the Beijinger talked to Steve Zdarsky, China’s “Godfather of Snowboarding,” about how Beijing’s own Nanshan Open grew to be one of Asia’s biggest events on the Ticket to Ride (TTR) tour.

Whitewater rafting it ain’t, but piaoliu (drifting) is a great way to blow out one of our remaining hot-weather weekends.

With Beijing's air pollution casting a dark gray shroud over our city sky this summer, its hard not to wonder what all that particulate matter, ozone, and other contaminates are doing to your body. We asked Dr. William Chickering, one of four American Board-certified Emergency Physicians at BJU, a few questions about it. Dr. Chickering has lived in Beijing almost four years after time on the faculty of the Medical College of Virginia. He has practiced for prolonged periods in Guatemala, Cameroon, Dominican Republic, and Korea.

This Saturday, Volcom is throwing a party for anyone interested in learning to screen print t-shirts - or just sitting back and enjoying some free drinks and live music.

American clothing brand Volcom (www.volcom.com) will be supporting a printing project in Shanghai and Beijing, titled Volcom x Young Emerging Chinese Artists Screen Printing Workshop.  

Camp Woodward is famous in the US for offering training in both extreme sports and digital arts, and for creating the X-Games stars of the future. Woodward has just opened its first international facility right here in Beijing. To celebrate the opening of the impressive camp – two huge bowls, two half pipes, a modulated mini ramp and both indoor and outdoor street plazas – they brought over some of the world’s best skaters for a demo session.

Recently, we caught up with perhaps the most famous of them, Tony Hawk – he of the video game series. We asked the first man to land a “900” in competition what he made of it all.

As a child raised by cartoons, I long believed the proper destination for a banana cream pie was in your opponent’s face. It turns out this is a lie. A pie lie. The divine vanilla custard at Pie House deserves to be in no one’s face but your own.

With the Bookworm's Literary Festival in full swing, we give the the lowdown on geek chic.

Junot Diaz, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is coming to town as part of The Bookworm International Literary Festival. Ahead of his visit, we had the chance to ask him about the challenge of teaching at M.I.T., his thoughts on the Haiti earthquake, and why people who read can be considered a special tribe.

Admit it. There’s been at least one moment, marveling at the sun rising over the Forbidden City or the moon rising out of a pair of split pants, that you’ve paused and thought, “Wow, I should write a book about this magical place called China.”

And maybe you should. With the Bookworm International Literary Festival opening tomorrow night, we sought some advice and encouragement from two of the festival guests: prodigious novelist/creative writing professor Jill Dawson and publisher/writer Graham Earnshaw.

New Yorkers can get sentimental about bagels. I’ve never seen anyone else hurl an imposturous bread item across a room while yelling “This is not a bagel.” Kudos to Moss for what I would call the real deal, with their glorious tough exterior shielding a soft, chewy heart.