Results tagged “newyork”

The Grand Opening of the Channel One mall complex is this Saturday, September 19, and to celebrate, it'll be running a "New York Impressions" week.

Last month the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times published Riding the It Factor, putting forward the Dutch bicycle as the new fashionable "It object" on the New York streets in these times of "Great Downturn."

A lot of us over here have friends that we miss terribly over in the U.S., but our repeated pleas to have them come and visit are usually met with a sad shrug and something along the lines of, “We're in the middle of an economic crisis over here. I ain't got funds, man.”

Shanghai made it to 4th place in Forbes' list of the world's tallest cities with a total of 21 towers climbing over 700 feet. The current tallest is the Shanghai World Financial Center, at 1,614 feet, but it'll be surpassed by the Shanghai Tower, which is expected to be completed in 2014 and reach heights of 2,000 feet. It was beat out by Dubai, Hong Kong and, at number one, New York City.

Randy Cohen, New York Times "The Ethicist" columnist, might be inclined to think so. Granted, Cohen's anti-auto podcast from last week is about Manhattan, but several of his arguments already seem applicable to Shanghai (and, in 2020, when our city's subway system looks like this, there will be few ethical excuses for owning personal cars in most of Shanghai). Cohen lays out five reasons why cars and Manhattanites shouldn't mix. Here's No. 1: "Cars kill. If you introduced a transportation system by announcing, 'It'll only kill 40,000 people a year,' it's hard to believe it would gain widespread popularity." (The number of "traffic deaths" in China was down to 73,484 in 2008, but up 100 percent over the last 20 years.) Listen to all New York Times podcasts here or subscribe via iTunes. They're all free.

Danwei directed us to the embedded six-month old video of a short local NBC News piece on a Chinese-made three-wheel "car" available from a dealer in Webster, New York (it's actually available in several places in the U.S., like Michigan). The Webster dealer (we think this is his MySpace page ... yes, MySpace) claims women love the Wildfire WF650-C. The jury is still out on that one.

Frenchman in Shanghai 《上海的法国人》, a cover of Sting's 1987 hit Englishman in New York, by Roubichou Gauthier.

By Benjamin Cohen

Wong Kar-wai is celebrating the opening of his shit movie My Blueberry Nights in the US this Friday by selling some merchandise — most notably, $95 t-shirts, $50 posters, and $25 postcards. And if you want to thank him for ripping you off in person, you'll get your chance in New York at a fashion boutique store called Opening Ceremony, where Wong is going to be on Wednesday afternoon. We hope that someone tells him that the US is facing a recession and that the real incomes are not increasing for the average American. $25 for a postcard? You can get four lattes in Manhattan for that price! Sheesh!

From Al-Jazeera English:

The Beijing Olympics are still 5 months away but they're attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.

Continue reading "Al-Jazeera: Tibetan activists condemn Beijing Olympics"

It wasn't until we read this interview in Salon with Jennifer 8. Lee (and that's not a typo, folks), New York Times journalist and author of the book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, that we suddenly realized that it has been forever since we've had beef with broccoli or General Tso's chicken. We think it's because we haven't made room in our ordering agenda given the unbelievable amount of variety and selection in Shanghai in terms of Chinese food. The interview definitely wants to make us read the book as a way to cross-check and validate our experiences as a Chinese-American raised on American-Chinese food (go Panda Express!).

Editor's Note: This is an update to that flash mob we told you about earlier. The writer was the organiser of the event.

• Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.
• Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.
• Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only just begun.
• SFist debated the merits of new bronze plaques that will be placed in locations where San Francisco's homeless have died.
• DCist was obliged to respond to the worst Washington Post Outlook column ever published, in which conservative writer Charlotte Allen tried to make the case that women are dumb.
• LAist found Satan's ice cream truck trolling the streets, and they recorded the music.
• Some crafty Torontoist readers didn't like the dearth of ski hills in downtown Toronto, so they just built one of their own on their deck and (of course) recorded a video of them all taking turns on it.
• Bostonist knows the city's subway and bus system, the MBTA, has problems. So does this 17-year-old who submitted a report and told the MBTA brass how to fix it.
• Phillyist explored the possibility of an Ivy League prostitute, while their commenters debated the most ethical approach to proving or debunking the story.
• Londonist spent a little too much time looking at airbrushed operatic private parts, and enjoyed an enlightening comment from someone who was there.
  Continue reading "Week Around the -ists"

Ex-Playboy covergirl, epileptic dancer, and Shanghai Baby Bai Ling, was, as we told you earlier, arrested for shoplifting, but apparently, her shoplifting charges have been dropped and she was fined a grand total of US$200 for disturbing the peace. Here is her account of the incident:

"I went across the [hall] with the toy in my hand, and asked which battery would fit. They told me [they knew which would fit], but they had really long line and I had to make the flight," the New York Post quoted her as saying. Bai claimed store clerks asked if she could wait and she agreed, exiting to the side of the shop, continuing to call and text. The next thing she knew, she was being arrested for shoplifting.

