In a perfect real-life example of geili, passersby on Hangbiao Road (航标路) in the Zhejiang city of Wenzhou helped to rescue a child caught underneath a black Honda CR-V. The incident occurred at 7:25am on Friday, when a child accompanied by their mother and sister was throwing a sit-down-and-pout tantrum in the middle of the street. more ›

42-year-old Hubei native Zeng Yueying arrived in Wenzhou with her husband in 2006 to look for work. Three years ago, they began working as road sweepers. One day last year, a friend from their hometown hid their son as a joke, sending them into a panic attack when they thought that someone had abducted their son. Since then, Zeng has kept her 3-year-old son, Liu Shuai, by her side wherever she goes, even when she's at work sweeping the city streets. more ›

The State Administration of Work Safety has informed the press that the probe report will be released soon on the website of the official Xinhua News Agency. However, the safety watchdog did not tell the exact date of the report's release, only saying that it won't be "long". more ›

Pedestrians of Oubei Town (瓯北镇) in the city of Wenzhou got an eyeful on Wednesday, when a large LED billboard located at the busiest intersection in town played a pornographic video for a full ten minutes. more ›

Good news: Xiang Weiyi (项炜伊), the little girl who was saved in July's horrific Wenzhou high-speed train collision 26 hours after railway ministry officials said there were no signs of life left, is now learning to walk again. more ›

This video has gotten almost one million views since it was uploaded yesterday. In Wenzhou recently, a girl's iPhone was stolen by two thieves on a motor-scooter who then attempted to quickly speed off. One young man waiting on the corner witnessed the event and got a chance to relive history by ramming his bicycle into the passing motor-scooter, causing the two criminals to lose control and fall to the ground. more ›

Near Wenzhou's No.14 Middle School on West Jiangbin Road (江滨西路) two nights ago at around 10pm, 19-year-old Ma Wenzong (马文总) assaulted the 18-month-old daughter of a shopkeeper during an altercation involving his Mercedes Benz GL450 SUV. While a bystander tried to block the path of the vehicle, Ma shouted out "My dad is the mayor!" (我爸是市长!), enraging the assembled onlookers in what looks to be the second Rich Brat Who Can't Drive Incident in one week. more ›

Around 11pm on Wednesday, a local doctor in a Wenzhou, Zhejiang hospital was attacked by two men, one Italian and one Chinese, after the men became irate that no preferential treatment was offered to the injured father of the Italian expat. Objects were hurled at the doctor, who was reportedly rendered deaf in one ear after an eardrum was perforated from being slapped in the face. more ›

Via Shanghai Daily: "The China Railway Ministry's chief spokesman has been fired, the ministry announced yesterday. Wang Yongping, the spokesman for the ministry since 2003, gained wide media exposure after the recent bullet-train crash that killed 40 people and injured hundreds late in July in Wenzhou, one of the deadliest rail accidents in Chinese history. Wang will be transferred to a Warsaw-based international railway cooperative, the Xinhua news agency reported. The ministry did not disclose the reason for Wang's dismissal, so it remains unclear whether it was related to his comments at a press conference after the Wenzhou accident." Well, we'd be surprised if it really had nothing to do with the train crash. But then again, sacked officials are sometimes rotated to other similar positions of equal or higher stature when they think no one's watching, so this may be little more than a cosmetic move designed to appease the people for now. more ›

Passengers travelling on Line 10 of the Shanghai Metro were spared a heart attack on Thursday evening when they got off the train in one piece after it went on the wrong track at the Longxi Road station line split. more ›

Audio Transcript: more ›

As the grand game of push-the-blame taichi continues, the ball has now fallen in the court of the Beijing National Railway Research & Design Institute of Signal & Communication Co Ltd, whose railway signals equipment is now being blamed for the Wenzhou train collision. more ›

There's been some confusion among several foreign correspondents about Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's comments in Wenzhou arising from a slightly faulty translation in Xinhua's English-language newswire, so we thought we'd jump into the discussion. more ›

Shaoxing native Yang Feng (杨峰), who lost five members of his family in the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash, has won much sympathy and support for boldly railing against the Ministry of Railways in front of television cameras. more ›

By now, as you may imagine, the Ministry of Truth, aka Propaganda Bureau, has lost a pretty significant part of its ability to control media coverage of the Wenzhou train crash. Journalists are defying earlier orders by the bureau to not "investigate the causes of the accident" and to “use information released from authorities as standard”. They have also taken to Sina Weibo to release tidbits of information they have discovered in the course of their investigation that they may or may not succeed in getting to print. more ›

