InsideGFW

Walk into Southern Belle on a Wednesday night and you’ll probably see 28-year-old Tom Pang sitting alone on the terrace smoking. He doesn’t have a band, there’s no upright bass or banjo in his set, but Pang strums Shanghai’s best bluegrass. (more…)

One man’s barbershop trimmings are another man’s industrial protein. And it’s 31-year-old Jiangsu native Wang Wei’s job to get the hair off the floor and to the factory. (more…)

Just a small clip of how to be Ai weiwei’s creditor. (more…)

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Chengdu, March, 2011. When I first meet Gan I was resting in front of a bank outside the Wuhouci with a friend as I chain smoked in the fresh Chengdu air. (more…)

Preface: This post is one of the three articles [I hope it can all be done] that talk about Shanghai’s homeless cats. The topic was inspired by my lovely cat, and by a documentary made by Ai weiwei called San Hua, which is about the cat business chain in China. It talks about the homeless cats of Shanghai and the cat trappers who try to catch and ship them to Guangzhou, where a massive cat meat industry sells them to restaurants. (more…)

If you look at Zhao from a western angle, he is just another street drawer. But he doesn’t think so. According to his Buddhist beliefs, he is a Buddha in the last life that has been sent here to save people out of the endless cycle of Samsara. (more…)

In October I went to the Zhenjiang Midi Music Festival during the national holiday. Because everything fun was happening at night and the rainy weather had covered everything in mud, there wasn’t much to do during the afternoon. So I decided to do some research and conducted 12 brief interviews with the underground rock crowd at the festival. The interviews focus on the Internet and censorship in China, people’s opinions toward the Chinese government, and the on-going sexual revolution in china. Some of the questions are more “scandalous” than others, and it was up to interview subjects whether they wanted to answer all of them.

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Published in the Nov issue of That’s Shanghai. Click on the link for a much better layout and some pictures.

Pushbike handymen are a dying breed in downtown Shanghai

In downtown Shanghai it’s getting tougher to spot street-side bike repairmen. The switch to electric bikes and scooters, coupled with the pretty price of city living, makes it tough for guys that only work on bicycles.

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Published in the Nov issue of That’s Shanghai. Click on the link to see a much better layout and pictures of this article.

Welcome to the White Collar Hotel

Where Shanghai’s newest job hunters check-in

“A new feature illustrating how people from outside Shanghai make this city their home”

The grimy staircase leading up to the White Collar Hotel is plastered with giant ads for online fantasy games. Busty women wearing tiaras and carrying long-handled axes are the gatekeepers for a world that’s residents have one mission: Find a job. (more…)

#That’s the full length feature story of That’s Shanghai ‘s Oct cover story.

Those who have been keeping an eye on my blog may find this article similar to the Interview Of the Homeless People. Yes, they are both in the bottle picking business, they both cannot afford a home here in Shanghai, and they both live at the very bottom of society. But there are some key differences between the homeless people from Anhui and the pocket Hukou owners who were born and grew up in Shanghai. This is where Cai’s story begins.

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#That’s the full length feature story of That’s Shanghai ‘s Oct cover story.

I met Zha in front of the Chinese Club 88 on my way to have dinner with a friend of mine. He was on his handicap motorcycle, and in front of him was a big wooden box. Inside the box, I saw several small bike models made out of electrical wires. They were well-made and looked very appealing to a semi-pro cyclist like me. (more…)

If you’re hanging out late at night on Xingfu Rd (or “happy street” as I like to call it), you may run into an old lady named Mrs. Huang. Unlike the other beggars and flower sellers waiting for you outside bars and restaurants in Shanghai, Huang is not aggressive or dishonest. Although she has had much experience begging in Shanghai, it is certainly not her chosen profession. She is just trying to survive and provide for her family. (more…)

I interviewed Mino at Starbucks, one of his favourite meeting spots. He is 22 years old, and freelances in various Shanghai jobs, such as night club photographer, model agent and a formal garment store owner. He is also a current finance major at Fudan University, where he hardly shows up for class. (more…)

I met Feng on Wu Jiang Rd, formerly the famous street food street before the EXPO. You could access all kinds of food even in the middle of the night, BBQ, noodles, rice, sea food, beer…every thing, cheap, quick, good, casual. But earlier this year it was completely demolished, the old street food street is gone. It became a big trash heap full of rubble and surrounded by walls covered with EXPO printings of beautiful, successful business women/man, happy child/seiner citizens, and weirdo foreigners with a photoshopped helmet for no reason. One block away, Wu Jiang Rd becomes a place full of expensive, up-scale, foreign-looking restaurants, cafes, dessert shops, candy shops, Nike, big malls, etc. It has security guards wondering around 24/7, and Feng was sleeping on a well designed wooden chair in the middle of the pedestrian area. (more…)