Before I saw Tom Olden’s video, I heard reactions to it. It was described as a “leap off the deep end” with an “ISIS vibe,” featuring a “headless girl in the background chopping carrots on an ironing board… PUA-style ‘burns’ on manhood, and, of course, that Jigsaw voice.” That’s crazy, I thought. Does the carrot represent neutered sexuality? Is the headless woman some self-aware avowal of misogyny? And what of the knife, that weapon-turned-tool of domesticity, scything away? Is the video menacing or ironic?

Then I watched, and… exactly. Yes.

In case you missed it, last week we published Alec Ash’s funny and incisive review of Olden’s memoir, Shanghai Cocktales, to precipitate this video. Ash’s review was not particularly positive, but it was humorous, had a killer ending, and it was an honest-by-God review — from a frequent contributor to The Los Angeles Review of Books, no less — so on the balance I expected Olden to have been happy.

Was he?

Cue the tape.

Video on Tudou for those without VPNs

I keep picturing, for no particular reason, an incensed F. Scott Fitzgerald underneath a keffiyeh branded with block letters TRIMALCHIO IN WEST EGG telling the camera, Greetings, H.L. Mencken. Greetings, Chicago Tribune, and I think the world would have been a happier, more enlightened place had that happened.

“Perhaps the idea of cuckoldry excites you, no?” he offers.

“An Iranian man and I Chinese-finger-trapped a prostitute, for fuck’s sake!”

“Or do you in fact revel in cuckoldry?”

“Peter Hessler may not have a penis, but I do,” Fitzgerald — unable to know his penis would become a subject of fascination to Ernest Hemingway in the doomed author’s famous memoir — growls.

These are not the lines of a sane man. Said RFH, who edited Ash’s review, “I half-expected to see Alec tied to some elaborate Bateman-esque torture device at the end and being told he’s ‘going to play a game.’” But watch the video again, and pay attention to the progression of tone, notably from lighthearted to angry, and you’ll notice a half-rack of internal logic, I daresay order, a semblance of forethought. It begins with a concession (“Although we don’t see eye to eye, I see the humor in your writing”) and a self-deprecating joke (“You label my book’s title as a ‘shitty 2am pun.’ It was 3am when I decided on this title, Alec”) before the speaker becomes irritated, then irritating, defensive, and nearly angry (the Iranian-Chinese-finger-trapping line is spiked with ire, otherwise it could have been an uproarious punchline). Finally, in the latter stages, the message becomes muddled while sentences elongate like a bad hangover, as if Olden has been tricked yet again into a water-cooler homily with his subconscious, giving us, “I like to make educated choices. For instance, her breasts could be larger, but I’m still impressed with what she’s doing with this push-up bra, so I think I’ll give it a go.” In two minutes, Olden encapsulates 16 years of China life: cheer rotted into cynicism, resignation, and one long interminable howl at the unknowable realities which afflict our existence. Do you just fuck anything? Are you above sexuality?

On the whole, for all its unsoundness, the video is not the work of an inveterate drunk with “the subtlety and ear for language of a horny, deaf-blind goat” — Ash might have been slightly harsh in his assessment there. Olden’s quip, “Sure, I could write my own version of Rob Gifford’s China Road” is somewhat brilliant; and to be fair to goats, they’re goddamn hilarious. I’d also venture the horny lute-playing caprine demigod Pan could scarce do self-actualization better than, “I embrace my hunger for sexual excitement. I embrace my darker side.” No, Olden strikes me as a fun-enough barfly, a harmless middle-aged male who had either the fortune or misfortune of living in turn-of-the-century China — which was exactly like fin de siècle Paris, only without the quality of art. I’m fine with Olden’s response. I’m fine with Shanghai Cocktales. It’s given us all a week’s worth of amusement, topped by this video, which will probably give us a half-week’s worth more.

Then let us never speak of it again.

