A recently uploaded video by Youku user 比利时巧克力2, titled "Beijing dance instructor causes worldwide stir, physically and verbally assaults students," has been viewed 1.4 million times in the past three days. Chinese-version China Daily got in touch with the Youku user, who said the video comes from an (unidentified) international video-sharing site and was uploaded last November. ...

The Stand-up Showcase portion of the Beijing Improv Festival took place this past Friday. Here's my takeaway after watching the five finalists: It turns out that there's an honest-to-goodness, thriving stand-up scene in Beijing. If you're a closeted comedy nerd who'll only risk coming out to see live shows in Beijing when big name comics fly in from the States, I hate to break it to you, but Louis CK isn't ...

If you'll allow yourself a quick moment of unabashedly sentimental feel-goodness, please turn your attention to this story out of Longmen Township in Sichuan province. A Youku citizen journalist encountered an old couple walking down a mountain road in this earthquake-striken part of town on Monday at 9 am. The woman, hard of hearing, is 90 years old this year, while her husband is 88. The couple has no hom ...

The earth's convulsion along the Longmenshan front on Saturday jiggered a few rocks loose from the mountains of Sichuan, among other things, and on a narrow road connecting Longmentong and Baosheng Township, a boulder rested squarely in the middle, blocking everything. Two days later, the bulldozers were out, along with a demolition team. Uniformed young men, looking like China's version of the national gua ...

Check out this young couple on the Taipei subway: he reads a book while she, um, sleeps on his lap... with a jacket over her head... bobbing up and down. Yeah. Sneaky, naughty, and bookish. Kids these days. ...

Wu Yong, who lost his only son in the Ya'an Earthquake, initially comes across as calm and collected as he recalls the story of how he discovered his child buried, while sleeping, under rubble. When his stoic front finally crumbles and he sobs into his hand, what we have is a human face, an individual, in the wake of a collective tragedy. ...

Chris Tang caught our attention in February 2012, when it looked like he might be the best Chinese high school basketball player on the planet. He has the size (6-foot-3 last we checked, though he's likely still growing), the athletic ability, and the shooting touch. He's also enrolled at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, a veritable factory for basketball players at elite college programs across the country. ...

The tireless, talented and slightly subversive Feng Xiaogang accepted the China Film Directors Guild's director of the year award on April 12, and he had some pointed things to say in his acceptance speech. Pointed things that you will not hear, because they were censored. Pointed as in the word "censorship." ...

Tuesday morning in Guangzhou's Huangpu District, a man believed to be mentally unstable ran around trying to chop random people with a knife. He reportedly injured two, a 45-year-old male pedestrian and the female owner of a secondhand shop, before encountering police on Dianchang Road. The man began chasing the cops, remaining ever crazy. After repeated warnings fell on deaf ears, officers pulled out firea ...

A residential building fire on Monday near Yuegezhuang Bridge in Beijing forced one particularly desperate man scurrying out of his fifth-floor window and onto a very thin ledge, where he held on for several white-knuckle minutes. Then, at the 5:07 mark of the above video, he falls — simply falls. People gasp, then scream. Throughout all this, a woman behind the camera can clearly be heard asking, “What’s t ...

Policemen aren't supposed to flee from crime scenes. On March 31 in Liaoning province, a cop, driving on the wrong side of the road, plowed into a pedestrian on Fuxin Mongolian Autonomous County Ring Road, as seen above on just-released footage from a dashboard camera. The police vehicle accelerated, sirens on, away from the accident. ...

Chengguan, those salt of the earth, are pushing back against negative public perceptions of their profession. One particular urban law enforcement officer in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, Jiang Yifan, created the above video recently to "clear up some misunderstandings," as Danwei's Barry van Wyk writes. A couple of things though: ...

We've seen our share of Gangnam Style dances and remixes, from the good to the bad to the political to the Ai Weiwei, but nothing quite as weird as this. Our friends over at That's Beijing tweeted the above video, titled "Beijing Dancer (Mr. Fabulous)." It was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday by Michaeljava, who writes: ...

Indoctrination sucks, and if you needed proof, watch this clip from North Korean TV showing a reported 18,423 children at a medal ceremony in Pyongyang paying obeisance to their country and Kim Jong-un. According to the Youku video description, the highest honors are reserved for those standing in the front rows: they're the ones who have volunteered to become suicide bombers in case of a war with the US. ...

The 2013 Beijing Improv Comedy Festival is taking place right now. Here's what you need to know and what you don't about this premier comedy event: Who? Improv troupes from all over the world, including the Philippines, Australia, and comedy hotbed Turkey, as well as throughout China. But does it really matter? All you care about is whether or not they are funny. When and Where? It's happening right now, at ...

A major fire yesterday morning has killed at least 14 in Xiangyang, Hubei province, with another 47 injured. Shanghai Daily reports that the blaze started at 6 am on Sunday from an Internet cafe before spreading to a nearby hotel. An employee said that 42 of the hotel's 50 rooms were occupied at the time. He said some guests were saved by firefighters while other managed to escape by themselves. ...

"Golfer from China." "Chinese golfer." "Asian." Hell, just stick with "14-year-old." "Chinaman"? "Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature," notes Timothy Burke of Deadspin, who pulled the above clip from a newscast in Lafayette, Louisiana. ...

Fernando Alonso of Spain steered his Ferrari to victory at Formula One's Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday at Shanghai International Circuit. F1 fans should know Mark Webber didn't do as well, as WorldCarFans.com reports. Alonso, sounding more bored than anything afterward, said: "The celebrations tonight will be nothing special as I have an early flight for Bahrain," where F1's next race will be held. The Guard ...

Pyongyang hosted the 26th annual Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon on Sunday, featuring a reported 251 runners, including 14 from countries such as Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia. The event was part of the country's ongoing celebrations for Kim Il-sung, whose birthday is today. ...

If you're looking for analysis on why China loved Jon Stewart's digs at Kim Jong-un (above), head over to the Washington Post, where Max Fisher writes: When the popular Chinese Web portal Sina posted an eight-minute segment from the show discussing the latest North Korean provocations, it racked up an astounding 2.8 million views and counting, as well as tens of thousands of comments, many of them praising ...