On the surface, today was not a great day for China. Besides being stripped of a bronze medal won at the Sydney Olympics due to an underage gymnast, the Vancouver 2010 Games are over... and we're in eight place, trailing the United States, Germany and, of course, Canada. Yet, this was one of the best Winter Olympics ever for this country. more ›

Are you guys ready to live through all that Olympic hoopla again? Well start bracing yourselves because China *wants* the Winter Olympics and they're working hard to make that a reality. For now, it remains unclear which city is going to bid for the Olympics but we're pretty sure it won't be Shanghai or anywhere around us. more ›

Meet Zhou Yang, a teenager from Jilin Province who won the women's speed skating competition on Saturday, grabbing another gold for team China. Breezing to victory in the 1,500-metre short-track final, Zhou also broke the world record with a blazing time of 2 minutes and 16.9993 seconds. In an unexpected turn of events, the 18-year-old easily coasted by South Korea's powerhouse skaters, Eun-Byul Lee and Seung-Hi Park, who have been dominating the sport and were predicted to bring home the gold. more ›

While Wang Beixing might have only gotten a copper for her effort at the 500M speed skating event, team member Wang Meng managed to win gold for the women's 500M short track. The 2006 Turin Games champion defended her title, crossing with a time of 43.048 seconds. Canada's Marianne St-Gelais managed to get second place and Italy's Arianna Fontana took the bronze. more ›

While couples figure skating might have been a Hollywood-style success story for China, its showing in speed skating (the other gold hopeful) was a little less dramatic. Wang Beixing slid into bronze place for the women's 500M speed skating competition, finishing the track at 76.63 seconds. Silver went to Jenny Wolf of Germany at just 500ths of a second faster, and the gold was handed to South Korea's Lee Sang-hwa, who claimed it with a time of 76.09 seconds. Good try, Wang! more ›

In yet another sign that China is well on its way to conquering sport on the face of this planet, a husband-and-wife team of figure skaters, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, has claimed China's first ever Olympic gold in the sport at the ongoing Vancouver Winter Olympics. Their compatriots Pang Qing and Tong Jian grabbed silver, edging out Germany's two-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy into third place. Together they smashed Russia's 50 year domination of the sport. more ›

• Shanghai's old people know how to live (and not just longer!) To make sure their mahjong runs go late into the night and into the early mornings, they are binging on ketamine, cocaine and meth! [Guardian]
• A Shanghai court has convicted six people Thursday in connection with the Minhang building collapse, sentencing them to terms ranging from three to five years for causing a "criminal major accident." [WSJ]
• Well this sounds delicious-ish? McDonalds has said they're going to launch a new hamburger university in Shanghai to train 5,000 employees. [China Retail News]

Although China—like the rest of the world—care a lot less about the Winter Olympics than they do about the summer games, there is indeed an Olympics coming up. Olympic gold medals are a huge source of national pride in China, so the Vancouver 2010 Olympics will be watched more closely here than in most countries. more ›