Friday Night Musical Outro: SMZB – Screaming For The Silent Masses

SMZB - Scream for Life
Anyways, time to celebrate, Beijing Creamsicles. St. Patrick's Day is on Sunday, and there's no better way to get prepped for it than cranking up the above viddy. What you're watching up there is Wuhan heavyweights SMZB, bar room heroes every last one of them, kicking out one of their most famous jams, "Scream for Life," to a hometown crowd at something called the Southlake Music Festival back in 2007.

The Beijinger’s 10th Annual Reader Restaurant Awards: Basically Unnoteworthy, But Thanks For The Free Beer!

The Beijinger 10th Annual Reader Restaurant Awards
One thing I learned about getting invited to a the Beijinger awards ceremony is you first have to leave Beijing. During my four-year tenure here, I never received an invite. Just three months after I made the move to Hangzhou, I was chosen to be an official nominator. Sure, why not. Months later, as an... Read more »

The Farmer Responsible For Dumping 6,601 (And Counting) Swine Carcasses Into Shanghai River Has Been Detained

Pig asks WTF
Seriously, now: forget the jokes, forget about water safety concerns, forget everything until this question is answered: what possibly could have gone through the mind of the homicidal pig farmer who dumped more than 6,000 pigs into the Huangpu River? Did a pig farm explode? Does circovirus cause pigs to go mad and jump in... Read more »

China’s Two Major Propaganda Organs Are Merging And Need A New Name. We Have Some Ideas

SARFT new logo
The General Administration of Press and Publication, or GAPP, and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, are China’s two principal ministries of propaganda, tasked with tweaking, managing, and bowlderizing creative, edgy, realistic, and otherwise inspiring work into a mushy, digestible pap for mainstream consumption. It’s an unpleasant job, but someone has to... Read more »

America’s Locusts Descend On China: The Duggar Family Visits For TLC Reality Show “19 Kids And Counting”

Duggar Family in China
The Duggar flock -- 19 children (and counting!), their parents and a gaggle of grandchildren -- recently traveled to Beijing, Tokyo and Kyoto to film the three-part special installment “19 Kids and Counting: Duggers Do Asia.” The Arkansas-based brood, all of whom have a name that starts with the letter J, have achieved a degree of notoriety on their native turf for their fundamentalist Christian beliefs and baby-making lifestyle, which have come under attack for being environmentally irresponsible and what some argue is an archaic ideology that has unnecessarily contributed to global overpopulation.

900 Dead Pigs Found In Shanghai Waterway [UPDATE: Swine Count Now In The Thousands]

Dead pigs in Shanghai 2
People in Shanghai never stop complaining about Beijing, and with sandstorms sweeping into the capital, the people in this country's Second City have been growing quite smug about their marginally healthier air. Well, now… Shanghai isn't exactly environmentally pristine. This weekend, more than 900 dead pigs were found added to the aquatic ecosystem in the Songjiang section of Huangpu River.

Gauche Graft: Official Corruption And Conspicuous Consumption

Chinese wealth
It's the political season in China, with the dual National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) swinging into annual two-week sessions. The period is normally a huge gift-giving event and a tremendous boon to the luxury goods industry. Businesspeople hoping to curry favor with officials shower them with preposterous presents, from overpriced cigarettes to "Gucci handbags, Hermès scarves, Montblanc pens and $30,000 diamond-studded Swiss watches" so ostentatious they would make Kim Kardashian blush, as New York Times reported a few years back.