An expensive work of art was reportedly thrown out with the garbage at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong on Tuesday, and it wasn't made by Damien Hirst. As Coconuts Hong Kong, SCMP, WSJ, and basically everyone else is reporting, Cui Ruzhuo's "Snowy Mountain," pictured above, was sold at auction for HK$28.8 million (US$3.7 million) on Monday, and one day later, police were searching for it among the city's rubbish.
Discourage, suppress, and censor it as you may -- and lord knows authorities try, try, and try again -- you'll never rid the world of porn, porn, porn. Some Chinese health department officials discovered this recently firsthand.
Via Ecns.cn, here's a photo of a model space shuttle and rocket on a rooftop in Jiexi, Guangdong province, reportedly built by a 60-year-old farmer named Huang Yuzhan. We love everything about this: as a celebration of the can-do spirit, the very human tendency to detach from our worldly fetters and drift and spin alongside imagination as boundless as the pale blue sky, and as a simple expression of craftsmanship, patience, and (dare I say?) innovation. This photo deserves a song.
This morning around 9 o'clock, a five-storey apartment building in Fenghua, Zhejiang province collapsed because it was old. (We're not sure what the technical term might be.) Details are scarce, but CCTV News reported around noon that up to five people had been rescued, though an untold number remained buried.
After leading Beijing to its first Chinese Basketball Association championship two years ago, Stephon Marbury was given his own bronze statue. We wondered, after his second CBA title, how Beijing would honor its adopted Coney Island point guard, and now we know: by giving him a key to the city.
Bao Bao is Washington DC National Zoo's seven-month-old panda cub, son of (the rather fertile) Mei Xiang, on loan from China. On Tuesday, he took his first steps in his mother's outdoor pen, and yes, there is video.
It's not often that a press release makes us perk up, but earlier today TimeOut publicized its list of 100 best films made in mainland China, and it's really impressive. As editor James Wilkinson writes:
Hey party people, we're giving away five tickets to Bunker Party Vol. 3: Toxic Decay this Friday at Basement in Sanlitun (featuring lasers, strobes, post-apocalyptic haze, DJ Half/N/Half, DJ Mike Hotten, DJ MO'O, and MRG; also, body-painting via Faceslap). All you have to do is like our Facebook page between now and Friday noon. We'll randomly generate five numbers and notify the corresponding winners that they've been placed on Bunker Party's special guest list.