Summed up in 3 minutes and 37 seconds.......

With 2008 marking fifty years of television drama on CCTV, Danwei shares with us an article from Oriental Outlook on the censoring process that determines just which dramas will be allowed to air on the television network. Danwei points out that "it seems like SARFT is to blame whenever people are upset with film and TV censorship... [but] television stations are ultimately responsible for what they broadcast, so they too employ censors to eliminate objectionable......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/olympics/Video_Sneak_preview_of_Beijing_Olympics_opening_ceremony'; Much to the dismay of some Chinese YouTube commenters, a Korean news team sneaked into Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and videotaped rehearsals of the much-hyped Zhang Yimou-orchestrated opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. One Twitter user commented that the whole thing "looks somewhat fascist. Confascisism?" What do you think? UPDATE: The original two videos we embedded were removed by YouTube. We have replaced them with three more. Via Danwei......

So that live fish key chain souvenir didn't turn out to be very official, but this latest Olympic cheer, "Go Olympics! Go China!" (奥运加油！中国加油！) definitely is, as it comes with the stamp of approval of the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP), the Ministry of Education, BOCOG, and CCTV. There are four highly complex moves to the cheer, but don't worry because Danwei has this step-by-step pictorial guide to help you along.......

By Thalia Kwok CCTV suddenly discontinued broadcasting NBA games in the midst of semi-finals on May 24th and has yet to provide an explanation. Chinese NBA fans are in an uproar over missing the Western Finals. Speculation is starting to circulate through the local BBS that the ban may be political. Last May*, Ira Newble of the Cleveland Cavaliers (now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers) released a letter signed by most of his teammates......

Photo taken from one of many now-endangered Filipino satellite dishes. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

Kristen Schaal unveils the new Chinese Olympic mascots on The Daily Show. We thought some bits of the clip were kinda lame, but it still made us laugh, and it's a great time-waster for those of you bored in the office right now. Note to the rabid nationalists reading this blog: This is a Comedy Central programme, ie., you shouldn't be taking this too seriously.......

We found on the Foreign Ministry website a question that was posed to Jiang Yu regarding Jack Cafferty's China remarks at a Tuesday press briefing and her response:Q: In covering the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay in San Francisco recently, CNN's commentator Jack Cafferty attacked China, saying that Imported Chinese products are "junk", Chinese people are "basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." How do you comment on......

Looks like the life of that satellite dish you have covertly installed on your patio may be coming to a premature end if the Shanghai government has its way. From Shanghai Daily:Seventeen government departments will launch a joint city-wide campaign to wipe out illegal television satellites that can receive foreign TV programs across Shanghai. There are a few places where satellite dishes are allowed, essentially military/government compounds and expat havens. If you aren't in one......

More photos on 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 (and here).......

宋祖英等联名提议:小学应增加繁体字教育_时政新闻_新闻_腾讯网 via kwoutNope, it's just a proposal so far. According to the article, some folks on the arts side of the Political Consultation Congress have written a letter calling for some level of traditional character (繁體字) education in elementary schools in China, arguing that some knowledge of traditional Chinese characters is necessary for people to fully understand the language, culture and history of China. Judging from our observations of our friends, we would say that......

Well, it's all over the news. Hunan TV is going to do a Chinese version of the hit US TV show Ugly Betty. According to a report from the BBC, the lead character—the Chinese Betty—has already been chosen. A Chinese article that we read, dated March 7, says that Hunan TV wants to hold nation-wide auditions to find the ugliest girl possible. So we're not sure what the case is, but in any case, whoever......

Shanghaiist wishes all female readers a happy International Women's Day (三八妇女节快乐)! Ladies, sit back, relax and watch this video specially made for you by the wonderful guys from SexyBeijing TV:International Women's Day is this Saturday, March 8 so we're posting this video to celebrate two of the badass women we admire in Beijing's rock scene. Atom is the drummer for Hedgehog and Li Qing is the drummer for Carsick Cars and guitarist for Snapline. This......

Chinese television actually isn't as bad as most of us are inclined to think, we've chanced upon informative talkshows and documentaries on interesting subjects sometimes. But the rest of the time, horrendous TV commercials are on hand to remind us why we're better off watching bootleg DVDs or Project Runway on Tudou.com. Should anyone think nothing can be more jarring than Mr Whipple, then they haven't seen the latest TVC by Shanghai-based wool clothing brand,......

