By RFH Idea for an honest advert: Scene: A log cabin in remote woods. Five teens of mixed ethnicity/affability convene in a spooky basement to investigate a noise. Suddenly, the cast-iron stove in the back noisily cranks into action, pipes groaning. The teens gather round as, inside the stove, coals glow red-hot and wisps of smoke emerge.... Read more »
By RFH Sad tidings this week, via Chris “Devonshire” Devonshire-Ellis, or CDE as many know him. The erstwhile “Baron of Coigach” is leaving China, according to a post on his blog, China Briefing, but remains in touch with the title he inherited, somewhat expensively, in April 2011. As his online CV explains, Chris was one of the first... Read more »
Yu Yang’s retirement announcement Hold the phones, everyone. This story isn’t as straightforward as we thought, and it doesn’t seem like Yu Yang completely agrees with the Badminton World Federation’s decision to disqualify her and teammate Wang Xiaoli for match fixing. (Also, she announced her retirement on Tencent Weibo, but we’ll get to that in a... Read more »
By Andray Abrahamian There was something approaching unabashed joy at Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for London 2012. Partly because it was a creative way to render the best of Britain on stage, partly because the soundtrack was great, but mostly because it stood up to the incredible spectacle of Beijing. After the handover at the... Read more »
By RFH Recently a doctor on Weibo recalled the story of a patient – a kabob (chuanr, in Beijing patois) seller – who came in with stab wounds in the 1980s after getting into a ruckus with a customer. Upon surgery, his problems were found to be far worse than previously assumed. His stomach was riddled... Read more »
The day after; picture by The Good Doctor Yesterday, Beijing saw its heaviest rainstorm since 1951, receiving on average 163.7 mm of precipitation as of 10 pm. Inevitably, there’s some bad news, which we’ll let China Daily deliver: The heaviest rain in 61 years that lashed Beijing Saturday have left at least four people dead and six... Read more »
No one would confuse China Daily for a real newspaper — the kind that doesn’t write “A Friend’s Departure” on its front page when North Korea’s leader dies — but the company undoubtedly has real journalists on staff, veteran reporters who quietly toil within China’s noxious media environment to produce respectable work, and it’s those... Read more »
Xinhua’s English-language website launched something called “English Forum” yesterday, whereby registered netizens are “welcome to share your opinions about news from China and abroad, post new topics that you are interested in, and participate in all kinds of votings at the forum.” Hopefully no one has any illusions that this will be anything other than... Read more »
Mad Libs is a "phrasal template word game," according to Wikipedia, and who better to provide the template for such comedy than our favorite mouthpieces of the CCP? Let's play.
By Alicia Business Insider has published a 33-photo slideshow of photographer Nick DeWolf’s work called “What Hong Kong Looked Like 40 Years Ago,” and it’s hard for me to believe that these were taken only a decade before I was born. Hong Kong looked so different, yet familiar. Seeing these, I feel a twang of nostalgia for the things... Read more »
![Chinese Thieves Brutally Assaulted, Smashed With Concrete Blocks [Disturbing]](http://beijingcream.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Brutal-beatdown-of-thieves-2-150x150.jpg "Chinese Thieves Brutally Assaulted, Smashed With Concrete Blocks [Disturbing]")
