The latest:
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New sex change rules for China
Here's some good news for people like Princess Phoenix and all the others in China who've ever felt like they were born the wrong gender, the Ministry of Health has released new guidelines for sex change operations. As Chen Huanran, a renowned plastic surgeon and gender-realignment specialist, told the Global Times, the regulations are desperately needed: "China finally has its regulations on sex-change operations. It's very significant since the legislation for transsexuals represents somewhat...
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Midweek Music Preview: November 25 - November 29
Shanghaiist lists all the live music performances you might want to check out from now until Sunday this week. For fun things that aren't live music, take a peek at our Pencil This In that's out every Monday! WEDNESDAY The Theo Crocker Sextet (headed by Theo Crocker, grandson of Jazz trumpet legend Doc Cheatham) will be playing New Orleans Jazz tonight. Formed in 2006, the group has released three albums to international acclaim since,...
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Shanghai Disneyland to be more "Minnie" than expected
Those grand plans we've heard for Shanghai Disneyland to be a whopping four times bigger than Hong Kong's seem to have gone the way of Bambi's mother. According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the park will initially take up 287 acres of land, which would make it the smallest Disneyland in the world, measuring up to just over half of the size of the flagship park in LA. We're a tad disappointed at...
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Shanghaiist Scrabble: We have a winner!
Last night's Shanghaiist Scrabble was full of warmhearted, frenetic spelling: players scrambled to push their way to the board to capture coveted double letter and triple word scores as others sat with old friends and new Scrabblemates, drinking and trying to think of words that could possibly combine two F's and a Q. In the end, Liz managed to blow away the competition with "PSEUDONYM," catching the elusive and coveted Quadruple Word Score, a...
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How AIDS in China is spreading
The World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations HIV/AIDS campaign, or UNAIDS for short (good acronym, right?), was formally released yesterday for the first time in China. Though the report only shows cases reported by medical facilities and could thus be far higher, the dissemination is a major step in understanding and fighting AIDS in the country. First, the facts from Shanghai Daily: By October 31, China had reported 319,877 cases of HIV/AIDS,...
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Around Shanghai: Asia Uncut, pricey road signs, woks, and Chanel
Asia Uncut is coming to Shanghai to film its second season. The English-language talk show has featured A-list talent from Asia and abroad. To promote its new season the show is offering free drinks, tickets, and transportation. Free stuff and a chance to see celebrities? Sounds good to us! [Urbanatomy]
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Beijing denies US spying allegations
The findings from last week's annual security report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission to congress has gotten China pretty angsty: the report states that China has been increasing cyber espionage attacks on the US in order to gain military information, and cites an increase in government involvement in these attacks. The foreign ministry department strongly denied spying, but as concerns over China's secretive military buildup grow we wonder if Beijing is sweating...
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Photo of the Day: Let it grow
Photo by Sean Hanratty More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here)....
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Extra! Extra! Yang Xianyi, Howard French and Dong Jinyi
Photo from Showchina Renowned Chinese translator Yang Xianyi has died at the age of 94. Yang, with his wife Gladys Taylor, translated such classics as the 18th century "A Dream of Red Mansions." [Associated Press] According to a poll on the Economist, 88% of people believe that China is showing more leadership than America in fighting climate change. [Economist] While David Brooks may have been impressed by China's strides into modernity, several New York...
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Two now executed over melamine milk scandal
Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinpin, who were both sentenced to death in January for their roles in the melamine milk scandal, are now executed. Both had tried to appeal their sentences, but had their appeals turned down in March. While the government has been gung-ho about throwing out harsh sentences against various players in the scandal - which sickened scores of infants across the nation and killed at least six - it's been less interested...
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Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Daniel Gross of Slate has been over here reporting on the controversial Three Gorges Dam project. And while we can't say anything too bad about his coverage of that - which, while it reads more like a disgruntled travel piece than actual hardhitting journalism, is generally close enough to what little facts we know about the dam that it makes it impossible for us to nitpick - we were surprised by one of his...
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China's High School Musical actually College Freshman Musical
Thanks in part to the immense popularity High School Musical enjoyed whilst it was on the stage in Shanghai, Disney is now working with Shanghai Media Group and Huayi Bro.s on a Chinese-version of the made-for-TV movie - and it's based in our city! But those looking for a direct translation of the show will be pretty disappointed - it's being vastly adjusted to fit Chinese culture and sensibilities: First of all, the Shanghai...
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China's auto industry booms as fuel demand drops
In some of the more baffling news we've heard in a while, it seems that China has enjoyed a large increase in car sales this year while the demand for gas has fallen. How does that work, exactly? Some experts imagine newer, more gas efficient cars are replacing older, less efficient ones, while other question whether the government is buying cars up to pump up the industry. Then again, it seems that national gas consumption...
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Coming soon to a police checkpoint near you
Driving home late at night can be a scary experience: as drunk driving is on the rise, we find ourselves wondering: are those erratic cars weaving through traffic all drunk, or just reckless drivers? But fear not: Shanghai Daily informs us of a new invention in the works at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University that will help Shanghai's crackdown on drunk driving. The invention is a little cap that can read a driver's brain waves,...
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Shanghaiist Scrabble: Tonight!
Okay, let's get a few things straight. We love happy hours: you love happy hours. We love Cotton's: you love Cotton's. We love Scrabble: you love Scrabble, but probably not as much as we do. If we're off on any of that, you can take it up with us tonight as we spend the evening combining all three at our very own Shanghaiist Scrabble @ Cotton's! As we've been graced with beautiful weather today,...
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Garbage burning protests: The online life of dissent
Yesterday's protest against a plan to build a garbage burning plant in the city of Panyu has sparked a lot of interest all over the internet. A fair amount of people showed up, and it seems like Sina has given a pretty optimistic writeup of the town hall event that sparked the protest. Mostly, though, this whole affair has piqued our interest in how the internet has integrated itself into the protests. First and...
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Interview: Kerry Ann Lee, culture shock = inspiration
Meet Kerry Ann Lee, Kiwi cultural philosopher and rising artist, who confuses her neighbors with her I-like-Rockabilly style and inability to speak Mandarin Chinese (despite a Chinese ethnic heritage). She's here in Shanghai for three months as part of the Wellington Asia Residency Exchange (WARE), an initiative developed by Asia New Zealand Foundation and Wellington City Council New Zealand, after solo shows in Dunedin and New York. She just unveiled two new pieces at...
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Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
Hotpot season is upon us, and the first in our series of hotpot reviews this upcoming winter is Three Travellers [sic] (三人行骨头王火锅), a chain that recently opened its newest baby smack dab in the middle of the fantastic restaurant corner that is Fumin/Julu Lu. Unlike other Sichuan style hotpots, the specialty here isn’t of the numbing ma la variety. People flock here for the rich pork bone stock, a thick and fragrant broth that...
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Big banquets should be against the law
China spends up to 200 billion yuan a year on public wining and dining, a fat cat feast that may soon see its end if one Chinese legislator gets his way. National People's Congress delegate Zhao Linzhong wants to make lavish banquets a crime, calling them a "squandering of public funds" and "a waste of social assets." Not only that, it's incredibly unhealthy for the poor officials who have to drink and eat themselves to...
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Photo of the Day: Amongst the rubble
Photo by hannah power More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here)....
