In their 2011 retrospective, NetEase takes a look at the lives and dreams of six Chinese people: a factory worker, taxi driver, village official, doctor, office worker, and father. They all seem to zone in on one overarching emotion: frustration. more ›

We're not huge fans of dubstep, but we have to admit this guy's a great dancer. Furthermore, he was in China promoting a good cause (raising money for students who want to study abroad) so perhaps dubstep is in some ways good aftera-WUBWUBWUB WUUUB WUBWUBWUB. more ›

Two five-year-old Taekwondo "masters" face-off in this epic fight/dance battle. The cutest thing we've seen in a while, just try not to smile. more ›

While in Beijing promoting his newest film, Batman star Christian Bale drove eight hours from Beijing to Shandong to attempt to visit and lend support to blind activist Chen Guangcheng - currently under house-arrest. Upon arriving, Bale and his entourage of CNN cameramen and reporters were pushed around and chased away by the team of undercover policemen guarding Chen's house. more ›

Just in case you were planning on sleeping tonight, reports have surfaced of a 16-year-old teen from Sichuan who, after troubles breathing, found out he had a 4 inch leech living inside of his throat. more ›

Former Google China exec and tech giant Kai-Fu Lee sat down recently with Techonomy founder and Forbes contributor David Kirkpatrick to answer questions about everyone's favorite heavily monitored micro-blogging platform -- Weibo. more ›

Saturday evening in Taiwan's Taoyuan County (桃園縣), a dad dropped his daughter headfirst onto the seats below while unsuccessfully attempting to catch a foul ball at a baseball game between Taipei's Brother Elephants and Taoyuan's Lamigo Monkeys. more ›

It was only a matter of time before someone took the Rebecca Black "Friday" debacle and did a Chinese version. Well, here ya go--featuring the gentle stylings of Taiwanese American Youtube singer Dawen. more ›

Today in adorable animal videos: Another pair of bear cubs were rejected by their mother just hours after they were born. That's not the adorable part...seeing them hand fed and reared by breeders at Dalian's Laohutan Ocean Park is. The parents of these cubs were gifts from Finland to China in 2001. more ›

Ctrip's Sascha Matuszak gives a whirlwind tour of Shanghai, hitting up the bingo spots we all know (Oriental Pearl Tower, Bar Rouge) and some more out of the way areas (Qipu Lu, various food streets). For those of you who don't have a vpn yet, Youku videos are located after the jump: more ›

Touching scenes you won't find anywhere on Chinese television or even on the internet. Videos like this one and many more of the city's outpouring of grief have been deleted on Tudou, Youku and other video-sharing sites. more ›

Youku has created a site covering Monday's fire and the aftermath. Unfortunately, the site appears to have become more like an official media mouthpiece: the only videos being uploaded to the page are either news broadcasts or home videos from a distance, most of them simply reshuffling the same footage. We found that almost any Youku video uploaded by eye witnesses has been removed (when searching for 'Shanghai Fire' - 上海大火 - all top results failed to load properly.) Anyway, here are a few clips covering different angles of the day:
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With leaks like this, the Diaoyu Senkaku spat between Japan and China will never be over! According to the Associated Press, the video appeared on YouTube on Friday, and was widely picked up by Japanese television networks. In the video, sirens wail and Japanese coast guard repeatedly use Chinese to tell a ship to stop. At one point, a voice on the video says in Japanese "The ship is taking aggressive action," and then the Japanese vessel is rammed. more ›

We here at Shanghaiist have been fans of Caribou (official site) since our very first year of existence (and even before Shanghaiist existed and Caribou was known as Manitoba). So we hope to see a bunch of you tonight at the Dream Factory for what should be a great show. more ›

