Protestors in Hong Kong clashed with police in the early morning hours today, reportedly over the removal of illegal street food vendors in Mong Kok. The AP says the violence was the worst in the city since the pro-democracy protests of 2014.

In the nearly 10-minute video above, protesters are seen hurling bricks, glass bottles, and other objects at police. Something gets lit on fire around the 5:30 mark.

SCMP reports that running street battles lasted about six hours, and that police fired two warning shots into the air.

Even as late as 8am, an angry mob could be spotted at the intersection of Sai Yee Street and Shantung Street, continuing to hurl bricks and glass bottles into the police lines as curious residents watched from the bleachers and commuters walked to work.

And here’s AP again on the early fallout:

Acting District Commander Yau Siu-kei said 23 men and one woman were arrested on suspicion of assaulting and obstructing officers, resisting arrest and public disorder. The arrested were as young as 17 and as old as 70. Police said 48 officers were hurt by glass and flying objects and confirmed that two warnings shots were fired.

Monday was the first full day of the lunar new year. The street vendors of Hong Kong, even those operating without licenses, have traditionally been ignored during the holidays, and it’s unclear the reasons for the crackdown this year.

Hong Kong’s annual Chinese New Year Victoria Harbor fireworks show is scheduled for tonight. It’ll continue as planned, with extra security.

CNN has some photos of the Mong Kok riots:

Every time I biked past the dozens of men (and the occasional woman) fishing in Beijing’s canals, I’d assumed they were fishing for their dinner. I shuddered at the thought of eating anything that came out of a stinking canal that already had dead fish floating in it. I mentioned it to my Chinese coworkers and they said it was impossible, that nobody would be crazy enough to eat Beijing’s fish. But I wasn’t convinced, so camera in hand, I went to find out.

Many people whom I interviewed were very candid about their fishing habits, discussing either their complete willingness to consume their catch, or their refusal to do so. Of those I spoke with, almost half insisted the water was okay.

The thing that was missing from everybody’s commentary was scientific fact. My team contacted some labs and found just one that was willing to test a fish for toxins, Ponytest. But after I’d obtained a fish from a canal in west Beijing, Ponytest suddenly informed us that we’d have to wait an additional three weeks before we could even bring them the sample. That plus the two weeks to complete the testing, unfortunately amounted to a timeline which was beyond my deadline.

So, are these Beijing fish safe to eat or not? I can’t say for sure, but I definitely wouldn’t use my stomach to find out.

You may think you’ve seen them all, but this one has that little something extra. It’s worth watching from the beginning, but go to the 30-second mark for a mushroom cloud of commentary. Noooooooo fucking way.

To celebrate the debut of Beijing Blend on Beijing Cream, we’re offering a second helping this week. The hosts talk about the Great Fall of China — the country’s recent stock market crash that wiped out $3 trillion – and the role that damas – Chinese grannies — might have played. Also, check out Hong Kong’s hottest new cruise, combining “the fun of botox with bare boy’s bums.” Yeah you’ll just have to watch.

Beijing Blend is an e-magazine/news digest that blends China culture and conversation. Follow them on Twitter, and come back every Tuesday for a new episode in this ongoing video series.

Filmed at Beijing’s Bookworm, hosted by Tianran He and Stanley Tsang

If you’ve been anywhere near WeChat or Weibo today (or China’s corner of Twitter, for that matter), you’ve likely heard that a young man filmed himself having sex with a young woman in a fitting room in the Sanlitun branch of Uniqlo in Beijing recently. The video was uploaded to the Internet yesterday evening and has been making the rounds. It’s out there. Someone was gonna post it. [...] Here it is.

In case you were wondering, as many online have, Uniqlo says this was not a publicity stunt (who do you think they are, American Apparel?). Quote from Shanghai Daily:

In its statement released on Wednesday morning, Uniqlo said it has reported the indecent content to websites where it appeared “immediately.”

“We would like to remind the public to uphold social morality and use our fitting rooms in a correct and proper way,” said Uniqlo.

“We also firmly deny some online allegations saying the video is our publicity stunt.” Uniqlo said in the statement.

