Of Course China Is Sending A Team To The World Pole Dance Competition

World Pole Dance
China’s fascination with the pole dance extends to competitive pole dancing as well: three females and one male are traveling to Zurich, Switzerland to compete in the World Pole Dance competition on November 10. The Chinese contestants are listed on World Pole Dance’s website as Cao Haijing, Meng Yifan, Song Xuemei, and Yan Shaoxuan, all of... Read more » Read more »

Weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo, Who Won A Gold Medal For Kazakhstan, Repatriates To China

Zhao Changling
Much hubbub surrounded 19-year-old weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo’s gold-medal win in London this summer, as it wasn’t exactly clear which country she was actually from, Kazakhstan or China. Both nations claimed her — “Chinshanlo’s Olympic page cites her birthplace as Almaty, Kazakhstan, and claims she speaks both Russian and Kazakh,” according to The Atlantic, while Xinhua stated (paraphrased by CNN)... Read more » Read more »

Xinhua Goes Full Porno With Its Latest Slideshow, “Crazy Women Fighters”

Xinhua women fighters 1
Ultimate Surrender is a website featuring “competitive female sexual wrestling,” and in bold font on its frontpage, it notes that it is “for adults only.” NSFW, if you need it spelled out for you. Not safe for an ostensible news organization, then. Xinhua either does not know this or does not care, because on the... Read more » Read more »

Vignette Of A Compassionate China: Our Writer, In Distress, Finds Help At Every Turn

Kindness in China
By Justin Mitchell Here we are daily witnesses, viral voyeurs and readers to how cheap, meaningless and callous life can often be. Drivers willfully plowing over pedestrians, sometimes two or three times to ensure the dirty work is done; infants and children abandoned or even worse; beggars, protestors, petitioners and migrant workers treated like so... Read more » Read more »

Shenzhen Neighborhood Needed A Place To Dump Garbage, So The Residents Dumped It In The Street

Garbage!
Via China Daily: “Garbage fills the street at the Baishixia community in Bao’an district, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Wednesday. Because a landfill was blocked by nearby residents out of environmental concerns, a lot of trash cannot be sent to the landfill and has accumulated on the street since Monday. The district is trying to clean... Read more » Read more »

Jeremy Lin’s KFC China Commercial Is Bright, Happy, And Smiley

Jeremy Lin KFC commercial featured image
Jeremy Lin, you've truly made it. Following in the footsteps of Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, et al., Lin is the latest NBA player to film a Chinese commercial. How'd he do in his one-minute spot for KFC, featuring a lot of smiles, more than one spin move, and several dunks? Judge for yourself. I'm pretty upset they didn't fully recreate his game-winning three-pointer vs. the Raptors (he actually shot from the top of the arc!). Read more »

Here’s A Fun, Humorous, Semi-Satirical, Kind Of Dark, Twisted, And Actually Bloody Video Featuring Kung Fu

Kung fu featured image
I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything quite like this produced in China. The video, a "Kung Fu FAQ" created by the digital marketing agency Flow Creative Studios follows a Walter Mitty-type martial artist who fields questions such as "Can you break bricks?" and "Can you fly?" while repulsing unruly diners, a scornful girlfriend, and a band of thieving strongmen in the hutongs of Beijing. Read more »

Top-of-the-Week Links: On Xi Jinping and his wife, woman survives gruesome self-stabbing to the skull, and Shanghai in stunning panorama

Panoramic Shanghai 1
World’s smallest egg? Via CRI: “The chicken egg, which is about two centimeters long and weighs 2.58 grams, was laid on Monday by a Malaysian bantam owned by He Daiyou, a 55-year-old hairdresser from Shapingba District, Chongqing.” Here comes another five-day workweek, unless you’re in Hong Kong, in which case, enjoy your day off tomorrow.... Read more » Read more »

Pictures And Video From The Opening Ceremony Of The 9th Zhengzhou International Shaolin Wushu Festival

Zhengzhou International Shaolin Wushu Festival
Venerable Shaolin Monastery, known worldwide as a pilgrimage destination for kung-fu devotees and something or other involving Wu-Tang Clan, helped ring in the 9th Zhengzhou International Shaolin Wushu Festival in Hunan Henan province yesterday with an opening ceremony featuring kids in gold paint and performers in various martial artsy poses. You can watch clips from the... Read more » Read more »