I’ve been to Tianjin enough times to know it deserves its appellation as the armpit of Beijing. But today was one of its good days. Here was the view about 30 minutes ago from East Railway Station.
Yongda Huang Harris, you’re not doing it right. You’re not doing it right at all: A Boston-bound man wearing body armor, flame retardant leggings and knee pads under his trench coat arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after a Customs and Border Protection officer found a smoke grenade and several weapons in his checked luggage... Read more »
An appalling story to report from Hunan. On Tuesday at around 1 pm, a 24-year-old traffic cop named Li Xiaofeng made what appeared to be a routine stop at a toll booth of a truck that he suspected was overweight. He put himself in front of the truck, but the driver wouldn’t stop. When a... Read more »
The seminal Wuhan punk rock band SMZB (生命之饼) is playing at Yugongyishan tomorrow night as part of its 15+1 tour. Would you believe these guys have been around since 1996? Like 'em or not, you have to respect their staying power, and the fact that they've been known to use bagpipes and tin whistles in their sets, making them, as our music contributor puts it, "China's first (and only, to my knowledge) Celtic punk band."
Via Boing Boing: “This illustration comes from a recently published paleobiology paper examining a cache of animal bones and pottery found in a sinkhole near China’s Jiangdong Mountain. // One of the key things the researchers are taking away from this site: The range of the Giant Panda must have once been a lot larger than it... Read more »
A lot of people have expressed their desire to see newly crowned Nobel laureate Mo Yan speak out against the more grievous shortcomings of the Chinese government. The extent to which he leverages his publicity to enact change will ultimately be up to him, but if his most recent quote — just a day after winning... Read more »
Freebies are common at NBA games, because who doesn't love them? (Thunderstix? Sure, if they're free!) But whoever's in charge of Chinese arenas should never, ever, under any circumstances willingly hand out objects that could be used as projectiles. Fans here are notorious for throwing things onto courts, embarrassing themselves and everyone involved. They did it again last night -- with the NBA in town. The object of choice? Frisbees.
The blitz is on. Eighteen hours after Mo Yan’s historic win of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a shedload of articles have appeared analyzing, praising, criticizing, and explaining what it all means to China, the Nobel Committee, literature, politics, activism, free speech, publishing, Ai Weiwei, and the world. If you’re looking for a straight write-up,... Read more »
