NPC Delegate Zhong Nanshan: What Good Is The World’s Highest GDP If The People Can’t Breathe?

Zhong Nanshan featured image
Although the skies were conveniently blue for the first day of the National People’s Congress on March 5, by the next day the AQI was already creeping back above 300. In an interesting twist, a prominent member of the National People’s Congress has criticized the Chinese government for its anti-pollution efforts. In an interview with... Read more » Read more »

Reporter Asks Emotional Three-Minute Question About The Environment, Receives No Response From NPC Delegates

Reporter asks about environment at NPC featured image
The environment is everyone's concern, because we all live under the same sky -- in Beijing, often a dark, dirty one, rife with health hazards. It's our collective duty to take care of it, but what can anyone -- an individual, particularly one with power -- do to spur a collective response against man-made threats to our natural world? What would they do? Read more »

The Best Baseball Game This Spring That No One Saw Was China’s Win Vs. Brazil

China beats Brazil WBC
The story of China’s World Baseball Classic win against Brazil begins like any other: on a dirt field. “The field took just four months to build amid the high-rise apartment blocks on the outskirts of Changzhou,” begins Justin Bergman’s story in Time two years ago. This was Major League Baseball’s second training school, seeking to find Chinese... Read more » Read more »

Chengguan Bully And Cuff Street Vendor In Front Of Her 2-Year-Old Daughter

Chengguan bullies woman in Guangzhou comforts child
Netizens are outraged by a recent incident in Guangzhou involving urban street management enforcers, i.e. chengguan, whose reputation continues its uninterrupted plummet in this country. A young mother was physically harassed by officers in front of her two-year-old daughter, leading commentators to urge representatives at the Two Sessions in Beijing to pay attention to this... Read more » Read more »

Young Daredevil Pops Wheelies On Speeding Pink Scooter, Impresses And Frightens Everyone

Wheely on pink scooter 1
A series of photographs taken in a high-speed traffic tunnel in Zhengzhou, Henan province is currently trending on Weibo. The photos depict a stylishly dressed, stoic young man riding a hot pink scooter on its back wheel in the middle of traffic. He’s been dubbed the “Pink Scooter Brother.” The photos’ popularity seems drawn in... Read more » Read more »

Watch: New Iron Man 3 Trailer Featuring Fan Bingbing And Wang Xueqi

Iron Man 3
You might miss them if you blink, but Wang Xueqi -- who plays Dr. Wu -- and Fan Bingbing -- who plays his assistant -- actually appear in the latest trailer for Iron Man 3. We saw Wang posing with an Iron Man in Beijing in December. Fan's role is small enough, unfortunately, she doesn't even make it on IMBD's list of cast and crew. Oh well. We'll still watch, because Iron Man is cool. Read more »

Washington Court Sets $2 Million Bail For Chinese Student Charged With Vehicular Homicide, So His Mom Writes A Cashier’s Check

Yichun Xu and Brenda Gomez
Yichun Xu, 19, was charged with vehicular homicide in Des Moines, Iowa Washington on November 10 for speeding through a stop sign and crashing into a car full of people, one of whom later died from her injuries. Xu was driving four female passengers and reportedly going up to 70 miles per hour in a... Read more » Read more »

Outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao’s Final NPC Speech Was Boring Even For NPC Standards

Wen Jiabao bowing
Wen Jiabao gave his final speech before the National People’s Congress on Tuesday among a crowded room of delegates, then bowed three times to the audience and took his leave. At the end of the 12-day session, he, Hu Jintao and other party leaders will step aside as new leadership takes the reins, led by... Read more » Read more »