SHANGHAI COCKTALES (A Memoir)

It’s one of the gifts of China that there’s something to write about on every street corner. It’s one of the curses of China that expats keep writing about themselves instead.

That’s not to say there isn’t rich material in it. Somewhere outside the Fourth Ring Road, a nondescript borderline-alcoholic English teacher might be polishing off the manuscript of the China equivalent to The Sun Also Rises. Escape, reinvention, exoticism, disillusionment – it’s all there for a novelist or memoirist, plus baijiu, smog and as many happy endings as you can afford. There’s definitely a way to do it right, make it funny, and say something meaningful about how us foreigners (with nowhere else in particular to go) engage with China, or don’t. There’s also a way to do it wrong, and come across as a goon who can’t write his way out of a paper bag.

By now you should be getting an idea of what kind of a review this is going to be.

As a writerly sort and interested party, I occasionally read books which are memoirs – sometimes thinly veiled as fiction – of the expat in question’s China years. Some are entertaining, others as interesting as a concrete overpass. Many have weird hang-ups about sex. Most feature heavy drinking as a centrepiece. Almost all can be summed up in a single sentence: “Look at this crazy wacky time I’m having in China!” But I’ve never seen one which combines all of the things I hate in China writing between two covers until I read the self-published Shanghai Cocktales: A Memoir by Tom Olden.

Can we dwell on that title for a moment? Shanghai Cocktales. It sounds like some “friend” of Olden’s dared him to write a book based around that single, shitty 2am pun. I’m sure it sounded funny after five rounds at his local, but Olden woke up the next morning and still went with it. The chapters are called “Cocktale One,” “Cocktale Two,” and so on until you wish you were dead or drinking that sixth cocktail. Tom Olden (a pseudonym) has all the subtlety and ear for language of a horny, deaf-blind goat. If he ran this blog, it would no doubt be called Beijing Spunk.

The plot is more or less a blow-by-blow dirge of Olden’s nights out, sexual conquests and job interviews in Shanghai from his arrival as a twenty something year-old in 1999 (“the year of the Rabbit”, thanks for that) until now. It’s billed as a memoir but reads like bad fiction. The second sentence begins “As the only white male on a half-full flight, I gratefully enjoyed the extra attention the nubile air hostesses gave me,” and goes downhill from there. I would happily write off that half-full flight as collateral damage if the plane had only crashed and spared us the rest.

Promotional image for ‘Shanghai Cocktales’

At the airport, Olden meets his mate Alex, who wows him by giving an address in Chinese to their taxi driver. (“‘Whadde’fuck?’” … “‘You speak Chinese? Fuck me!’” … “‘Ching-chong, ching-chong, you’re the man.’”) There’s also some artful exposition when Alex quizzes Olden about why he left everything to come to China and asks about a girl called Marie. “‘She’s over and out. Bitch!’”, comes the reply. (“If it hadn’t been for her,” Olden delusionally muses later,“I could have spent my entire time on campus banging freshmen.”) It’s frequently revealed that Olden has “nightmares where I would wake up, bathed in cold sweat, panting from seeing Marie and Kurt in joyous copulation.” I’m on Team Kurt.

It’s not just snappy comebacks and scintillating interior monologue that Olden puts in italics. It’s every sentence he thinks is clever. On local eating habits: “How the fuck can they eat cold fish for breakfast?” On people he doesn’t like: “I’d party with anyone but her. Even French people.” On his soul-crushingly bland inner life: “You’re here now. In Shanghai. Ready for a new beginning.” His favourite refrain is “Whadde’fuck?” Sometimes he switches into italics for whole paragraphs, just for kicks. He also does that irritating thing where he writes the pinyin followed by the English (“‘Mei you wenti.’ No problem”) because ching-chong, ching-chong, he’s the man.

