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.

Tian Haicheng's cervical spinal cord was injured in a car crash in 2016. He became paralysed from the neck down. Despite being unable to walk, Haicheng still accompanies his daughter to and from school every day. And this is his story.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Chinese MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong who defeated a tai chi master in 10 seconds in 2017, talks about the story behind the fight, why he fights with 'fake' kung fu, the controversy around him, and his view on the development of MMA in China.  

Sun Wenjuan has been fighting for her life for the past 16 years, while her parents have been scraping by so they all can survive. Both of Wenjuan’s kidneys failed while she was still a teenager and ever since she’s had to undergo dialysis treatment two to three times a week. Thanks to the kindness of strangers and an effort by the South China Morning Post to raise funds, Wenjuan has been able to continue her treatment and is hoping to have a kidney transplant in the future. But first she has to wait in the queue for a suitable kidney, and even if a kidney is available, the procedure isn’t covered under China’s national medical insurance and the family will have to come up with the funds for an operation, whilst all along struggling to get by.

Zhou Tianxiao spent 3.5 million yuan (US$511,000) building a house for his beloved dog Sylar. While many people may find that exorbitant, Zhou says it’s the least he could do for Sylar, who he credits for changing his life and giving him the family he never had growing up.
 

The tales of the Shennongjia yeren, or wildman, has been widely spread in China over four decades and its record can be found in ancient poetry books, dating back thousands of years.

Yan Dachun was among the first 52 scholars and scientists China sent to study in the US in 1979. 40 years after the opening up, he says bureaucracy still hampers academic research in China.

Bombs so powerful they lit up the night sky. Countless bodies strewn on the battlefields. They are memories from more than six decades ago that are still crystal clear in the minds of the men and women who served in the Korean war. An estimated 2.8 million people were killed during the three years of fighting. Sixty-five years after the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities, we speak to South Korean and Chinese veterans about their memories of the war and what they think about present day relations between China and South Korea, and the prospect of peace on the Korean peninsula.