -- first time......

Shanghaiist has always been miffed by KFC’s roaring success in China. In a country where fine dining is the national pastime, how did something as mundane as fried chicken capture the discerning palettes of 1.4 billion Chinese? Well, thanks to the good people at Yum Brand China’s (KFC’s parent company) marketing department, we now know why -- eating fried chicken makes you smarter and, better yet, helps you get the chicks, too! (No pun intended.)......