For someone who lived in China for sixteen years, it’s hard to believe how little of interest happened to Olden. He tries valiantly to keep things topical – the Belgrade embassy bombing, the Internet boom – but inevitably gets sucked back into the dull minutia of his sexpatscapades. In one meat market, he picks up a girl with the sparkling line “Hey – can I buy you a drink?” Her reply is “OK. First, toilet”, and I know how she feels. There are exactly two entertaining moments in the book – one where he is fleeced by the notorious teahouse scam into paying a huge dinner bill, the second where he is scammed by conmen posing as police when he’s with a prostitute. Finally, something worth cheering for.

Every woman Olden meets is immediately judged on her appearance. The idea persists among some foreigners – dare I say, especially in Shanghai? – that China is populated by porcelain dolls just waiting to jump into bed with them. Most of the time, it’s just run-of-the-mill Asian sexpot sophomoric dross, which isn’t worth quoting, although I kid you not that the first Chinese girl he runs into tells him he’s handsome and gives him an “exotic giggle.” Often it’s nastier, such as a bargirl who is “probably in her early thirties and had certainly been a pretty girl at some point in life, but now she looked pale and pinched, her slanted eyes rimmed by darkened circles.” I would give anything for a jacket shot of Olden so I could treat him the same.

Besides his alleged close encounters with Shanghai’s beauties, the rest of the book is Olden’s job interviews and miscellaneous score settling, which is all about as fun to read as drinking melamine from the can. He does the rounds of early city magazine websites and paints thinly veiled portraits of various friends and foes using false names. The climactic moment of the memoir is Olden landing a job that pays twelve thousand yuan a month, presumably vindicating him to all his enemies. There’s a whole paragraph about how boring a meeting was. To quote the master: Whadde’fuck?

If you’re a masochist, you can buy the book on Amazon, where there are thirteen customer reviews, all five stars, many of which overuse his full name in the same way. Something tells me the IP log would be revealing. I can’t imagine it sold like hot cakes, as half a year later he started giving it away for free on Twitter.

@Bueller @Bueller @Anyone… @Anyone?

I had an email exchange with Olden – he knows this review is coming – who wrote “I am aware that many people will not appreciate the story, but I wanted to tell it as it was.” He changed the names of people and companies, but everything else is accurate “as I remember it” (unspecified after how many drinks). The motivation to write the thing, he argued, was so that “when someone picks up the book 20-40 years from now, they’ll get a true picture of Shanghai in 1999.”

Curious about this mysterious auteur (Olden’s author bio says he “grew up in a small fishing village outside of Malmo, Sweden”), I asked some friends in Shanghai and we did a half-hearted human flesh search. Eventually, with the help of RFH, I tracked down someone who knows him and was in Shanghai over the same period. “It’s representative of the mindset of foreigners in China in that era,” he told me. “It’s reprehensible drivel, but unfortunately it’s the best record we’ve got.”

You might wonder – I certainly am – why I’m bothering to do a hatchet job on a self-published book with a fundamentally unlikeable narrator that no one except a few of Olden’s remaining mates will read. It’s not the first piece of grot to be written by an LBH (Loser Back Home) who got shanghai’ed into China and thinks his story is unique, and it won’t be the last. Worse books and blogs have been written. As to the offensive sexist stuff, he’s just a minnow in the slipstream of trouts like China Bounder, Robert Black and Isham Cook.

Part of it, I’ll confess, is that writing this is one way to claw some enjoyment back from the hours lost reading the bloody thing. But more than that, it’s because with every tone-deaf sentence I’m reminded of what we might be missing. Again, The Sun Also Rises was also narcissistic foreigners drinking all day. Here’s Hemingway: “You know what’s the trouble with you? You’re an expatriate. … You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You’re an expatriate. You hang around cafés.” And here’s Olden, via one of his dolls: “‘Many, many fun in Shanghaijj,’ she lashed on, shaking her head sideways. ‘Yo come anytime and we take care o’yo. Good time. Ayi-yaah. Many fun. Many, many fun…’”

Mostly, I’m reviewing this book because Olden told me that, after sixteen years, he is leaving China in a few months. I want to leave him a memento to remember us by. To borrow his own italicised phrase about a girl he doesn’t take a shine to: “You cannot let bitches like that go without a slap.”

