Despite earlier protests, there will be a new maglev line between Shanghai and Hangzhou. This week, the local government announced that the construction of this line will start in 2010, three years later than planned. It is supposed to be finished in 2015, when we will be able to go to Hangzhou in just 30 minutes.Things are looking dark on the Shanghai stock market: This Monday the Shanghai Composite Index ended down 5.34 percent, at......

Number 3 Baoqing Rd, at the corner of Huaihai Rd near the Changshu Rd metro station, is an old colonial-style house with almost 4000 square meters of attached private gardens. For 55 years, award-winning and state-honored Shanghai painter Xu Yuanzhang and his family have lived in this house, upkeeping the house and gardens that his grandfather Zhou Zongliang purchased from a German owner seven years after it was built in Shanghai's booming 1930's. But......

In a report just released an hour ago, Reuters tells us that Shanghai housing rights activist, Chen Xiaoming, who was one of seven Chinese activists awarded the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Award by the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions, "has died hours after he was released on medical parole". From the Reuters report: Shanghai authorities had repeatedly rejected applications by Chen Xiaoming's family to release him on parole for treatment for a chronic......

Fox: Read My Tattoos, No Prison Break In China "News Corporation's (NYSE: NWS.A) Fox Television denied that it has licensed Beijing based media company Zonbo Media to remake American TV series Prison Break or any related online activities in China, reports Beijing Youth Daily." Lawsuit says Ark. company selling counterfeit Budweiser in China "Anheuser-Busch Inc. sued USA Bai Wei Group Inc. in Arkansas' Pulaski County Circuit Court, seeking an injunction to revoke Bai Wei's......

Attendance falling at your local place of worship? Loyal herd looking elsewhere for spiritual direction? Have a carnival! That'll win 'em back. If only the Pope had thought of it ... like the Shanghai Xuhui District Tourist Bureau did. It's annual Longhua Temple Festival runs until May 7th, meaning you have one weekend left to catch all the fun. The press release promised a food street filled with snacks from around China (Taiwan, Dongbei,......

Editor's Note: Sorry, forgot to send these out last night in our rush to get to the Sonic Youth show. Leading Chinese Enviro Activist Detained "In the meantime,here, from today’s Wall Street Journal, is another thing all those green minded local officials are doing: locking up irksome environmental activists" China to keep 2008 Olympics 'dry' "Beijing will use aircraft, missiles and cannons in what could amount to a massive umbrella over the city to keep......

The Shanghai Daily reports that The Longhua Fashion and Gift Market is struggling to attract patrons. The Longhua market attracted the bulk of the vendors from the closure of Xiangyang market last June, however it appears that patrons have decided to give this location the big swerve. The main reasons that spring slowly to our mind include the distant location from downtown (yes, Xujiahui isn’t downtown people), and the relatively poor transportation options to get......

We never really noticed the villa at 39 Taojiang Lu, directly across from O'Malley's. Perhaps because it used to be home to the Xuhui District Taxation Bureau. But the place was hard to ignore on Sunday as we left O'Malley's (it was dog adoption day) — a fresh coat of paint, grand wooden gates, lots of lights and a big sign reading "Castle Oktober." Through the open gate we could see big copper beer kettles.......

Open a popular porn site in China, face life in prison.The Peace Hotel is an "ancient dwarf."What's wrong with Shanghai? Too much English!A new museum in Suzhou looks kind of cool. What will be in the museum? We're not sure.Martial arts actor Jet Li fell off a building while filming a fight sequence for his movie Fearless. Evidently the mishap occurred because the stunt man Li was fighting was "so scared of him." We didn't......