Our friend (and Beijing Cream contributor) Jim Fields was at the annual Qingdao International Beer Festival a couple of weeks back, and he returned with this video. Watch a kid grow up right before your eyes.

Meanwhile, Zeta Bar’s annual pole-dancing thing happened on Saturday in Beijing. If you didn’t know, that is. We’ll have a picture or two.

Pole dancing is sort of big here, on subways and in an official capacity, so it’s with apologies that we report, belatedly, that the 3rd China Pole Dance Championships came and went earlier this month without us noticing. Luckily, World of Chinese has our back:

This July, over one hundred athletes from 25 provinces have participated in the 2013 China Pole Dance Championships (CPDC). The final round took place in Tianjin on the 19th, featuring six male athletes, 16 female athletes and five duos fighting for the top spots. After a four-hour competition, Yan Xu (闫旭) from Beijing and Cao Nuo (曹诺) from Heilongjiang were crowned champions for men’s singles and women’s singles respectively. Cao Nuo  also won the championship for doubles alongside Fang Yiwen (方艺问) from Anhui.

There are more pictures over on World of Chinese, and here’s the official Pole Dance Championship website. Below, a couple of videos via Youku user 禘舞舞蹈培训:

2013 China Pole Dance Championships (The World of Chinese)

China’s national pole dance team — yes, this is a real thing — was sent to Dalian recently to perform some tricks on a pole in the snow. These pictures were snapped on Monday, posted to Xinhua (of course).

We admire these ladies’ grit. They really ought to dress warmer though.

The above video of an unnamed young woman pole dancing in a Wuhan subway carriage recently hit the Internet, and as you can imagine, it’s well on its way toward viraldom. A Chinese journalist did some digging and discovered that three weeks ago on Sina Weibo, some netizens were calling for exactly this type of activity, with one commenter posting, “Later, it won’t be uncommon to see dancing on the subway.”

Alas, Wuhan’s metro authority issued an announcement on Saturday that it did not approve, nor did it formally invite this pole dancer to strut her stuff. A spokesperson said they don’t promote this kind of thing because it disrupts the subway’s “normal” order and staffers’ work routine.

Totally, right? (Look at that dude in the background trying to be nonchalant about snapping a cell phone pic at just that moment…)

However, the spokesperson added, Wuhan metro also doesn’t oppose people expressing their individuality. This girl certainly has that — although we should point out, it’s not the first time women have danced around poles in the subway.

But is this one better or worse than these Guangzhou pole dancers? As always, you decide.

(Via Hug China, h/t Alicia)

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 them with bios “coming soon…” We think there’s at least one case of mistaken identity on that official list, as “Meng Yifan” is probably “Yi Fan,” who China Daily calls “China’s best pole dancer” for finishing in the top 24 in last year’s competition.

Here she is, doing ridiculous things to and with a pole:

And here are some of the other Chinese competitors, via Sina:

Shanghaiist has collected a few more pictures as well.

This will (probably) be our last post on the 10th Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival, which concluded Monday. Above (and on Youku after the jump for those in China), a little video I edited featuring pole dancers. If you’re more of a picture person, check this out.

Happy Sunday afternoon bleeding into evening, everyone.

Where to begin?

Zeta Bar in Hilton Beijing held its fourth pole-dancing competition on Saturday in collaboration with Love Show Studio, the self-proclaimed “Beijing’s No. 1 pole-dancing school.” Local nightlife blogger Jim Boyce informs us the winners were “Ms. Zhenzhen,” as chosen by judges, and “Ms. Vivi,” as chosen by the audience. We’re not sure who they are. I’m equally confused by this country’s apparent fascination with pole dancers, but that’s a story for another time.

And the video? The title reads, “Hot girl show pole dancing in Beijing subway,” and the timestamp is May 26, 2012. What else do you need to know? Youku video for those in China after the jump, along with pictures from Pole Dancing Competition Season IV. Update, 10/14, 4:12 pm: The original video has been taken down, so the above is a replacement.

(Beijing Boyce)

The Chinese Pole Dancing Championship is about to start (apparently), and the woman in the video after the jump (it’s there because it auto-plays) is sixty-something [correction: born in the 1960s] Shi Xiaohong (according to title). All we know for sure is that she’s pole dancing on Beijing subway’s spanking new Line 9, which I’ve never ridden before. Perhaps I should. CORRECTION, 3/17: I thought I heard “Beijing” pretty clearly at the 3:57 mark, but I was wrong. It’s Shanghai’s Subway Line 9. (H/T China News Center)

Zhongshan News via Baidu Beat