Alec Ash is a writer and journalist in Beijing, and editor of the Anthill. Information and purchasing details of Shanghai Cocktales are on Facebook or Amazon (includes video). For a much more charitable take on this memoir, the Kirkus Review says it “gives readers plenty to think about.”

UPDATE, 6/4, 12:30 am: here’s our response to Tom Olden’s official response to Alec Ash’s review.

Disclaimer: We can’t be certain this oil being extracted from a gutter in Shanghai’s Tianzifang, a trendy “historic district” filled with kitschy shops and overpriced restaurants and bars, will be used on hotplates and woks and pans. But it sure is possible, isn’t it?

Sing their praises: Jiiiiianbing. Guaaaanbing. Shen jian bao! Tian youtiao! GIMMAY GIMMAY GIMMAYYYY.

All hail the fried Chinese goodies that we know and love. I’m a fearless street foodie, but watching this process of gutter oil being extracted from a storm drain is enough to dissuade my addiction.

Love, peace, and sewage-grease kisses from cosmopolitan Shanghai!

Danielle Sumita shot this video. She is the brains behind our Sindicator video series.

A photographer captured the incredible 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.

Shanghai Daily reports that the firefighters were Qian Lingyun, 23, and Liu Jie, 20. They landed on top of a second-floor platform of the building on Longwu Road in Xuhui District, and died from their injuries at the hospital.

Group leasing and electric wiring is being blamed for the cause of the fire and explosion.

Some neighbors in the building said there were several different groups of tenants squeezed into the apartment.

Pictures aired on a local TV station showed at least three double bunk beds inside the three-roomed apartment. What was left of a moped could be seen among the debris while another two were parked in the corridor outside.

Firefighters said there were a number of electrical items plugged into the apartment’s sockets and a lot of electric wiring in all three rooms.

UPDATE, 5/7, 12:33 pm: Via Shanghai Daily:

Thousands of people gathered at the Longhua Funeral Home yesterday morning to pay their respects to the two firefighters who plunged to their deaths from a 13th story window last Thursday.

…The officers were honored as Revolutionary Martyrs and members of the Communist Party of China, and awarded Top-Level Merit Citations and Shanghai May 4 Youth Medals, officials said.

(H/T That’s Online)

The 11th Adult Care Expo*, i.e. Shanghai Sexpo, ended on Sunday, and if you weren’t there for any of the three-day extravaganza of awkward gazing/touching/posing and shameless mobile recording inside the Shanghai International Exhibition Center (INTEX), we’ll fill you in: there were a lot of sex toys and aphrodisiacs, a lot of phalluses, a few AV stars but way more scantily clad girls — sometimes dancing, sometimes doing something… we don’t know — and a lot of QPR codes, often on skin, because sexpos have gone digital, baby. Judging by the pictures, it was all very goofy, like PG porn or sanitized sex approved by marketers for 13-year-olds. Nonetheless, what follows may not necessarily be suitable for viewing in the workplace.

Via Youth.cn (these pics also appear on NetEase, but Youth.cn seems more suitable), here’s a look at some of the expo’s more awkward moments:

Look at this next one – an editor blurred out this mannequin’s left nipple!

But this is totally okay, right? (From the same website’s slideshow.)

There were also live dancers, like this gal below. We’ll leave you with a couple of these videos. Try to watch them with a sober understanding that sex has been thoroughly commodified in this setup. Maybe you should watch this in the office: you’ll not find better tips on making money anywhere else.

