Friends of ours have joked before that they didn't believe Thomas L. Friedman when he proclaimed that "The World is Flat" till they saw the chests of the girls waitressing at Hooters here. Adrian Baschuk from Current TV checks out the Shanghai outlet (which has the distinction of being China's very first Hooters). He seemed to really like it and was even thinking of going back there for Thanksgiving!
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China will offer religious services for foreigners arriving for the 2008 Olympic Games, an official in charge of religious affairs said. more ›

About 100 Chinese teachers are expected to arrive at state schools in the United Kingdom (yes, that haven of foreign language education) by next year, but schools which have already employed some of those teachers in their classrooms (which they described as "lovely") have already found problems, such as the following:

"Their lack of familiarity with the English system of discipline, target setting etc is a problem."

"They also tend to have different, perhaps unrealistic, expectations of pupils."

"Concerns are expressed about Chinese teachers' abilities to manage pupils, particularly whole classes or where there is a tendency for students to be disruptive."

Chinese news portals have been abuzz lately with the news that a male prostitute has claimed on his blog to have had sex with Chinese film director Jia Zhangke (贾樟柯) who is currently attending the Cannes Film Festival. And Shanghaiist knows once something is claimed on a blog, it is absolutely true. more ›

It's not the New York Times and it is certainly a bit slanted towards Beijing by the nature of its source, but the list of top ten books noted by users of book club site Douban.com is a whimsical glimpse into what young, plugged-in Chinese are reading offline these days. Here is the list as it stands today: more ›

Last Saturday, Shanghaiist was invited to attend the unveiling of Shanghai's newest gallery space, m97. Once we negotiated the tricky shared building entrance, we made our way to the second floor and was immediately impressed by the physical space and airy nature of the gallery. The grand opening featured an exhibition of by emerging Beijing photographer and artist Jiang Zhi titled "Things Would Turn Simpler Once They Happened". Immediately we had diametrically opposing thoughts. "How were these photos taken?", and "I don't quite get it...". We wished that our interpretation of the photographic exhibition was as simple as the exhibition's title, but we assume this is the art part of the exhibition. Here's a little about Jiang Zhe (pictured below) and his exhibit from information posted by m97. more ›

There's a definitely a buzz for fans of Chinese cinema with the release of Jia Zhangke's new film Still Life 《三峡好人》. In Shanghai and probably the rest of China, the film's theatrical release comes on December 14, the same day that Zhang Yimou's new film Curse of the Golden Flower. And while from the standpoint of the box office returns, it seems pretty clear who the winner will be, Jia doesn't at all seem flustered by the lackluster box office performance that his film has seen in the limited screenings that have happened over the last few weeks. more ›

It was in high spirits that Shanghaiist joined BookCrossing last week. After all, we love to read, we dig the ra-ra-sharing spirit of the movement, and we have participated (happily and successfully) in other yay-serendipity collectives. more ›

Jia Zhangke’s Golden Lion-award-winning Still Life (in Chinese, Sanxia Haoren, or "The Good People of the Three Gorges") isn’t quite the masterpiece that we’ve come to expect from the man responsible for the pitch-perfect The World (2004) or Platform (2000). But save for a few minor hiccups, it comes awfully close. more ›

On Saturday, November 11, New York Times Foreign Affairs Columnist Thomas L. Friedman spoke at Three On The Bund as part of the Three Talk Lecture Series which was co-hosted by the Penguin Group, publisher of Friedman's bestseller The World Is Flat (TWIF). When the globe-trotter, Friedman comes to Shanghai, it is clear how much he travels by the fact that he seems to be unsure of exactly where he is, as in one instance, he spoke of Three On The Bund "here in Beijing." In all, Friedman spoke on his book for about 52 minutes and then followed with a 36 minute Q&A session at the conclusion of which he was presented with a bizarre statuette of himself standing atop a flat world with the words "GEO GREEN" affixed to a pink base and surrounded by the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. more ›

Photo by raincontreras taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

Drum and Bass comes of age in Shanghai when legendary DJ of the genre, Goldie, plays at club Bon Bon tomorrow night in his first China appearance. more ›

Hey, you knew it was bound to happen. A Chongqing native living in Beijing and working in IT quit his job in order to go home to Chongqing and watch the World Cup games. We think he should have just told his boss that he was working from 6 am to 9 pm, rather than going to such extremes. Just make sure you build up a nest egg every four years. more ›

The best goal of the tournament so far, scored by Argentina and Esteban Cambiassio, after a 24 pass move. This goal is in fact related to Shanghai. Honestly. more ›

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. more ›

A caveat to begin with: We are predisposed to liking movies about migrant workers attempting to eke out an existence in Beijing. Loach is Fish Too (泥鳅也是鱼), directed by Yang Yazhou, tells the story of recent divorcee Ni Qiu (meaning "loach" in Chinese), who takes her cute little twin girls to Beijing in search of a better life. Along the way she meets a man who has the same name as her, which makes for laughs galore! From this point it becomes an understated love story about a headstrong peasant woman who holds her principles and dignity above all else and a man, also from the countryside, who, despite seeming a bit sketchy and good-for-nothing at first, actually is a good man. more ›

The famous first line of Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi's poem on the Jiangnan region goes like this: 江南忆，最忆是杭州 (I recall fondly Jiangnan, and most of all Hangzhou). Well, Hangzhou's been getting its fair share of media buzz lately. For example, Taiwan's Lien Chan, who of late has become the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) Party's ambassador of good will to China, was mugging it up there yesterday with his surgically enhanced wife. We hear that a f*ckload lot of people are going to be around during the World Expo in 2010, and the 27 minute Maglev train will make trips between Shanghai and Hangzhou a breeze. In fact, it could be even faster than that, but they have to slow down the trains: more ›

Yeah, yeah, we know it's a little late for 2005 lists. But our editor is off in the U.S. making life-altering decisions and we just found this list of the top 10 Chinese films of 2005 (in Chinese). Here is how it came out: more ›

The World Expo Shanghai is almost here! Yes, that's what we'll be saying in December 2009. Until then, we are relying on titbits of information fed to us by the Mayor of Shanghai.

City Government approved the detailed construction plan for Shanghai Expo more ›

Former American President Bill Clinton -- no stranger to downloading porn, we're sure -- will visit Hangzhou on September 10 to address the 2005 China Internet Summit. The theme of the get-together organized by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will be "Connecting China To The World" ... well, just the parts of the world the Chinese government deems suitable for the Chinese people. Also expected to speak are CEOs from industry lightweights like Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Sohu. Hopefully one of the seminars will be entitled "How We Can Make Shanghaiist's Internet Connection Less Shitty." more ›

If you're like Shanghaiist, you like going to the movies. And if you're like Shanghaiist, you rarely go to the movies in Shanghai -- because, well, most of the movies that show here are crap. (And because you can buy 10 DVDs on the street for the price of one ticket to the theater.) Thank God then for the Shanghai International Film Festival, which concludes this weekend. Finally, we get some indie and art house fare on the big screen. Right? Right? more ›