In Chengdu on Friday at around 8 pm, a man surnamed Cai, 37, suddenly stood up and ignited a string of firecrackers in his bag, reason unknown. The driver, surnamed Huang, stopped the bus and let everyone out, but closed the door on Cai. Other passengers can be seen restraining him until the cops arrived. Read more »
BJC's An Expat Christmas series will roll on through the week. In a place where Christmas is an "event" and not part of the culture, it can be cancelled as easily as it is arranged, as Chris Clayman recently found out at his school in Lincang, Yunnan province. Read more »
Chongqing has a pretty amazing subway station, via Sina I think we know the “real you” well enough, sir. “The deputy secretary-general of Zhanjiang City in Guangdong Province has been removed from his post after local Party discipline watchdog confirmed online allegations about his having a mistress and a second child in violation of China’s one-child policy.... Read more »Read more »
Today in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, a big hole appeared on the intersection of Bingzhou Road and Bingzhou East Road, leaving an impression of two gigantic buttcheeks. Assphalt, if you will. Read more »
The Oregonian has this tale of a letter from China -- written in English -- folded into eighths and planted inside the box of a Kmart "graveyard kit."
This "message in a bottle" traveled more than 5,000 miles to the home of Julie Keith in Portland, who purchased the Halloween kit but left it unopened for a year. When she finally opened the contents, she found this chilling letter: Read more »
Dina Manfredini of Iowa died on Monday at 115, passing on the mantle of "world's oldest person" to Jiroemon Kimura of Tokyo, who was born on April 19, 1897 -- 15 days after Manfredini -- the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed yesterday.
But not so fast, says Xinhua. In a story published two hours ago, it reports that the world's real oldest person is actually Chinese, and apparently 127 years old: Read more »
Andrei Lankov, professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University and one of the world’s foremost North Korea experts (he blogs in Russian), has some chilling words about what the new year might bring for Korean relations. As quoted in The Globe and Mail: “The North Koreans will want to test [Ms. Park], maybe an overland intrusion, an artillery... Read more »Read more »
State media is reporting that state media aired a documentary on Tibetan self-immolations on Sunday. Here are the opening paragraphs of Xinhua’s story about China Central Television: National broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has released a documentary on self-immolation in the country’s Tibetan-inhabited areas. Read more »
Lan Gui, 50, a vagabond artist who's been traveling from city to city for more than 20 years, is probably best known for his street Mona Lisas. It's not perfect, but for a chalk etching on a random sidewalk, no one's complaining. Read more »
On Monday, a father upset over a court’s decision to not give the death sentence to four men who murdered his daughter took his anger out on middle school students on lunch break. Yin Tiejun, 48, drove a car laden with firecrackers into Fengning No. 1 Middle School in Fengning, Hebei province around noon. Xinhua has the... Read more »Read more »