* The full name of the event is technically the China International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition. Here’s a logo:

The bawdy and good folk of That’s Shanghai have published the three winning entries from its erotic fiction competition held earlier this month at Glamour Bar as part of the Capital M Literary Festival. (You might remember Jacob Dreyer’s review of the event for this site, which was heavy on Bai Ling.) As That’s editor Ned Kelly so delicately summarizes:

Sam Gaskin, champ in 2012, got all Tang Dynasty sex texty with us, Eric Fung Chen did it in a hospital, Jamie Fullerton imagined scenes of intimacy happening at the Camel Pub Quiz, Aymeric Fraise had a thing for a tattooed lady and Shanghai soul man Carlton J. Smith talked about anal sex in threesome done in relationships (and got away with it, but only because he is Carlton J. Smith…)

…Best Story was a shared between Danielle LeClerc, with a tale about Sapphic love, and Anthony Tao, with a tale so revolting you’ll just have to read it for yourselves.

But the big winner of the night – the huge throbbing winner of the night – was Meredith Yarbrough, whose Invasion of the Ferns was a tale of intergalactic automaton love coming a cropper in Shanghai, earning her Best Performance and People’s Choice, and two vibrators (and probably Best Story had we not felt the need to share the honors out a bit).

Danielle LeClerc’s “Pink,” Meredith Yarbrough’s “Invasion of the Ferns,” and my story, “The Biwalkers,” are all on the That’s website, so go on over there for a read. The Biwalkers is also republished below with permission. “So revolting,” says Ned Kelly.

~~

The Biwalkers

We are simple, we are persistent, and we are like you in every way except one. We are spirits unafraid to transgress, to truly love those who are different. We are biwalkers. Or, as the world calls us, beasts. I prefer that designation. Save the linguistic flounce and ribbed crepe for Valentine’s Day poems. We’ve been driven from the traveling circuses of the American south, the ranches of Mexico, and the petting zoos of northern Europe. We’ve offended Russian mobsters, been banned from temples, and beaten up by Southeast Asian sex workers. There is only one place left on this earth that would harbor our kind, one enclave where we can safely express our malformed rapacity and harpy lust: Shanghai.

Through one of my zoo connections, I was introduced to a woman known as Madame S. I arrived as instructed, at a back entrance precisely ninety minutes after closing, along with Hector Madagew, a friend I met on a SHEXpat online forum. As we waited, he nervously flicked cigarettes, half-smoked, onto the pavement, where he crushed them to embers with the tip of his boot. Eventually a rotund figure, like the shadow of a blimp, appeared out of the leafy shades.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she cooed in Chinese. I imagined her breath smelled like tar. A wicked smile like a knife wound spanned her pudgy face.

I grunted and walked ahead to indicate we were not men for words.

I felt her ghastly, vile smile directed at me. She caught up and overtook us. We were guided off the main path, through bushes. She snapped on a flashlight, likely for our benefit – I suspect she’d made this trip before. Finally, she put out an arm to motion us to slow. We had reached the edge of the pen.

We lowered ourselves down the embankment, grabbing at the bamboo to keep steady. I don’t know how, but that whale of a woman deftly, soundlessly joined us. Her light directed my vision toward a back wall, where I saw them, closer than in dreams: the brown of their eyes rippling with the water of desire, their snouts wet enough to sniff our warmness, soft like a gentle uncoiling, hard like a spring-loaded release into the pleasurable and unspeakable. One of them was turned to a side, its rump like a sumptuous moon ten thousand miles from here to nowhere. I imagine they must have shivered, sensing the eruption of our pheromones as we approached.

“This one is Cao Cao,” Madame introduced. “And that one over there is Sao Sao.”

“The little one is mine,” I said.

“Now, now, you have all night.”

“Which I’ll need.”

“Goodness, you biwalkers are as they say. Your lust is as imponderable as the jungle.”

Was she teasing, that bloated beast?

“Would you prefer the boy panda or the girl?” she asked.

I grimaced.

“Do you prefer one hole or…”

I hastily waved off her question. “No need for such vulgarity.”

Hector shifted where he stood.

“You have arranged the payment?”

