This is cool and all at first glance, but let's call a spade a spade: it's illegal, and not so cool if you're living underneath this rooftop villa, i.e. inside the 26-floor apartment building.
Somehow, the rich bastard who built this -- a medical practitioner (quack?) with a private business (definitely quack) known as "Professor Zhang" -- has accomplished the nearly impossible: made us root for chengguan.
Chinese Valentine's Day, i.e. the Magpie Festival and Double Seventh Festival, is today, and to celebrate, Google.com.hk has animated a doodle game featuring the cowherd and the weaver girl from the famous tale of love and loss, The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd.
The thunderstorm that swept through Beijing on Sunday filled us with a collective terror that ramified into the outer ring roads. Everything that follows is true.
Zhang Xiaoyu, who has been described as "China's first nude model" and is the self-proclaimed “China’s top nude model,” is apparently also a savvy businesswoman with a firm understanding of the importance of branding. We didn't know this until Danwei reported it just now, but apparently on May 15, she "announced to her 450,000 Weibo followers the launch of her branded simulation sex toy."
As a result of domestic strife, a 20-something woman in a residential compound in the Daoli district of Harbin, Heilongjiang province went to the balcony on the 5th story of a building and threatened to jump. She crawled out of the window and onto a wire clothesline, where she remained, distraught, according to a witness on the ground, as reported by Xinhua.
With each day that we still wait for the trial of Bo Xilai to begin, it becomes a little easier to forget what this is all about. Politics, economics, how it affects Xi Jinping's reforms, and shuanggui, yes, all very interesting, but at the heart of the matter is a murder -- the poisoning of British businessman Neil Heywood -- and a high-level cover-up that has already resulted in two people -- former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai consort Gu Kailai -- being given (essentially) 15-year sentences.
North Korea scholar Andray Abrahamian was rudely informed recently that his Barclays bank account, which he's held for 20 years, had been cancelled. And all because he works for a Singaporean non-profit that dares to engage North Korean citizens.
While the central government technically owns all land in China, it's standard practice to issue long-term leases of up to 70 years to would-be residential property owners. Certain restrictions apply, but land grant contracts are usually 70 years, and that's that.
One particular land and resources bureau, however, apparently missed that memo about "70 years." Either that or it felt properly high and mighty as to openly flaunt a purposefully wrong interpretation of Chinese property law.
This is quite the tragic story. On August 9 at about 4 pm, a young man, reportedly 26, went to Kudi Pet Park in Beijing's Chaoyang Park with his wife and two dogs. Only his wife would walk out alive.
"This used to be a dog amusement park, now it's a park of horrors," an eyewitness tells a Beijing TV reporter in the above video.
"The pet park is for dogs to go swimming," another eyewitness says. "We all raise our dogs like they're our children, and then this happens!"
![At Least 8 Dead As Egg-Sized Hail, Like “Stone Rain,” Pummels Southern China [UPDATE]](http://beijingcream.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dongguan-hail-damage-150x150.jpg "At Least 8 Dead As Egg-Sized Hail, Like “Stone Rain,” Pummels Southern China [UPDATE]"){kind=small}
