China's state-run press is occasionally good for unintentionally amusing statements, but a comment in Wednesday's Global Times regarding Beijing's prospects for hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics left us shaking our heads more than holding our sides.
Ratings for CCTV’s New Year’s Gala have hit a record low of 28.37 percent, Want China Times reports, regardless of the gala being broadcasted across a whopping 189 channels. With that many channels quite a few people must have just had no choice but to watch it.
The basketball playoffs are upon us – and I’m not talking about the NBA or March Madness, I’m talking about something that could be even more exciting: the CBA semifinals.
While you might guffaw, let me make an argument for why the best-of-five series that begins tonight pitting the Beijing Ducks vs Guangdong Southern Tigers could be one worth watching.
Beijing has no shortage of over-wrought, style-over-substance cakes and confections, the stuff of local bakeries and hotel coffee shops. Proper homebaked cakes and pies on the other hand? If you don’t happen to have a friend who’s particularly gifted with a whisk and an oven, then you’ll probably have to resign yourself to those rare trips home to experience a real sweet treat.
Seems that some vacationing Beijingers on Chinese New Year sprees in New Zealand are taking their bad driving skills with them.
This post is sponsored by the Beijing Normal University School of Social Development and Public Policy, an international program comprised of students and faculty from around the world. Visit www.ssdpp.net.cn/en to find out more.
The fireworks on the fifth day of the Lunar calendar (chuwu, last Sunday) proved a bit too much for the sky too handle. Throughout the day, there were only 30 PM2.5 particles per cubic meter of air. This was largely due to the cool weather, but made for pleasantly blue skies.
In the evening however, the situation changed drastically as everyone’s neighbor and their mother, ayi, shushu, and every tiny coat-wearing dog, had suddenly decided that setting off fireworks was their absolute favorite hobby, ever.
March in the northern hemisphere can be the worst month of the year: it’s 31 days, winter hasn’t ended and spring hasn’t really begun. But in Beijing we’re lucky, as two of the best multi-day events of the year take place during the month: the annual JUE Music + Art Festival, and The Bookworm International Literary Festival, for a few doses of world-class culture.
For this issue though, we thought we’d tip off with a different kind of superstar. Thanks in part to being a basketball dynamo who has led the Beijing Ducks to two China Basketball Association (CBA) championships (as of time of writing), and in part to being an all-around nice guy who genuinely loves Beijing, Stephon Marbury may well be our city’s most famous foreigner. Our sports guy Patrick Li visited him at his home in Wangfujing to talk about life in Beijing, basketball, and what it’s like to be Stephon Marbury for a day.
Now for all that festival goodness. Wizard Tang has captured the chromium-plated, boiling soul of Beijing’s metal scene for years, and many of those images will be exhibited at Yugong Yishan during JUE Music + Art Festival. On the other side of the globe, Awesome Tapes From Africa Founder Brian Shimkovitz will be bringing many of those recordings to Beijing, also as part of JUE. When was the last time you saw somebody DJ with cassettes? Do you even know what a cassette is? Check it out, it should be … awesome.
The Bookworm International Literary Festival falls in the middle of the month, which should give you time to read books by Pulitzer Prize nominee Chang-Rae Lee, whose latest work (and next one, apparently) focuses on China. Our Kyle Mullin talked to him about the muse that is modern Chinese society. Mullin also interviewed Faramerz Dabhoiwala about his book The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution, an academic look at changing views on everyone’s favorite subject. Both are coming to our fair city for the Bookworm’s event, so do your reading, and then go see them at the festival.
In the rest of the issue, we look at new places and extensions of brands in Beijing’s expanding craft beer scene. And there are the usual restaurants, bars, new venues, and even travel tips to get you through the month.
We hope you enjoy the March issue of the Beijinger, which you can now view here or via Issuu.
Whether you're just emerging from a jiaozi coma or fewer than 24 hours off the plane from Thailand, perhaps you weren't paying much attention to what's been happening during your absence or attention deficit.