UPDATE:

Ed’s note: Everyone! Please meet Beijing Blend, a social media news digest / e-magazine doing very cool things both IRL (creative events, talks, etc.) and on the intranet (WeChat, namely). For the past couple of months, they’ve been uploading short videos on their YouTube page in which a rotating cast of genial hosts discuss a series* of current events. We’ll be posting them here every Tuesday. It’ll be fun. Oh, and go follow them on Twitter. –A.T.

*Or in the case of this video: Jackie Chan.

Filmed at Beijing’s Meridian Space, with hosts Daniel Epstein and Katrina Yu

Want to visit the backwater Yunnan town of Jinding, which sits in the shadow of Asia’s largest lead mine? Of course you don’t. Luckily, Greenpeace has done it for you, and come away with this 360-degree, interactive video shot from a drone.

Don’t be fooled by those blue skies. Jinding, in the impoverished county of Lanping, is heavily polluted, according to a Greenpeace East Asia (GPEA) investigation:

GPEA’s field work was conducted in mid-April of this year. The team collected household dust and earth and water samples in Jinding Town. Tests showed that cadmium and lead contamination in the area is widespread. Further analysis revealed that the samples’ cadmium, lead and zinc content have a direct correlation to proximity to the Jinding Zinc Industrial Smelting Plant.

The health effects have been troubling:

In 2006 Yunnan Jinding Zinc Corporation Ltd. acknowledged that the minimum distance between residential areas and the plant should be 600m, and promised to relocate residents accordingly – a promise yet to  be fulfilled. The plant has caused numerous health problems for the villagers, especially amongst children, who are particularly susceptible to lead absorption.

A GPEA review of blood lead poisoning cases across China over the past 10 years has found that a third of all cases are caused by lead-zinc smelting. As the largest lead producer and lead polluter in western China, the problems are particularly severe in Yunnan.

It’s yet another reminder that pollution takes many forms in China — soil in this case; also see: water – and sometimes is not so easily masked. As GPEA puts it:

This is just one way we can show the world this scandal. We can’t let Yunnan Jinding Zinc Corporation Ltd. keep getting away with hiding from their responsibilities. They must keep their promise to relocate local residents.

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.

A goalkeeper makes dozens of decisions over the course of every match, from how to position himself to whether to attack or sit back on incoming crosses, and the slightest miscalculation can sometimes be the difference between a win and something lesser. Never will this point be more obviously illustrated than during Sunday’s Chinese Super League match between Chongqing Lifan and Liaoning Hongyun, when Chongqing goalkeeper Sui Weijie’s crucial decision to take a sip of water cost his team a victory.

In the 84th minute, Chongqing was up 1-0 when it committed a foul just outside its box. While Chongqing’s defenders are pleading their case around the referee, Liaoning’s Ding Haifeng quick starts the free kick, taking everybody by surprise — most of all Chongqing’s goalkeeper, who was sipping from his water bottle when the ball rolled into his unmanned goal.

This is the face of a man who knows he done screwed up and will sleep a lonely sleep:

The funniest part, by far, is the reaction of the Chongqing manager, who can’t even be all that mad at his keeper since it looks like he was caught just as unawares… and equally thirsty:

(Via Fail Goal via Who Ate All the Pies)

Maybe you’ve already seen this because it was published two years ago, but I found it just now and can’t resist publishing, because there’s some high-definition goodness happening here.

“I couldn’t fall asleep so at 3 a.m I took my camera and tripod to the drinking hub to see what a friday would bring,” says the video description from Jordan Leahy. It begins with an eye-level shot of malatang, the soft smoke from the boiling broth lingering in the cool autumn air. There are scenes of foreigners and toddlers alike, couples talking to one another in front of TV screens, balloon merchants under the pale yellow light of what will soon be another in Sanlitun’s long string of forgotten nights. The slow pan of vendors. The arrays of street food. The accretions of light. A purpling interlude between twilight and dawn…

It’s all prelude for what happens beginning at the 1:50 mark. Feel to fast-forward.

Ahhh, Sanlitun.

As widely prophesied on weather apps this morning, a sandstorm smote us this evening. Around 6 pm, our editor-at-large received an ominous warning about said sandstorm devastating Changping. Minutes later, it was we in Sanlitun amid its yellow maw. I wonder if people noticed…

Ed’s note: Portrait of a Beijinger is an original video series for the Anthill by Tom Fearon and Abel Blanco. Each month, Tom and Abel will profile an ordinary Beijinger with an extraordinary story. The first episode in the series, along with Tom’s description of meeting its protagonist Liu Xinran, is republished with permission from the Anthill.

