Expat women in China can probably all recount an unpleasant experience of being objectified and typecast as just wanting to have fun. Miss Laowai China, happening September 11 at 21st Century Theater, can't be said to help perceptions -- after all, what screams objectification more than a beauty pageant? -- but organizer David Sinkala insists his show will be different from the others.

"If the ultimate goal is world peace," he says, intentionally borrowing from the beauty contestant phrasebook, "then what is the initial step to attaining that? If I'm not peaceful in my heart, and I'm part of the world, what world peace are you talking about?"

Using that as a guiding principle, Miss Laowai aims to be -- believe it or not -- a community event that effects good on multiple levels.

At 4 o'clock this afternoon at Capital M, renowned playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and director Leigh Silverman will give a talk about director-playwright dynamics -- using themselves as exhibit A -- and preview their latest project in development. Admission, which includes a drink, is 65 RMB -- a bargain for theater enthusiasts and anyone else interested in hearing accomplished artists discuss their craft.

Jack Dunn, a former Division II college football player, is as unlikely a Latin dance instructor as you'll find. In physique, he still has the outsized build of a defensive end -- the position he played -- and yet, to know Dunn is to understand his passion and commitment to everything salsa.

Dunn is among a small group of leaders in Beijing who have dedicated themselves to an ever-widening community of Latin dance enthusiasts (though we should mention Dunn is a self-proclaimed "mostly Irish" American). Later tonight, his biggest project comes to fruition: the first annual Summer Latin Festival, a four-day event that includes a pre-party at Club Le;  a performance, For the Love of Salsa (ticket reservation highly recommended); 10 workshops, including five taught by world-famous instructor Sekou McMiller from New York; and DJs, music and parties every night, including a Latin Pool Party and an All White Latin Party.

Read on to find out how you get a discounted fare to all the activities.

Wu Promotion, a local performing arts promoter founded in 1991, has been active lately bringing European classical musicians to Beijing for special one-time concerts. The company's at it again, this time with an award-winning duo -- Dutch violinist Frederieke Saeijs and Georgian pianist Nino Gvetadze -- who will be playing at the National Center for the Performing Arts this Sunday at 7:30 pm.

Unless you’ve been living in a bubble, you know the air’s not that great here. But all of us who’ve been in Beijing a while also know that whining about said air quality is the worst of the expat clichés: we have willingly traded a bit of pulmonary discomfort for the privilege of living in this city of opportunity and excitement.

And so it's always with slight trepidation that I pick up any book about China's environment. It's bad. We get it. But Jonathan Watts, a longtime Guardian reporter and veteran of the China beat, gets it, too, which is why his book about the environment, When a Billion Chinese People Jump: How China Will Save Mankind - Or Destroy It, will soon be a must-have for everyone seeking to understand the shades and layers of China’s environmental challenges and our incredible potential for change.

This Saturday from 1 to 5 pm at Argo, a social enterprise network called brandnü will hold Beijing's "first ethical trade fair." You may be familiar with the concept of "fair trade," a public-spirited means of stimulating the local economies of developing countries and promoting environmentally friendly practices. So what exactly is "ethical trade fair"?

Well, essentially the same thing.

"We cannot call it 'fair trade' because fair trade is a sensitive topic in China," says brandnü founder Nathan Zhang. "It doesn't exist (here). It's not ready yet. There's no system, so that's why we call it 'ethical trade.'"

François Lindemann, founder and member of the Swiss Piano Seven, likes to say the sound of seven pianos is "not seven times the power of one piano," hinting that while a big sound is to be expected, there's so much more by way of layering, juxtaposition, ensemble and individual flair. But however one describes it -- dramatic, unpredictable, bold, sometimes romantic -- the concept is undeniably unique, unlike anything else in contemporary classical music.

Lindemann and company, including two guest musicians (violinist Stéphanie Décaille and percussionist Nicolas Levon Maret), bring their one-of-a-kind sound and original music to the National Center for the Performing Arts for a 7:30 pm performance tonight.

The sheer crush of humanity knows no mercy. It honors no man. Its yawning mandible will consume you with a dizzying hotness and bereave all of civility, courtesy and cordiality.

Should you be curious to experience this unique sensation of being trapped inside an outdoor box of confusion, frustration and forestallment -- and pungency, as in the sweet smell of summer sweat -- may we suggest the world's fair of world's fairs: the Shanghai Expo.

Did you know Facebook, among other online social networking sites like Renren Wang and Kaixin Wang, reserves the right to legally possess all your information, even the stuff you delete? That virtual you you've created in the nebulous ether of cyberspace, thinking it exists in a protected vacuum -- it fattens up on each keystroke you log, every file you upload, and as avatar for the real you, it attracts all too much real attention, from advertisers, potential employers and who knows whom.

The play Facehook/人人网开心  (Renren Wang Kaixin), directed by Oda Fiskum and Fabrizio Massini, explores the implications of this reality. It scrutinizes the lives of social networkers to reveal a disturbing world of deception and deviousness for which no emoticon can convey. You can see the play this Saturday and Sunday (June 12-13) at 3:30 pm at Penghao Theater (35 Dongmianhua Hutong).

As good Beijingers, we all ostensibly harbor a loathing of Shanghai. (Those damn Shenhua beat our beloved Guoan -- excuse me, I mean champions Guoan -- 3-2 on Saturday.) But hard as it is to admit, it's impossible not to be impressed by our cousin city to the south, which boasts heaving monuments to modernity, world-class restaurants and bars, homely cafes and diners, intimate communities that formed organically, panoplies of local flavor and opportunities galore. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' lyric, "concrete jungle where dreams are made of," might as well use Shanghai as the refrain.

H.S. Liu and Karen Smith's newest coffee-table book, Shanghai: A History in Photographs, 1842-Today, impressively renders the city in all its layers, weaving a pictorial history that begins from the 1842 Treaty of Nanking and ends in modern time. Tonigth (Wednesday, May 26) starting at 7:30 pm at the Bookworm (RMB 30), Liu and Smith will talk all about their book's subject, the "Paris of the East."