A rare and titillating show of confrontation between a local government and central government forces played out soon after the high-profile Wenzhou train collision. And if sentiment on Sina Weibo is anything to go by, it's Wenzhou Government 1: Ministry of Railways 0. more ›

In a move approved by a committee set up by the State Council to investigate the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash, train compartments have been hastily transported away from the crash site to the Wenzhou West train station "for further research". more ›

Several thousand Wenzhou locals and Zhejiang residents from the surrounding environs gathered in Wenzhou's Century Square at 8pm last night, singing songs, engaging in mass poetry readings, and generally wishing encouragement to assorted strangers. Several kids formed a heart made of glowsticks on the pavement. And admonishments for Wenzhou to GAS UP (温州, 加油!) were shouted all throughout the evening. more ›

Two trains were involved in Saturday's high-speed train crash in Wenzhou. We all now know what happened to Pan Yiheng (潘一恒), the driver of the D301 train which rear-ended the D3115 in front. He was stabbed to death in his chest by a brake handle as he activated the emergency brakes in the final moments of his life. more ›

This purported video of the Wenzhou train collision has been burning up the internets since it was first uploaded onto the video-sharing site, Youku. A large part of the video shows us what weather conditions were like that day -- it was raining heavily and cars were travelling slowly on the flooded streets. In the last few seconds, we see a train moving (presumably the D301 that rear-ended the D3115), a few bright sparks, and then shouts of disbelief. No lightning was visible in the video, so If this video is indeed what it claims to be, then it is clear proof that the Ministry of Railways was lying about the collision having been caused by a lightning. We'll be waiting to hear from the video forensic experts on this one. more ›

Not unexpected: "China Eastern Airlines led share rallies of China's three air giants in the Hong Kong market by gaining 4.76 percent to close at HK$3.96 (51 US cents) yesterday. Air China rose 3.59 percent to HK$8.08 and China Southern Airlines rose 3.4 percent to HK$5.17. The increase bucked the downward trend of the Hang Seng Index, which closed down 0.7 percent at 22,293.3 points." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

One day after the catastrophic high-speed railway collision, party propaganda papers like the Renmin Daily, Economic Daily and Guangming Daily appeared almost oblivious to the incident, as evident by their almost identical front page covers trumpeting the recent promotion ceremony conducted by the Central Military Commission and other exploits of the CCP. Most other city dailies, however, featured the incident as their front page cover story. See image after jump... more ›

"The lights suddenly went off. The carriage first shook from left to right, then started turning up and down. People were constantly flipping over, my husband was yelling loudly for me to grab our things, but I didn't grab anything. When everything stopped, my husband was laying on the bottom, I was in the middle, and our grandson was at the top. We didn't know what was going on then, but in my heart there was an idea to quickly jump out. I told my grandson, 'You run! It's fine if grandma dies.'" more ›

The Ministry of Railways has finally apologised for the catastrophic high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou. more ›

WARNING: The following video contains images that you may find disturbing. Proceed at your own risk. more ›

At least 35 43 people were killed and over 210 injured in a horrific high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou, Zhejiang at about 8:30pm last night. The accident happened when one train, D3115, lost power after being struck by lightening, and then was rear-ended by another train, D301. A total of six carriages were derailed, two falling from the viaduct. more ›

The first Chinese fatality of the great earthquake in Japan has been confirmed by the Chinese embassy in Tokyo. No information on the victim was released at the request of the bereaved family. All we know is that he/she was killed in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, when the quake-triggered tsunami hit the area. more ›

It looks like the Foreign Ministry might have made its claim that there were no Chinese casualties in the Japanese earthquake a little too soon. more ›

Chinese netizens have been outraged lately by the murder of Qian Yunhui, former village leader of Zhaiqiao village, near Yueqing, Wenzhou who has served over five years in prison for protesting over the illegal landgrab in the village. Gruesome images of the bloody remains of Qian under a truck have been floating around on Tianya and Sina Weibo, and some purporting to be eyewitnesses have claimed that Qian was held down by policemen while the truck rolled over him. John Kennedy of Global Voices has done an excellent job translating tweets from a journalist who was present at the press conference held by the local PSB. Police claims that Qian's death was the result of a "typical traffic accident" have left journalists incredulous, opening up more questions than answering them. Read some of the eye-opening statements made by police here. more ›

If you've ever wondered why Zhejiang has a penchant for drawing successful businessmen from its ranks, then you probably won't be surprised to know of the "22 Rules for Zhejiang Businessmen." Of course, it's a little seedier than what you'd find in business ethics books, but it seems to be pretty spot on from what we know of Zhejiang businessmen and their practices: Jiaren.com lovingly calls them the "Jews of the Orient," which we guess is a compliment? more ›