Liu Xinran has a face many Chinese women would envy. High cheekbones, smooth skin and a narrow chin give him a coveted guazilian or “melon-seed face”. He introduces himself in a voice much softer than the one that will fill the Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre in a few hours time.

“Did you find your way here OK?” he asks.

“No problem at all,” I reply, shaking his manicured hand.

We step into the 300 year old theatre. It is empty except for a couple of janitors whose vacuum cleaner drowns an erhu (Chinese fiddle) strummed by a young woman in glasses by the side of the stage.

Dressed in a knitted pullover, grey trousers and cloth shoes, Liu struts around stage waving a wand-like prop and warming up his vocal chords. He stares into the camera as if confronting an intruder on stage, his eyes as piercing as his voice. Each delicate step is timed to the downbeat of the erhu. A passionate argument of falsetto versus fiddle ensues, begging for an opera gong to weigh in and restore calm.

Peking opera has the shortest history of the hundreds of Chinese opera styles, but remains the most influential. The curtain fell on it during the Cultural Revolution when it was denounced as bourgeois, but curious tourists, nostalgic locals and state-run drama academies are providing a modern encore for a national treasure.

Liu, 38, is a rarity. Unlike many of the performers in his troupe who were trained as children, he took up the craft after quitting his job as a publicity clerk for the Beijing Meteorological Bureau in 2010. His parents protested, but his destiny had been sealed four years earlier when he won the top prize at the Beijing Amateur Peking Opera Competition.

He also stands out as one of only around a dozen active nandan performers in Beijing – men who portray female characters in Peking opera. I ask if he is inspired by the most famous nandan, Mei Lanfang, whose black-and-white portrait eyes us solemnly from the back of the theatre. But Liu says his mantra on stage is innovation, not imitation; copying Mei will lead to the “death of my artistic life”.

After the interview we head backstage. An old man irons sequined loose-sleeved costumes as the cast trickles in. There are no makeup artists or hair stylists; all preening is done by performers themselves. Eyes locked on their rapidly transforming reflections, they chat excitedly about plans for the upcoming Spring Festival.

An announcement prohibiting photography during the show is made as the audience settles into cushioned wooden chairs, but we are told it doesn’t apply to us. Apparently, we aren’t alone. Smartphone shutter noises click between cracking sunflower seeds throughout the show, but the performers aren’t fazed. Having their photos beamed on WeChat feeds might draw new faces the next night.

Later, Liu shows me his other passion: his beverage can collection. We walk down a narrow concrete corridor stained with cellphone numbers towards his eighth-floor apartment. A thick haze lingers overhead and firework debris dances below. Liu’s home is tidy, with a framed calligraphy scroll in the living room and an impressive collection of scotch and other expensive liquors. But he explains his year-round drink of choice is hot water, to protect his voice.

The cans are all in mint condition. It is a collector’s (and trash peddler’s) heaven. Sorted by age and location, each can contains a memory of a certain place or performance. Liu picks out a dozen of his favourites and gives them a gentle polish before lining them on a table in the living room for our slow dolly pan.

Before parting, Abel and I offer him a token of our appreciation – a nice bottle of Spanish olive oil and some TimTam chocolate biscuits from Australia. Mementos from our respective countries, to add to his collection.

Text, interviewing and subtitles are by Tom Fearon; cinematography and photos are by Abel Blanco.

Tom Fearon is a writer and editor who has lived in China since 2009. He worked in Chinese state media for many years, and previously as a print journalist in Cambodia and Australia. He now works in communications at an international school. You can read his poems for the Anthill here.

Abel Blanco is a videographer based in Beijing who formerly worked in broadcast media in Spain. You can see some of his other short films here.

Next month’s video is about a deli owner in Changping with a military relic museum in the basement. To recommend a person to be profiled in the series, please contact Tom.

This post originally appeared on the Anthill, where there are more photos of the performers.

