Vandal Damages Forbidden City Antique, Claims, “If I Didn’t Smash The Glass, The Glass Would’ve Smashed Me!”

Forbidden City vandal featured image
An ancient clock was damaged when a vandal smashed a glass inside a Forbidden City pavilion on Saturday. The window was repaired and the pavilion was reopened the next day, and the damage seems minor. The man, 22-year-old Wang something, reportedly yelled while being arrested, "If I didn't smash the glass, the glass would've smashed me!" Authorities are now considering upgrading the windows on all the Forbidden City's exhibits to keep out the crazies. Read more »

At Least 2 Dead, 3 Missing In Tunnel Collapse At Xi’an Subway Construction Site

Xi'an subway collapse
At least two are dead after an accident at a subway construction site in Xi'an, Shaanxi province this morning. At around 2:40 am, a tunnel caved in as nine workers were in the midst of building Line 3. Four have been rescued, but of the five that were buried, two have been found dead while the other three are still missing. (Note: the title of the above video claims three died on the scene.) Read more »

China’s Air Pollution Has Been Turned Into A Jeopardy! Game

China air pollution jeopardy
A cheeky someone over at JeopardyLabs, where quiz fans can create their own Jeopardy! game (not to be confused with J-Archive, which has every Jeopardy! question ever), has created a game for China watchers who love talking about pollution. It’s mostly lame, with several true/false and fill-in-the-blank questions that don’t require the answer in the form of... Read more » Read more »

Polite Headbanging And Chinese Rock At The Dali Erhai World Music Festival

Dali Music Festival 2
BJC contributor Chris Clayman attended the Dali Erhai World Music Festival in Yunnan province from April 29 – May 1. His dispatch follows. A Cop with a Weird Haircut We’re standing near the fortune teller when Lin Dan shows us something. “I’m a cop,” he says. He pulls out his wallet and holds it close to... Read more » Read more »

Friday Musical Outro: Not There, Here Again

Not There Live at Temple on May 4 featured image
Hello Beijing Cream readers. My name is Josh and I work at this other website called Smart Beijing, where I write tl;dr music articles on a weekly basis. The Tao is outsourcing these Friday Musical Outros to my comrade Morgan, but he's busy preparing for his simultaneous DJ sets at Dada and Temple tomorrow night, so he passed the buck to me. Today's video is kind of a cheat. A teaser, you might say. Tomorrow night at Temple, live funktronic act Not There is re-emerging after seven months of dormancy. Not ones to miss out on an opportunity to employ guerrilla marketing tactics, they released this lil' 25-second clip to promote the show. Read more »

Hundreds Arrested In China For Selling Meat So Fake, You Could Literally Call It Rat Meat

Rat meat in place of mutton
Xinhua News Agency reports that 904 people were arrested on Thursday as part of a nationwide crackdown on spoiled and fake food. How fake are we talking about? Deep breath time. “In Wuxi, in east China’s Jiangsu Province, suspects made fake mutton from fox, mink and rat by adding chemicals,” the news agency reported. Read more »

FUCK YES RUBBER DUCK

Rubber duck in Victoria Harbor 1
I don't really have anything to add to Hong Wrong's piece about the 16.5-meter duck in Victoria Harbor, "In Pictures: HK Goes Completely Insane For Big Yellow Duck’s Arrival," or Shanghaiist's guide to SCMP's articles about these rubber ducks (with rolling updates), except to say this is awesome: Read more »