Didn't make it to Obama Club's soft launch on Monday? Worry not! Their "hard launch" is coming up real soon, we hear! But in the meanwhile, we've got videos from Monday night for you! Be sure to watch all three... it just gets better and better!
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Whoa: in an unprecedented move for a Chinese company, Youku announced their new copyright identification management platform on their blog today. Needless to say, Youku is the first Chinese company to attempt regulation of intellectual property rights on the internet. We know China's always "cracking down" on copyright infringement, or at least talking about it (remember the Expo IPR expo?), but this looks like the most legitimate attempt to enforce intellectual property rights we've seen yet. more ›

As someone once said, “Sex is like snow, you never know how many inches you're going to get or how long it will last”. So while our snow ended kinda prematurely yesterday, we can only look on with envy at the many many inches everyone else is getting (we're looking at you, Harbin!). For a start, check out this mass wedding in Harbin that will totally give the Moonies a run for their money! Catch the lone (relatively underdressed) midget without a bride at 0:24 (everybody say awwwwww!) more ›

On Wednesday we told you about how the recent comments of Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew made during his latest trip to the US have caused an uproar among Chinese netizens. Aside from his more controversial statements that Asia needs the United States to counterbalance a rising China and that the US needs to be "an important part" of any new East Asian architecture, Lee also gave a wide-ranging interview to the Charlie Rose Show of the PBS network. China featured heavily in the 60 minute interview which kicked off with Lee's proclamation that the United States may have half a century left as the world's dominant power. In the new world order, said Lee, the US would have to make space for China and India at the top table of the world. For the next hour or so, sit back with us and gaze into Lee Kuan Yew's crystal ball as he looks back into the past and divines the future. As always, if you're in China and still not able to watch Youtube videos, now is the time to get your VPN. Meanwhile, a full transcript of this interview is available here. more ›

Because we know you can't get enough of timelapse videos, here's another one by Shanghai newbie, Joe Nafis, who tells us that he's been in town for just a month and jobless. We're totally amazed that all this was possible with the humble Canon A540. Anyone out there wanna give this guy a job? more ›

For those of you that missed yesterday's big party, here's an awesome 3.5 minute timelapse version by Dan Chung of The Guardian which is just absolutely sublime and splendiferous. Some have said this is the "only version of China's National Day Parade you need to watch". We agree (and take that, CCTV!). more ›

The title says it all: some guy is riding a scooter with a watermelon balanced on his head. Chinasmack has translated some of the Youku comments for us, but most of them are just people amazed that a guy is riding a scooter with a watermelon balanced on his head. Did you hear that? A GUY IS RIDING A SCOOTER WITH A WATERMELON BALANCED ON HIS HEAD. more ›

Did you know China had a burgeoning parkour scene? We didn't either until 56minus1 discovered a bunch of online Chinese parkour groups, communities and forums. more ›

Fast and the Furious: Shanghai Shift? more ›

Popular bar matron Cotton Ding, owner of Shanghaiist favorite Cotton's, sits down with Daedalum Films to talk about her story - how she left her home in rural Hunan for the big city, the lessons she learned along the way to becoming a successful bar owner, and what challenges she sees on the horizon. more ›

Funny. more ›

While some of us spent Chinese New Year's Eve enjoying grilled seafood on a beach in the Philippines, Luis Tapia of Shanghai-based Daedalum Films was lugging his camera to a Shanghai rooftop to record the fireworks. The results, as you can see above, are beautiful (be sure to watch in HD). Thankfully, the video does not include actual sound (you probably got enough of that last night). Instead, the soundtrack is "El Pico" by Ratatat. You can buy that song on iTunes. Enjoy. more ›

"In 10 years its population doubles to a seething 7 million people!" more ›

Via City Weekend we learn that the documentary film about last year's Converse-sponsored (and Split Works organized) Love Noise rock music tour of China is now viewable at a DVD player near you. Love Noise put Beijing bands PK14 and Queen Sea Big Shark on a converted bus and sent them on a two-week, six-city tour during the height of Olympics craziness last August. The trailer to the Love Noise film is embedded in this post, and after the jump you'll find a slew of related clips, uploaded to YouTube six days ago. The director's first name is Hammer, so it's got to be good. more ›