Don’t look now, but a basketball dynasty is blossoming in Beijing, and the only man who was brash enough to dream it — to, indeed, articulate that dream — was the pride of Coney Island, Stephon Marbury.

“I said we wanted to build a dynasty here in Beijing,” Marbury told reporters in the locker room following the Beijing Ducks’ series-clinching Game 6 win over Liaoning, 106-98, on the opponent’s court. “A lot of people said that I was crazy for saying that, but I believed in my teammates, I believed in Coach Min, I believed in the Beijing organization. We’ve done everything in our power to make this work. To be able to be in this light right now, I’m just thankful and I’m just humble.”

(Before that: “The real men will rise. The real men will rise. I just want to thank my God Jesus Christ for giving me the light to do all the things that I’ve been able to do. It’s been beautiful journey in Beijing, baby. They said I was old, they said I can’t play no more, the critics said I can’t do it no more — it’s all good. It’s all good, baby. Can I get my championship shirt, please?”)

Marbury — and I can’t emphasize this enough — was unstoppable all series, as he has been all postseason, as he has been all season, and every season in which he’s played in China. There were no tears this time, just a lot of joy and the relief of ending a season on top. The Ducks have now won three of the last four titles, including the last two.

Marbury again: “I want to say congratulations to Liaoning, those guys played a great season throughout the whole year, they’re a really good team, they’re going to be tough in the future, but the real men rose today, and that’s just all that happened today.”

The 38-year-old (!) guard was selected finals MVP, the first time he’s won the honor. (In the Ducks’ first title win in 2012, a rule prevented foreigners from winning MVP, though everyone knew Marbury deserved it. Last year, his teammate Randolph Morris earned it.) Here he is with his handprint plaque:

Check out the following highlight reel, in which Marbury goes Jordan on everyone. It truly has been a delight to watch:

(Images via Sina, Sohu)

Here’s another view of the fireworks on Chinese New Year’s Eve last Wednesday night, taken by someone on a plane landing over Beijing. In my previous post I wrote, “During no other time, living on the ground here, do I feel like zooming out to become an all-seeing observer.” I guess it’d look something like this.

(H/T Jim Boyce)

For the first time ever, New York City set off fireworks to commemorate Chinese New Year. It happened over the Hudson and was synchronized and jubilant. At one moment it looked like skyscrapers were melting out of the night. Colorful. Impressive. Yet it was still mere facsimile for the real thing. You see, for my money, the most noteworthy — if not outright best – New Year’s celebration happens in Beijing.

It was picturesque again this year, but for none of the reasons above. The explosions were over concrete (except at Houhai, where there was frozen water), scattered and chaotic, and emotionally vacant, all bluster and fury like a child who shrieks because he can’t articulate emotions. Then again, Chinese New Year’s fireworks are for beating back evil, not impressing tourists. They are expressions — extensions? — of spirit, if it’s not too much to say so, celebrations of survival that are neither sanctioned by the soft-culture impresarios who drum up corporate concert celebrations nor, really, encouraged (after all, a significant piece of state property went up in flames amidst fireworks only six years ago). In a country divided along so many lines — generational, wealth, gender, household registration, political, cultural, ethnic — it’s only on Chinese New Year’s Eve that people seem truly united, and even then, only accidentally and incidentally.

Long strings of firecrackers, red and green rockets, shot tubes that brighten the sky, plain explosives — who are the people who light the fuses, who then, comically, scurry for safety? I notice it’s mostly the middle-aged, though a young child is often present, sometimes holding a sparkler or variations of the roman candle. Sometimes there is a small crowd that watches from a remove. Most of the time it’s security guards — young — or policemen who have the misfortune of drawing the New Year’s Eve nightshift, forced to watch over a city suddenly folded inward, its shutters closed like the outer gates of an ancient family courtyard.

During no other time, living on the ground here, do I feel like zooming out to become an all-seeing observer, impartial. Yet simultaneously, paradoxically and impossibly, at no other time do I ache to be a participant, to be not everywhere but more fully in one specific place, the one I’m occupying. It’s not so much the pyrotechnics — I have no particular nostalgia for them — as the space between the bursts: the small silences when you’re allowed to consider where, on a night like this, evil might hide. From where in the deep recesses of yourself will it eventually emerge?

Screenshots from the above video I put together: