For tonight's viewing pleasure, here's a video filmed by one of our favorites from the Shanghaiist Flickr pool, dbmboise. From his own description, he's using his Nikon's intervalometer, jpg's and Windows Live Movie Maker to create this hypnotic vid of night traffic on a Shanghai street. Beautiful! more ›

After seeing this video and reading the story behind it on ChinaHush, we have to admit we don't understand China's censorship methods at all. This video was originally a music video from popular Taiwanese pop stars S.H.E. called "Zhong Guo Hua," or Chinese Language: instead of praising the merits of China's history and rise like the original, this version lays waste to all of the advances of modernity in very direct and scathing fashion. The mind blowing part is that the government not only sanctioned the song with the new lyrics, it used the song for questions on the gaokao earlier this month, prompting confusion and anger from students as well as netizens. In any case, the video has since been taken off the major internet portals, so this one requires a VPN to watch. more ›

It seems that the severely inflated housing market has spawned a lot of recent creativity. From the popular soap opera about the scandalous things people to for real estate to the lonely bachelor who pitched a tent on the subway to protest high prices (and the effect it has on his love life), people have been finding artistic expressions for the toll exacted on society by high property values and crippling mortgages. The latest expression is the craftily catchy "Happy Lane" by Beijing folk singer Chuan Zi. While he might be a little wanting in his singing capacity, the intensity he brings makes up for it in spades. more ›

So Haibao's been taking some dance lessons, and it looks like he's learned a lot. I mean, look at him: the precocious little guy's even figured out how to breakdance. The video above is originally from the Expo's website, and bears the awkward name of "Haibao Hip Hop 1." But the two step isn't all he's learned: he's added flying handspins and disco-esque splits to his repertoire, not to mention flying! more ›

Wow, talk about a harrowing story: a small boy outside of Beijing punctured his brain by getting a chopstick stuck four inches up his nose. Apparently the tot's mother let him play with chopsticks while she did the dishes (we hope it was a clean one that got lodged up there). The family drove for ten hours to get treatment at a Beijing hospital: luckily for the tyke, the chopstick was easily removed without massive hemorrhaging. more ›

We love documentaries about China, especially old ones. Though this one is a bit academic, it's got beautiful footage of the Chinese countryside from 1975, and contains a ton of really interesting information about the history of the medical industry in China. The barefoot doctors, who we're sure still exist around the country, are a fascinating subject: we're shocked at how vastly different society was during the Cultural Revolution, but after watching this, we have a feeling that their trade hasn't changed much since the fall of Mao. more ›

Ah, video mash-ups, how we love you. Today's video of the day is a fabricated conversation between President Obama (taken from his town hall in Shanghai) and Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (from a press conference) where Qin demands Obama answer the question "do you have children?" Of course, we all know about Sasha and Malia, but that's not the point: what follows is a brief conversation about censorship between two ideological ships passing in the night. Obama talks about the worlds opened to his daughters by the internet while Qin waxes on how censoring the internet is one of the most important things we can do to protect our kids (or the ones we'll have someday). Will "do you have children?" become the new Chinese internet meme? more ›

Thank you, 1-Apple News of Taiwan, you've just made our day a little more animated. (PS if you can't see the Youtube video, you can watch it on 1-Apple News' website) more ›

Today's video of the day is about pyramid schemes: of course, pyramid schemes are creepy all around the world, but in China they've got a je ne sais quoi that makes them creepy in a Waco sort of way. Scarier is the fact that an estimated ten million people are involved in get-rich-quick schemes around the country: judging from the poor conditions and confinement of the "members", we think it would be more advantageous if the pyramid scheme just switched to treating internet addiction. Or better yet, a pyramid scheme treatment camp that was itself a pyramid scheme. more ›

Sad: a Bryde's (pronounced Brooda) whale was found beached this week on Hengsha island. Rescue workers tried for a good two days to rescue the poor thing and return it to the sea, but bad weather conditions made saving the whale impossible. All things considered, the whale was in pretty good health, leading experts to think that it got sick and lost its sense of direction, wandering into the Yangtze delta. Which makes sense: what would a whale want to do in shanghai, anyway? Visit the aquarium? That was an overwhalemingly bad joke. more ›