“Yes, yes of course.”

“Good,” Madame said, again contorting her face. Normal people turn the sides of their lips upwards to smile, but hers went the other way. “Give me a smoke, now that we’re friends.” I elbowed Hector and motioned at his cigarettes, and he obliged. She took two. “We will go inside, where your suits are, and you will give me the money. Cao Cao and Sao Sao will then be let off their chains, per instruction. And then” – this next part she said in English – “the hunt begin.”

~

I know all about you: you who retain, in your immaculate marrow and God- or death-fearing bosom, traces of humanity. But imagine, for a moment, your heart not as an 11-ounce pump of life and blood but a caged gerbil you both loathe and adore. Watch it run. Watch it pursue its reflection in the glass, for otherwise shame seizes it and drowns it with unqualified love.

Ah, the hunt.

“Put out that cigarette, Mad,” I snapped. He did so. We hardly breathed as we tiptoed in our panda suits.

A rustling made us freeze.

Hector switched on his torch: the shaft of light landed square on his mark’s face. “Ah-ha!” he shouted, his voice like a pistol shot. He rushed off, and I knew better than to follow. The next five minutes were a mad scramble. I was assaulted by scents of displaced twigs, damp leaves, and the sound of scurrying feet. Just as quickly as it started, it stopped, again with Hector’s voice: “I got you now, ha ha!” There was a sharp, ursine cry, some punching or pounding, a bout of heavy breathing, a squeal, and then Hector again – “OW! ha ha!” – before he and his prey – lord help that panda – found their rhythm.

My ardor gained expression then and there, a fire blossoming into conflagration. I aimed my light in all directions with no discretion. It passed like a flash, or a delirium: a muzzle, a mat of black and white. I imagined moist marbles for eyes filling with resplendence upon my entrance. I took four quick paces, dropped my light, and leapt.

The panda resisted only perfunctorily, oddly silent. I dragged it to the base of a massive tree on an incline and bent it across the bough. “You like it dirty, I hope,” I crooned. And then I began.

What has become of me? What transformation? Is it possible to become what you so desperately seek? I am a panda, I said. I am a panda. I am a panda. I am a panda. Three minutes or so later, we were done. I rolled off that mound of fur and flesh and exhaled into the crisp night’s cover.

“That was a lot of fun.”

I froze.

I listened with my eyes, hoping my other senses could undo the mistake of my ears.

The silence persisted. Blood flushed into my cheeks. The gerbil in my chest ached for breath.

“But,” I began. I did not know what I meant to say. I heard the click of a lighter. Once. Twice.

“You’re…”

Squinting, I rubbernecked, my nose twitching, and in that antic dark which concealed everything, even desire, one pall of moonlight swept across like revelation over a hairless surface: copper, peach, lustrous like saliva, or the calk of plastic bamboo, her dermis glabrous and sickly like that of a… biwalker. The smell of tar infested my nostrils before I could see: cigarette smoke; an aslant, grotesque grin.

The lovely judges (from left to right) Bai Ling, Monica Liau, and Linda Jaivin (photo by Anthony Tao)

It’s not just every night that I walk into Glamour Bar and hear someone talking about figs mixing with the juices from their crotch. Well, all right, pretty much any time that I went I could hear that, but it’s too expensive for my nightly apertif. Still, an old friend was in town and wanted to meet there, and after all, it was only five minutes from my office, so I found myself at 3 on the Bund listening to all of the erotic fictions that Shanghai — and even one from Beijing – has to offer.

