The nunchucks are an unnecessary touch, turning a cheesy, goofily syncopated music video into a stupid Balls of Fire ripoff. Actually, this whole thing is stupid. So, so stupid. Read more »
The best search engine for finding random bars is Where the Fuck Should I Go for Drinks, which China watcher and delightful alcoholic Ray Kwong helpfully notes "even works in China." But how well does it work? We gave it a try, and results included: Read more »
Six people were injured by knife-wielding attackers around 11:30 am today on the plaza in front of Guangzhou Railway Station. They've been sent to the hospital, but their conditions are unknown. A People's Daily tweet from 12:54 pm claims there were four attackers. State media reports that police fired shots at the attackers, hitting at least one of them. Read more »
Peter Harmsen of the excellent China in WW2 blog has a great write-up of Ernest Hemingway and his then-wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, traveling to Chongqing in 1941. You may have heard this story before -- the couple's distaste of the country and Hemingway's dabbling in espionage, among other things -- but there are a few anecdotes I'd like to highlight from Harmsen's piece, titled "For Whom the Gongs Toll." Read more »
A photographer captured the exact moment that two firefighters -- embracing one another -- fell to their deaths after being blasted from the 13th floor of a Shanghai apartment building last Thursday. Read more »
Links! There are two events tomorrow that could be worth your time: Los Angeles Times reporter / North Korea expert Barbara Demick is talking at Crossroads at 7 pm, while Leslie Ann-Murray is launching a collective for emerging writers called Writing on Walls, with the first meet-up at 6:30 (again, tomorrow) at the Bookworm. Read more »
There really isn't much to say about these pictures, which were taken on May 3 on a beach in Sanya, Hainan province and tweeted out by China Daily Show just now ("Who says China lacks innovation?"). Excerpt, perhaps, "Why?" A couple more pictures follow. They might not be appropriate for office gawking. Read more »
This is one of those locally sourced, probably dramatized, perhaps unreliable accounts that appear every now and then in Chinese media, but the Global Times headline makes the piece: Read more »
Here's how to make a jidan guanbing, those delicious baked flat cakes lined with egg and rolled over a piece of chicken and lettuce, as demonstrated by Andrew Moffat: Read more »