Continue reading "Bai Ling fined US$200"

Xinhua: Foreign reporters enjoy greater freedom covering China's "two sessions":

Andrew Kirillov, Beijing bureau chief of the Itar-Tass News Agency in Russia, appeared joyous when registering to cover China's upcoming "two sessions", not only because he was to witness the important political event again, but he would find it much easier to locate interviewees.

Continue reading "What they're saying about the NPC: Xinhua vs SCMP"

By W.E.B Lowery

"China on Saturday warned its citizens against shopping at a leading Paris department store that wrongly accused a young Chinese couple of trying to pay with a fake banknote, state media said."

Photo from Shanghai Sky

Amsterdam-based World Press Photo earlier this month announced the winners of its annual photo contest, the world's largest and most prestigious for press photography. Shanghai-based photographer Ariana Lindquist, an American who shoots for the New York Times, TIME and other publications, won first prize in Arts and Entertainment for her portrait of a girl in an anime costume at Shanghai Stadium. We think the least all Shanghaiist readers could do is buy Ariana a drink (that's one drink each, not total). Way to go, Ariana!

The observations by two veteran photographers of a rapidly changing Shanghai over ten-plus years should be reason enough to traipse over to Moganshan Road. Van der Hilst’s color Kodachrome works will allow us a glimpse into Shanghai on the brink of transformation in the early 1990s (good opportunity for some of us who had been in primary schools back then, too busy figuring out multiplication tables to notice) while French, the New York Times' Shanghai correspondent delves into the more recent past with his black-and-white documentation of life in Shanghai’s back alleys during the last five years.

At the risk of damning all that is cool and underground with our pro-whiteboy Midas touch, we're going to tell you how much we enjoyed watching the soul, funk, R&B and sometimes classic rock band LX play at Logo on Wednesday. This band is headed by Lucius Clark (whom we are told is from New York), and the other players include the very talented Vladimir on guitar (sorry we don't know your last name), whom we've seen play gypsy jazz on Fridays past with Etienne at La Bella. There are also some other band members from Mauritius who also rock but sorry, we don't know their names.

In Paris, New York City and the Hague:

Monsters & Critics: Taiwan accesses damage after US unveils Chinese espionage

We've all been hearing reports about the nightmare caused by the snow, or what Xinhua calls "China's war on snow havoc", which isn't quite as felicitous a phrase as the "US War on Terror", but hey, at least it's more real! The New York Times, among other media outlets, talks about the sense of anger and resentment that people are feeling about what some consider as a lack of preparation on the government's part.

Image credit: Nature abhors a vacuum

China Daily: Shanghai to base growth on service industry

Continue reading "Week Around the -Ists"

Recently, Tudou's Marc van der Chijs commented on how he knew the bubble in the Chinese stockmarket had to burst soon when he found out that his driver, too, had jumped headlong onto the stock bandwagon although he had zero understanding of how stockmarkets work. You will find an echo of that sentiment in Al-Jazeera's latest report on China's current stockmarket frenzy. Meanwhile, David Barboza of the New York Times says China wonders if its stock market boom is over. And as China Digital Times reports, the recent stock market crash caused a Beijing investor to attempt suicide in the Wangfujing shopping district. Video after the jump:

Next time, Steve, stay for some Grandma's Mashed Potatoes. Trust us.

A China Daily report dated 14 December 2007 suggesting that Beijing may make a temporary exception for banned foreign publications such as Playboy and The Sun has travelled around the world and created a mini-furore and lots of confusion back home here. Here are the offending paragraphs:

All pornographic material is prohibited on the mainland but a temporary exception could be made for the Games, according to the biggest importer of foreign publications in the country. "Our law forbids Playboy and we should obey this, but we can't rule out the possibility that it might make its debut. There might be a demand for it (from athletes or visitors) during the Games," said Liang Jianrui, vice-president of China National Publications Import and Export Corporation, which will manage the nine magazine-selling kiosks sanctioned by Olympic organizers BOCOG during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Continue reading "Will Playboy come to China?"