Something called the "National Peasants' Games" -- the 7th edition, in fact -- is currently being held in Nanyang, Henan province, which People's Daily Online describes as a "quadrennial multi- "in which sport event... in which competitors from among the country's rural residents take part in sports, both conventional, including basketball, athletics, table tennis, shooting, xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Tai ...

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In case you've forgotten, The Simpsons is set to begin its 24th season this Sunday, which is an amazing accomplishment no matter much you've complained about its last 15 seasons as being "not what it used to be." As a preview, the producers have released this short -- viewed 2.7 million times already in four days -- to satirize the good ol' American election process. ...

The Wukan protests that began last year over illegal land seizure might have seemed, at the start, unspectacular, merely another in the hundreds of rallies that happen every year in China. But with each passing day -- and each development reported breathlessly by embedded reporters -- the demonstrations revealed themselves to be a bit more unique, with the power to effect actual change. Most important, the ...

From CRI, anti-Japan body painting at "2012 Nanjing Autumn Real Estate Trade Fair," via Shanghaiist Diaoyu Island stories are winding down for sure, but the National Congress is right around the corner. We keep chugging along with links. ...

Via John Saeki Wang Lijun, who will forevermore be known as "flamboyant" in Western media, was sentenced to 15 years in prison today on four counts, "defection" probably being the gravest. That he did not get a more severe sentence is interesting, and bodes unwell for his one-time comrade Bo Xilai, with whom he will always be linked. Before we shift the attention to Bo though -- a colorful character in his ...

The Chinese Basketball Association doesn't take the FIBA Asia Cup very seriously, as a glance at this year's roster will show: every player under 22 years of age, playing against several countries' senior-level teams. But what happens when your team gets paired against Japan in the knockout round amid nationalistic protests back home against this very country? As Jon Pastuszek of NiuBBall pointed out last w ...

We know that some cops carry firearms in China -- certainly the special-duty officers, and security personnel in highly sensitive areas -- but it's rare enough that I've never actually seen an officer holding a gun in all my years here. So you can imagine my surprise upon hearing this story, headlined, "Villager shot dead by police amid demolition dispute": A police officer shot a man dead and another injur ...

When is a riot just a fight with a lot of people? When is a fight with a lot of people a riot? In Chinese factories, where thousands of workers live in close proximity, it can be difficult to tell sometimes -- and there is ample risk, from a journalistic standpoint, in using the "R" word when the facts just don't support the narrative. Nonetheless, the news out of a Foxconn plant in Taiyuan, Shanxi province ...

By Jim Fields Recently, I went to Tianjin on a one-day business trip. In the morning, a co-worker picked me up from my apartment at Yonghegong. After completing my business-related tasks, I bid farewell to my colleagues (who had more to do) and took a cab to the local railway station, where I planned to buy a high-speed train ticket. I felt a vague sense of dread upon getting out of my cab, but I wasn’t sur ...

You know, it's not that we don't sympathize with chengguan, China's street-level urban management officers. We get that they have a tough job, and encounter scoundrels and freeloaders on a weekly, if not daily, basis. But every single week, we see a video of chengguan somewhere behaving as poorly as the people they're supposed to police. And what are supposed to do about that? ...

September 17 - September 23 ...

Picture via Beijing Youth Daily The violence and protests have been stowed away like a jack-in-the-box, some novelty toy to be brought back out at another politically opportune time. The carnival's over, folks. Time to go home. But there's a thing about violence. You might know it. Violence owes fealty to no one and nothing, and can as quickly turn against itself or its source, or innocents. Last Saturday i ...

Another day, another French daredevil does something in a central China province. We saw rollerman Jean-Yves Blondeau zoom down Hunan province's Mt. Tianmen in July, now it's Alain Robert scaling the world's tallest steel structure, the Central Plains Fortaleza tower in Zhengzhou, Henan province. According to reports, yesterday Robert climbed to a platform 268 meters up on the 388-meter structure, taking ab ...

Keep doing it like you do. We'll be back in a little bit. ...

When beating, bullying, and plundering doesn't work, resort to mass intimidation. Urban enforcement officers in Wuhan, Hubei province are turning to the group silent treatment to smoke out "illegal" street vendors. As Caijing reports, "A new policing method is to appear in a straight line and approach illegal business operators wordlessly for maximum intimidation." How well is this policy working? "The appl ...

Prepare your horrified face. Yesterday at 2 pm in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang AutonomousRegion, a man wielding a wood chopper burst into a residence and slashed 16 children in noon care, according to Xinhua. Three died in the hospital. The suspect, surnamed Wu, is in police custody. More details as they become available. Photos below (slightly graphic) via Xinhua link above: ...

Our favorite talk show host, Gao Xiaosong, is at it again, this time talking about gun use and laws in the US in Episode 28: America Under Gunpoint. (Short synopsis: there are a lot of guns in America.) This one's not nearly as jaw-dropping as the first two episodes of Saturday Morning Cartoon. Enjoy it for the animation quality, I guess. Youku video for those in China after the jump. ...

The Gar exploded onto the Beijing music scene in 2007 and entrenched its reputation as indie heavyweights with the release of its self-titled album two years later. The members went on a three-year hiatus with the departure of bassist and founding member Wen Jie, but it appears they're now back, with a new bassist in Zhu Boxuan (formerly of Hedgehog). The band is nearing the end of a month-long tour to prom ...

Unfriendly mooncakes, found on Weibo. Beijing's consecutive-blue-sky-days streak ended yesterday, sadly. That's OK -- we have links. ...