Boredly gazing through the crowd, next to That’s editor and emcee Ned Kelly, who was wearing a suit made out of red tablecloths, and judges Linda Jaivin and Monica Liau, I noticed a familiar face: actress Bai Ling, a pioneer of Asian erotic journalism — in fact, the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Playboy [NSFW]. Some friends of mine who do fashion are obsessed with this person, partly because she has a face from outer space. My evening immediately gained coherence: I would take a goofy photo with Bai Ling and send it to my friends in New York. The stories continued… about pandas, about whores with hearts of gold who nonetheless give corrupt cops AIDS, marking this on the mirror with lipstick (so basically, a page from the copy of “101 urban legends” from the middle school library, plus Hengshan Road in the 90s), and most vividly, about aliens who had sex with strangers in M1NT. As the competition heated up, Danielle Leclerc and Anthony Tao got physical, playing rock-paper-scissors to resolve a tie for the rights to a vibrator. The writer of the story about aliens, Meredith, rightly won the performance and audience prizes (both vibrators); although I would have liked to hear the famous shark tank in M1NT get a shout out.

Things wrapped up, my dream of Bai Ling giving me a photo op came true… J. and I headed to the burlesque club where she’d danced for years, as I began, ever the romantic dreamer, to send Weixin messages to Bai Ling. And on to another year of erotic fictions…

Jacob Dreyer’s first book, The Nocturnal Wanderer, is upcoming from Eros Press. You can reach him at jacobaugustusdreyer@gmail.com.

The author with Bai Ling

That’s editor Ned Kelly in his very red suit

Wei Gensheng is a professional crane operator. Maybe he should think about changing professions, because these pictures are breathtaking, probably the best we’ve seen of Shanghai’s skyline. Wei won second prize at the Shanghai City Photography Competition with these, which were snapped 2,000 feet (610 meters) above ground on the Shanghai Tower. (The building will be the world’s second tallest, behind the Burj Khalifa, when it’s completed later this year.)

The Daily Mail and Guardian appear to have gotten the jump on all of us with this story, first publishing some of these pictures in November, but the images have just begun to recirculate this week. Check out more via Bored Panda.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Adapted with permission from Hug China.

Shanghai, China’s financial hub, appears determined to compete with Beijing, China’s political epicenter, in every aspect, including pollution.

Starting Thursday, smog has shrouded Shanghai and nearby provinces, with PM2.5 readings shooting from 200 micrograms per cubic meter to as high as 700 at some air quality monitoring stations.

As of 1 pm Friday, the average PM2.5 reading in Shanghai reached an off-the-charts level of 602.5; the PM10 reading reached 671, with the highest reading recorded at 726 in Putuo district.

In neighboring Jiangsu province, visibility was less than 200 meters, causing expressways to be shut down. Visibility was less than 50 meters in some areas of central and east China on Saturday.

Not surprisingly, the frequently occurring smog has sparked outrage and debate among Chinese netizens. But in a country where ordinary people have no say in the administration of their nation, they’re limited to criticizing, mocking, and sighing on the Internet.

As a result, a new buzzword has gone viral: “Feed People Smog” (喂人民服雾), or Wei renmin fuwu. It’s a homophone for “Serve the People” (为人民服务), a political slogan introduced by Mao Zedong as a requirement for all government officials and party cadres.

“Feed people smog” first appeared in the comment section of an article and was subsequently reposted on news portals and social media. The comment reads:

Currently many netizens are discussing a Chinese name for PM2.5. Some propose serious names such as “public smog source” (a homophone for civil servants), high-end names as “capital dust” or “Beijing dust,” hegemonic names as “dust-caused disease misses sweet” (a homophone for Genghis Khan), optimistic names as “dust world beautiful” (a homophone for the ancient Chinese heartbreaker Chen Shimei), and entertaining names as “keep inhaling dust” (a homophone for the Hong Kong actor Edison Chan). But all these names are just so-so in my opinion. I didn’t understand the power of the Chinese language until five characters came to me: “Feed the people smog!”

Cynical Chinese netizens have added more sarcastic comments:

A NetEase netizen from Shanghai: What the Japanese 731 army did not achieve has been all realized! Feed the people smog!

NetEase netizen 天一的天天下第一的一: A special scenery. Shanghai shall repackage and promote it and property prices will soon double.

