the Beijinger

Every so often reports surface of computer gamers who sit glued to their screens for so long it ends in their real-life death, but today’s Global Times reports a fatal gaming marathon impressive even by the standards of chronic gaming addiction. According to the article, “A 33-year-old man died Monday after playing online games at an Internet café for 27 days in a row, during which time he barely ate or slept.”

Pleco, a New York-based company who specialize in developing tools to learn Chinese, have announced a new iPhone feature that looks like it will be invaluable, not only for those learning Chinese characters, but for anyone who lives here and isn’t fluent in reading Chinese. The feature uses the iPhone camera to look at and “read” Chinese characters through an Optical Character Recognition system. There’s no need to take a photograph – you just point you camera and the app provides an instantaneous definition.

Disturbing news in the Chinese press has bar owners around Gulou (aka the Drum Tower) feeling nervous. Plans have been announced to “restore” the area around the tower to the style of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and build an underground “Beijing Time Cultural City,” comprising restaurants, parking spaces, and a museum about timekeeping technology.

It’s always entertaining reading China’s state-owned newspapers, especially when they find a story that mixes latent local resentments and with puffed up national pride. People’s Daily, for example, recently carried a brilliantly incisive piece of journalism entitled: “Japanese girls want to marry Chinese.”

Looking for details on 2011 New Year parties? You've come to the wrong place - this is the 2010 post. For details of what's happening on December 31, 2011, click here.

The new year is almost upon us, but there's still time for one more drink, one more dance, one more band before the sun sets on another year in the capital. Here's your one-stop guide to what Beijing has to offer this New Year's Eve.

Last week we challenged users to pen five restaurant reviews to win ski passes for Nanshan ski resort. Three users met the challenge and earned themselves a day on the slopes.

Global Times reports today that the southern end of Nanluogu Xiang was the scene of a standoff last night between a clothing store owner and police, as the owner hunkered down in her shop demanding compensation for the impending demolition of her business.

Recycling is a vexed issue in China. On the one hand it’s a obviously good thing that much of the country’s waste is recycled, though Beijing still seems headed for a waste crisis in the near future as landfills rapidly reach capacity – more on that in a moment. The problem with China’s recycling industry is its highly fragmented and unregulated nature, which creates unsafe conditions for recyclers and dangers for consumers. The past week has seen disturbing reports of unsafe plastics making their way into takeaway food containers, and the sleeves wrapped around disposable chopsticks.

One of the most disturbing aspects of living in contemporary China is the seemingly endless stream of food safety bad news stories. The past week has seen some real doozies even by China standards, with a CCTV investigative report claiming many disposable chopsticks are highly toxic, and allegations that the use of oil dredged from drains is rampant in Chinese restaurants.