Recent Entries in News
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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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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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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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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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Extra! Extra! Bongs, booze and financial bubbles
Photo by kindsir In one of the most hilarious pieces of news to hit the weekend, customs officials in Los Angeles stopped a shipment from China that was listed as Christmas ornaments but turned out to be... $2.6 million worth of bongs and pipes. Somebody hit that, man. [LA Times] Daniel Gross waxes on about how companies in China have decided to solve their lack of export demand problem by *gasp* selling to the...
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More tech companies supporting the GFW
Google and Yahoo have long been lambasted for the censorship policies they employ in China to appease the CCP, particularly when Yahoo handed over email information to party officials in order to convict a Chinese journalist. Now critics have shifted their attention to Microsoft's Bing search engine. The site has been accused of sanitizing results - any searches in simplified Chinese are censored, not only in China but in the rest of the world...
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Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
It's been a week since Obama first arrived in our great city, and we've done so much coverage on his short trip to the PRC that we're thinking we should start marking our time in relation to the president's visit: you know, Before Obama and After Obama. In week one A.O., we've watched the press capitulate and rage some more for and against the quickly formed recaps and opinion pieces of last week. It's...