NetEase netizen billlee2013: The atmosphere is good. Shanghai deserves its nickname Demon Capital.

A NetEase netizen from Shenzhen: Good phenomenon! Smog can enhance the immune system for Shanghai residents.

‘Feed people smog’ becomes new buzz word in China… (Hug China)

Our favorite Masshole in China, Donnie, has done his best work yet, pretending to be Roger Federer on the streets of Shanghai. “Wo ai Zhongguo,” he says, which is exactly what the real Rog would’ve said, probably.

Not to be missed is the girl who covers her mouth and nearly giggles herself into oblivion, thinking Roger Federer just told her (in Chinese!) that she’s “very cute.”

If only the real Roger Federer signed his name like this:

Via Hug China:

A middle aged woman stripped herself nude and tore at male cop’s trousers when fined for riding her scooter in the wrong direction in Shanghai.

Sorry, I’ve been drinking too much. Explain slowly for me please: why would anyone ride their scooter in the wrong direction?

A middle aged woman stripped off naked and vehemently resisted law enforcement of police when caught violating traffic rules in Shanghai, Xinmin Net reported.

The woman was caught riding her scooter in the wrong direction at an intersection along the Waiqingsong Road in Shanghai’s Qingpu district.

A police intercepted, criticized and educated her, then when the police asked for a fine of 50 yuan, the woman did not cooperate and refused to pay the fine, but the police retained her scooter and did not let her go.

It gets better or worse from there. Depending on your definition of better/worse and from whose perspective you’re analyzing the situation.

Tough Shanghai woman caught and fined for violating traffic rule (Hug China)

Here’s an intersection in Shanghai with 60 surveillance cameras. What do you think they’re on the lookout for?

Hug China has this:

Authorities in Shanghai’s Baoshan District have installed more than 60 surveillance cameras on one four-lane section of Youyi Road, according to a NetEase report.

The apparently excessive surveillance cameras that were densely crowded on one overhead bar have confused many drivers and shortly after one curious driver took a group of pictures of them and posted online, the pictures have drawn major media coverage.

Locals told reporters that in April, the poles only had 24 cameras attached, in the last few months authorities added an extra 36.

Just so that’s clear: there use to be 24 cameras, but authorities have since added 36. Sadly — is that the right word? — most of the cameras have been removed since the unwanted media attention.

Still, don’t ever commit a traffic violation on that road. Big Brother is apparently a diptera with compound eyes.

Shanghai police crowd more than 60 surveillance cameras on single overhead bar… (Hug China)

Good morning, everyone. Here’s a masterly little timelapse video shot by Joe Nafis from his 23rd-floor apartment window in Shanghai, with footage collected over two years. Now go do something inspirational today, people.

(H/T Shanghaiist)

Youku user chenkai0104 uploaded this video of two men in a flat-out melee on Line 2 of the Shanghai Metro on Tuesday. These chaps show some real form! Check out the passengers laughing from the sideline, delighted to have front-row tickets for this bout. The two men pause for a rest at the 34-second mark as a referee steps in. And then, for all our benefit, the sparring resumes.

The lovely young woman who’s been flashing late-night revelers in Shanghai has been detained — maybe.

The video above shows someone — a naked young woman, certainly — being taken in by authorities after she was caught bathing naked in a public fountain. Is it the original Shanghai streaker though, or merely a copycat?

According to this Liveleak video description, “This video claims to show her arrest as she bathes in a very public fountain. There is some conjecture, however, as to whether this is the actual Shanghai Streaker or not…many claiming she is still at large.”

We can only hope. Stay tuned for updates, and as always, let us know if you’ve seen this gal.

(H/T RFH)

UPDATE, 10/17, 1:51 am: That is indeed an old video, from February 2012, it turns out. Thanks to @iChinadian for pointing it out for us, and apologies about suggesting it was the Shanghai exhibitionist. The good news is, she’s still on the loose.