Phew! Today's traffic was busy and bustling thanks to the Qingming Festival - that yearly holiday that the Chinese use to pay respects to the dead by sweeping tombs and burning offerings (sometimes, annoyingly, in your stairwells). Shanghai Daily predicted that there would be traffic jams and overcrowded buses. After all, over 1.4 million people and 127,000 vehicles had already gone to and left cemetaries in the past 48 hours and this would have been the day for all the procrastinators and traditionalists to get their business done. Well, if our misguided attempts to traverse Shanghai's streets were any indication, they were right. But anyhow, hope everybody had a happy Tomb Sweep day! [Shanghai Daily] more ›

• There's a terrible drought happening in Yunnan right now, with agricultural losses reaching 700 million RMB in Kunming alone. As with every national crisis, this one prompted a visit from Premier Wen to one of the areas hardest hit. There, he delivered the message that no one would go without drinking water. By the way, did you know today was World Water Day? [Go Kunming]
• Chinese media's animosity to Google is rising quickly as the company is poised to pull out - one paper has accused it of working with U.S. intelligence agencies, another hissed at it to stop pushing a political agenda. So this one guy has quipped that maybe Google should have googled "opium wars." Um. I've heard comparisons to the wars from the Chinese, but... [Silicon Valley Watcher]
• Speaking of which, Chinese netizens who feel caught between Google and the government have written an open letter to both, asking them for more information so that everyone would know what's going on. [RConversation]

Photo taken at a temple site in the beautiful town of Dali, Yunnan Province, by staffh more ›

One of the great things about living in China is the relatively low cost of courier services which means you can get just about anything delivered at next to nothing at all. China Herald informs us that now, you can even get fresh Yunnan coffee delivered to your house, for FREE (if you live within the French Concession and the Jing'an area, that is, or if you order over 100RMB). Otherwise, you pay just RMB10 if you live in Puxi and RMB15 if you're in Pudong. Very reasonable! more ›

Normally the water itself here in China is enough to make your skin start to blister and peel and fall off, but in a shallow pool at Dianchi Chuntian, a wonderfully relaxing (and affordable) hot springs spa in Kunming, Yunnan Province, it's swarms of hungry fish that seek out your skin — the dead stuff, we were assured — and ingest it. It's meant to be healthy, for you and the fish. more ›

Big Bird! The Thanksgiving week has been, appropriately, quite busy in regards to China's ongoing bout against the deadly avian influenza virus. Even our precious hometown Shanghai is beginning to feel the pinch. more ›

Sanctus Tibetbar on Hengshan Lu more ›