While Sino-French relations haven’t always been entirely harmonious, we were amused to see a couple of local lads doing their bit with this little pean to our fair city posted on Tudou.

Take a peek at ChinesePod's fun new series of videos called The Menu Stealer. The videos tell the story of a foreigner who teaches himself Chinese by stealing menus from various restaurants in China. You can see the introductory trailer here and the first episode here. Keep an eye out for upcoming episodes over the next few weeks.

Prize: The Menu Stealer may resort to petty crime but how far would you go to improve your Chinese? Tell us the most extreme lengths that you would go to in order to improve your Chinese. The best response wins a 6-month Premium ChinesePod subscription care of ChinesePod.

Please Wait Your Turn

Leaving from Beijing West Railway Station on January 23, two days before The Spring Festival’s Eve.

We first saw this video over at Shanghaiist. It's part of a nice little series of videos that Reuters have put together called Postcard to U.S President from various cities around the world, including what must be an interesting clip from Baghdad. The video above features four Beijing residents talking about what they would like to see from an Obama presidency. The video was filmed just out the front of the Village at Sanlitun on the corner of Gongti Beili and Sanlitun . The video was uploaded on Nov 5 and we're guessing the journalists conducted the interviews while waiting for the election results to come in over at the Rickshaw. Three of the people being interviewed say their piece in English. The fourth, a businessman, uses Chinese to express his hope that Obama can "sort out the American economy and bring the world economy back up." You can view the full translation of what he said in the more info section.

The jury is still out on this year’s Modern Sky Festival, while some have complained about the indoor stages, lack of food options and drinks running out on the first day, others have raved about great performances from Carsick Cars and Top Floor Circus. The Shanghai outfit lived up to their name by bringing along a circus of sorts, complete with clowns and dancing girls, for their final act-performance on the last day of the festival. However, the real highlight of their show was their performance of Shanghai Huanying Ni, their spoof on one of the Beijing Olympic anthems that we’ve all been hearing on a loop for the past 12 months.