GUINNESS PRICE GOUGING UPDATE: In our last post, we accused Big Bamboo (132 Nanyang Rd) of having the most expensive draft Guinness in town at RMB70 (their new price, as of a few weeks ago). Apparently that is incorrect. Since then, a Shamrock snout has reported to us that actually the priciest Guinness in Shanghai is somewhere in Xintiandi where they charged RMB88 a pint! Holy Hippopotami! We'd be interested to find out which establishment......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

We were hoping that they were going to do one of those double episode things and release episodes 11 and 12 of Prison Break at the same time. We had just finished watching episode 11 on a video site and were looking for episode 12, and found this site, which said it had it . But it was a hoax (it was a video from that Terminator TV series) and a lot of people were......

Winopete has 'read' the dregs in his wine glass and come up with the following predictions for the Year of the Rat:Another 3 or 4 night clubs will open, and another 3 or 4 will evapoRATe into Shanghai's failed business netherland, with at least 2 or 3 of them being reincarnated as something else. We're not naming names yet to avoid legal complications.Pudong will remain a wasteland for iRATe pub-goers, with salvation only delivered by......

We've all been hearing reports about the nightmare caused by the snow, or what Xinhua calls "China's war on snow havoc", which isn't quite as felicitous a phrase as the "US War on Terror", but hey, at least it's more real! The New York Times, among other media outlets, talks about the sense of anger and resentment that people are feeling about what some consider as a lack of preparation on the government's part. From......

What do you do when your well-inebriated friends ring at 1am asking you to join them for an impromptu snow fight? Life's decisions have never been tougher - toasty comfort of your living room sofa or sub-zero temperatures with the promise of snow angels thrown in for good measure? You hop into a cab, of course. [P.S.: Our camera's on the brink of gadgetdeath so that explains the "TV effect", but we liked the......

Meet Harbinite tattooist Zhuo Danting through Ukachi Arinzeh's amazing piece of work on Current TV. We've long known about Zhuo on her website, but this is the first time we get to see her in action. Definitely one of Shanghai's coolest tattoo artists!......

William Feng is the host of ICS Shanghai's travel show Getaway. New shows go out on Thursdays and are repeated across the week. Was the Getaway gig a random Shanghai opportunity or did you come here with a plan to break into this industry? I came to China originally as part of a three year plan to travel the world. The next stop was meant to be Brazil, and finally, Africa. When I first arrived,......

It’s cold, it’s wet. It’s the perfect time to catch up with the overseas movie scene. Coincidentally, it’s Oscar season and a whole slew of ‘good’ films are just appearing in the shops here. A widely heralded good year for quality films (2007) has come face to face with the WGA writer’s strike, now into its third month in Hollywood. The Golden Globes were reduced to an hour long press conference announcing the winners. If......

Master Kai Uwe Pel has been a fixture on the Shanghai Kung Fu scene for nearly six years, working at the Jing Wu school and the Long Wu International Kung Fu Centre before finally going it alone in 2006. He has spent more than 25 years in Chinese martial arts. He lived and worked in Hong Kong and then Singapore where he studied Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu. Pre-war Shanghai was the site of......

Steve Buscemi and Southern Barbarian owner Feng Jianwen (Credit: Southern Barbarian) Next time, Steve, stay for some Grandma's Mashed Potatoes. Trust us. It's not every day that a Golden Globe and Emmy award nominated actor shows up unexpectedly at the launch party for a small photo exhibit at a Yunnan restaurant in Shanghai, China, but that's what happened yesterday when Steve Buscemi stepped in from the rain to check out Ying Tang's "Balance" at......

Photos courtesy of Red Beat Bar We're in that terrible time of year when the weather is so bad that even this scribe opts for hibernating in his heated home, rather than exploring Shanghai's bars. There's also the annual hiatus between western New Year and Chinese New Year which puts many happenings on hold. Nevertheless, there are some interesting upcoming events that will draw us out from our cosy dwellings with much to lure......

... here's another video on Current TV by Kristy Wong who finds out that young people here will talk to her about anything and everything under the sun, except when it comes to anything remotely politically-related. To be fair though, what else was she expecting with the way she framed her questions? We wonder what her answers would be if she was being posed those same questions on CCTV.......

This is definitely one of the best pods we've seen on China's sex workers so far. Laura Ling of Current TV, goes around China and finds that the sex trade, while virtually non-existent 25 years ago, is now booming everywhere. She also almost got into trouble with some local mafia (which brought back some nasty flashbacks of our own encounters with them a few years ago), but fortunately she got away with it and her......

You must have heard it many times by now that China is currently witnessing the biggest mass migration the world has ever known. The government says there are about 120 million migrant workers on the move, while some experts contend that there are over 200 million. They are building the apartments that you live in, the offices that you work in, and the malls that you shop in. What is life like for them? Current......