Beijing has been hit by the first blizzard of the winter of 2019-20. Snow started to fall on the evening of Sunday, December 15, 2019 and was expected to continue until Monday afternoon.

China Aids Walk is the nation’s largest awareness and fundraising event focusing on HIV/Aids and related discrimination. Since 2012, people from a wide range of backgrounds have been invited to take part in the event at China’s Great Wall. The event aims to promote education, advocate for equal rights for those infected with the virus and to raise funds for communities affected by the disease. The group also organises walking events in six other Chinese cities, drawing in more than 4,000 participants. Martin Yang, director of China Aids Walk, spoke to the South China Morning Post about the goals of the organisation.

Dong Xiaobo has a rather expensive hobby. He raises 1,200 racing pigeons in the southern suburbs of Beijing. Dong's pigeons compete in many races and have won him several trophies. But like many pigeon enthusiasts in China, Dong doesn’t make money from his hobby. He's invested in 600,000 yuan (US$85,554) of his own money every year to raise and train his pigeons. 

Hanyuan County in China's southwest Sichuan province is rich in lead-zinc deposits and dozens of mines are scattered along the Dadu River to extract the ore. The arrival of the mines offered well-paying jobs to locals, many of whom had been poor farmers who jumped at a chance to lift their families out of poverty. 

Celebrations will get underway on October 1, 2019, to mark 70 years since the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded following a Communist Party civil war victory that drove their Nationalist opponents to the island of Taiwan.

China will hold its biggest-ever military parade on October 1, 2019, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Shops and restaurants along Jianguo Road where the parade will be held are closed for business. Security has been tightened. Service has also been suspended on parts of Beijing's subway lines. 

Chinese people across the world eat mooncakes to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. Traditional Chinese mooncakes have four major styles, Cantonese, Beijing, Jiangsu, and Yunnan. Fanmao mooncakes are one of the most famous types of Beijing-style mooncakes.

The Daliushu market in Beijing opens every Tuesday night as darkness falls in the Chinese capital only to close before dawn the next day. Known as “ghost markets” among locals, they feature stalls selling antiques, jade, and housewares. While Beijing was once home to several nighttime markets, Daliushu is the only one that remains.
 

Facial recognition cameras have been installed on garbage bins in a complex of flats in the Chinese capital, Beijing. The lids of the bins automatically open when a device recognises the face of a person previously registered on the community’s system. The hi-tech trash cans are in place at one of about 100 apartment communities in the city where new sorting rules are in place to encourage recycling. 
 

For more than 2,000 years, Dunhuang in China's northwestern Gansu province was known as a pearl of the ancient Silk Road – famous for its oasis with a crescent-shaped lake and “singing sand” dunes. But today, Dunhuang is under threat from the expanding Kumtag Desert. Experts say without urgent efforts to protect Dunhuang, the city which continues to have great importance for archaeology and tourism, could disappear in 50 years.
 

Pema Tseden is renowned for being the first director to bring Tibetan films to a worldwide audience. As a child, he was fascinated with movies but never dreamed he could actually make them. But taking a chance on himself, Pema defied his critics and went on to make films that have given audiences an insight into a culture that many people in China and abroad still don't know a lot about.

The popular Chinese payment app, Alipay, is encouraging users to fight desertification. An initiative in the app allows users to engage in low carbon emissions activities to grow virtual trees and collect energy points. With enough energy points, a virtual tree can then be converted into one real tree that will be planted in western China's arid areas, where deserts are encroaching on cities and villages, jeopardising the livelihoods of millions. Alipay is run by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Group also owns the South China Morning Post.

Xiamaguan is a town in China’s northwestern Ningxia Hui autonomous region that is home to about 100 families, the majority of which have been affected by heroin smuggling and addiction. Many farmers in the area got involved with heroin smuggling in the 1980s – lured into the trade by the prospect of making easy money. 

Megvii, commonly known as Face++, is one of China’s most ambitious artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups. The company was founded in 2011 by three graduates from Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University. Megvii provides facial recognition and other AI technology for a range of uses, including for public security and mobile payments.

Indoor surfing, or flowboarding, is gaining popularity in landlocked Beijing. Riding the waves to the sound of pop music has become a trendy way to beat the summer heat in the capital. Guo Yunchuan, 39, and his team developed the first surf simulator that was made in China. Guo believes flowboarding will become more popular in cities all over China.

Game of Thrones fans gathered in Beijing to screen the last episode of the epic series. And they had a furious debate over the flat ending after the screening.

Wang Fuman became famous when a photo showing the Chinese boy with frozen hair went viral on Chinese social media in 2018.

Russia is working with China to increase the share of financial settlement in roubles and renminbi as the two countries are seeking to reduce the reliance of US dollars, according to Russian ambassador to China.

Ambassador to China invites Beijing to help develop ports and other facilities as Russia seeks to boost sea traffic in region.

Beijing is more capable than ever to push the process of reunification with Taiwan as the Chinese mainlands economic might grows, according to National People’s Congress delegate Zhang Zhijun. The former director of the Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council also called reunification “an inevitable historical trend”.

Much attention has been focused on US President Donald Trump’s message about his trade war with China including demands that Beijing makes structural changes to its economy. 

Soon after Xi Jinping became China’s top leader in 2012, he made significant changes not only to China’s governance, but also how tea is served in the Great Hall of the People.

China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), started its annual session on March 3, 2019. More than 2,000 delegates gathered at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for the opening meeting.

China's glaciers supply drinking water to more than two billion people, but climate change means 80 per cent of them are forecast to disappear this century.

We asked Beijingers what they want to see come out of this year's two sessions, China's biggest political meetings of the year.

Now a Chinese company has developed new software that can identify people by how they walk. The gait-recognition technology analyses movements to create unique models of people, allowing identities to be matched up even when faces are not clear.

China’s government has started developing a “social credit system” which some observers believe will increase the collection and sharing of data about Chinese citizens, public officials and companies. Meant to improve governance and market order, the system is being tested using “blacklists” – or, in some communities, point “scores” – to incentivise citizen and corporate behaviour.

This is the captivating sight of snow falling on the Forbidden City.