By Jeffrey Wasserstrom This posting about the politics of pop concerts in Shanghai is mostly about an American duo (Jan and Dean), whose hits included “Surf City,” and the hard-to-categorize Icelandic songstress Bjork, who last week made headlines and drew the ire of the Chinese state by saying the words “Tibet, Tibet” after performing a song called “Declare Independence" (on the heels of which, there was apparent tinkering with Harry Connick Jr.'s song list at......

According to Major League Baseball's official website, the LA Dodgers and San Diego Padres have committed to playing two exhibition games in Beijing's Olympic stadium next March. The games, scheduled tentatively for the weekend of March 15-16 at the Wukesong baseball stadium, are part of an MLB outreach to Asian baseball fans. The effort also includes season opening games between the Oakland A's and reigning champion Boston Red Sox at the Tokyo Dome, and a......

2,000 sex-related ads dropped from Chinese television and radio [People's Daily] About 2,000 advertisements adjudged to be sexually suggestive have been dropped from television and radio broadcast across China over the past two weeks, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said on Wednesday. Work on Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail to start by end of 2007 [AFP] Work on a long-awaited high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai is expected to start by late 2007,......

Today is China's 58th National Day. Thousands braved the rain this morning at the Tiananmen Square for the flag-raising ceremony. From what they're wearing, it looks like the weather up north has turned cold already. Also looks like it's mostly youngsters in the crowd (many of whom have travelled from afar). Check out the sea of digital cameras and mobile phones. China has truly arrived in the digital age.......

Via China Digital Times: This 2 minute video clip from buggyrun creatively juxtaposes images of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Warning: Subversive subliminal pictures hidden in there. Watch at own risk. Oh but while you're at it, do also read about this messed-up copy-and-paste by some smart "editor" at China Daily.......

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......

Baidu Sued For Copyright Infringement "Video downloads of Guangdong Meng Tong Culture's licensed historical costume drama series "Zhen Guan Chang Ge" were found on Baidu space channel (hi.baidu.com). ... Meng Tone is asking Baidu to pay 440,000 Yuan in compensation." China vows to revamp leprosy villages "The disease has now been officially eradicated in China, but the villages remain partly because the patients were unable to rebuild their lives after being institutionalised for decades."......

This is a snippet from Reuter's report on yesterday afternoon's case of vandalism in Beijing's Forbidden City. A vandal damaged the giant portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong that hangs over the Forbidden City on Saturday, prompting police to clear the area and adjacent Tiananmen Square, witnesses said. Most of the picture was intact, but workers could be seen in a crane cleaning the lower left area of the huge portrait, which appeared damaged......

The October vacation is the perfect time for many Shanghai and Chinese women to get that new face they've always wanted: Shanghai plastic surgery clinics reported a 25% increase during the last week.Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji is the most popular politician in Hong Kong -- beating out Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabo, despite having left politics several years ago.Chinese hackers are suspected of being behind an attack on a bureau of the US Department......

Or, maybe not. At the risk of pissing off a commenter, we are posting about Mike Tyson yet again. (This is probably the last time, so it should be safe to check back tomorrow.) We didn't realize that Tyson made a side trip to Beijing during his recent stay in Shanghai. Danwei did, however. On April Fool's Day (fittingly?), Tyson, two days after celebrating the opening of a Shanghai night club called Snatch, made a......

Shanghaiist is happy to live and work in a four-story building: "Nearly all of China's fast-rising number of skyscrapers are filled with excessive air pollutants that could cause serious harm to office workers, state press said."Looking for a reason to go to Shantou? Try China's Cultural Revolution museum.Shanghai is cracking down on misleading commercials: "Advertisers whose fraudulent ads cause 'serious consequences' will be taken to court, while carriers of the ads will also be investigated,......

... And you should be, too. In fact, Shanghaiist has so much time on our hands that, despite cognizance of our own mortality, we surf places like Youtube for cheap laughs. And we're happy to report that we've found some things that might be of interest to you. First there's this video about a Shenzhen Disney factory and how they the workers there are paid miserably (33 RMB a day), are in constant danger of......

Or maybe it won't. Either way, it will likely make its owner even richer. In 2001 at a Shanghai store, Liu Gang, founding partner of one of Beijing's largest commercial law firms, bought an ink map on bamboo paper that could be from the 18th century and could be a copy of a world map from 1418 that could offer proof that Chinese admiral Zheng He did in fact beat Christopher Columbus to the "New......

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......