This piece is republished with permission from the Anthill, a writers' colony for narrative writing about China
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The neighborhood meeting was scheduled for Saturday morning and promised to tackle the Five Great Problems plaguing our housing community, No. 19 Ju’er hutong, Beijing.
I first heard of “Dao Lang” from an economics professor on the way to a fancy dinner at a four-star hotel on the northwest corner of the People’s Square in downtown Urumqi. We had been discussing taste in cars as we slowly careened across three lanes of traffic and walkers. The professor said she found the American Hummer to be the best car, and then turning, as though catalyzed by the brawn and force of a combination of army machine and Michigan muscle, she asked if I had ever heard of Dao Lang. She said he was the best Xinjiang singer.
A young woman scaled a railing above the Sanlitun Hooters in Beijing yesterday at around 9:30 am and threatened to jump. Policemen were soon on the scene. After a bit of talk, one quick-thinking officer handcuffed his wrist to hers before pulling her to safety.
The dude who built this may be a charlatan and asshole who's ignored sensible maintenance requests for four years and is about to get chai'ed, but Zhang Biqin deserves at least a little credit: his "high-rise villa" in Beijing's Haidian district makes for some pretty stunning visuals.
A zoo in Henan recently put a Tibetan mastiff in its lion pen, which had no lion.
We have no doubt they did this as a joke, perhaps to see which zoo-goers, followed by news outlets, would take them seriously. But we wonder -- is this "trolling"? Is this "satire"? Is this actually a political statement about the Chinese zoo itself, forcing us -- by caging a household pet -- to see the metal bars which render animals as objects of amusement and belittlement?
Jiang Wu had quite the night of drinking in Qingdao, Shandong province. He doesn't remember much of it, but it was weird, see, because he woke up in a completely dark container, and couldn't get out.
A shipping container. Bound for Los Angeles.
