https://www.scmp.com/rss/325709/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Travel about 20 miles outside the center of Shanghai, and you’ll find yourself in a town that looks more like it belongs in rural England than the suburb of a major Chinese metropolis. Thames Town, named after the river in London, is built in the style of an English village, complete with Victorian terraces, red telephone boxes, and statues of Harry Potter and Winston Churchill. It’s one of many large-scale developments in China with architecture inspired by other countries (the resort town of... https://www.scmp.com/culture/china-wants-people-stop-it-weird-and-foreign-names/article/3016038?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/china-wants-people-stop-it-weird-and-foreign-names/article/3016038?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Jun 2019 11:49:39 +0000 Communal bathing at public bathhouses is a popular pastime among older men, particularly in northern China. Here, customers can laze around in warm pools, get a rubdown from staff, and wallow away the day for as little as $4. Some play Chinese chess, others watch cricket fights, and a few even bring along their pet birds. But the days of the traditional bathhouse are waning in China, as they’re eclipsed by pricier, more modern facilities that offer additional perks like karaoke, billiards, and... https://www.scmp.com/travel/old-beijing-last-traditional-bathhouse/article/3014044?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/travel/old-beijing-last-traditional-bathhouse/article/3014044?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Jun 2019 10:26:34 +0000 China is currently the largest producer of automobiles in the world, according to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, and Chongqing is at the center of it. This industrial city in the country’s southwest is the Detroit of China. Several major automakers have factories there, including Ford Motor, whose largest production facility outside of Detroit is in Chongqing. Changan Automobile, the country’s second-most popular car brand, has its headquarters in the... https://www.scmp.com/travel/chongqing-china-motorcycle-capital/article/3010116?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/travel/chongqing-china-motorcycle-capital/article/3010116?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 14 May 2019 04:32:32 +0000 Liao Liqiang remembers when he first began exploring Chongqing, the Chinese megacity where he was born and raised, as a photographer. He started seeing the city in a different light and recognized the elements that made it special. He was rediscovering the city he had called home, and it was then that Liao committed himself to capturing the hidden corners of Chongqing before they disappeared to make way for development. “I choose subjects that can’t really be found in other cities,” he says,... https://www.scmp.com/culture/capturing-chongqings-hidden-beauty-it-disappears/article/3000918?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/capturing-chongqings-hidden-beauty-it-disappears/article/3000918?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Feb 2019 09:17:17 +0000 The #10YearChallenge, where people post two pictures of themselves—one from today and one from a decade ago—to see how much they have (or haven’t) changed, has taken the internet by storm. Here at Goldthread, we thought it would be a fun experiment to apply the challenge to China, which has seen some dramatic changes in the past decade. In 2009, the country had just come off hosting the Summer Olympics. Its population was 1.3 billion, the iPhone 3G had just come out, and WeChat didn’t exist... https://www.scmp.com/culture/we-did-10yearchallenge-5-chinese-cities/article/3000561?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/we-did-10yearchallenge-5-chinese-cities/article/3000561?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Jan 2019 16:03:04 +0000 I’ll be the first to admit that my relationship with mainland China is complicated. As someone with Taiwanese heritage, I grew up with strong biases against the mainland. Most kids of my background do. But then in college, I studied abroad in Shanghai and fell in love with the bluntness of the people there and the allures of the Chinese countryside. People in Taiwan—while saccharinely nice—can be stiff and calculative in how they communicate. People in the mainland—at the least the ones I... https://www.scmp.com/identity/why-i-love-and-hate-mainland-china/article/3000240?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/identity/why-i-love-and-hate-mainland-china/article/3000240?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Nov 2018 12:36:49 +0000 Eleven green groups in Hong Kong slammed the head of the land supply task force for downplaying the environmental impact of land reclamation, saying his comments were “in serious conflict” with his leadership of the city’s environmental impact watchdog. In a statement on Thursday, the groups demanded that Stanley Wong Yuen-fai retract his comments from Tuesday, when he said there would be “no insurmountable impact on [the] environment” if the government were to create 1,400 hectares of land at... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2119197/hong-kong-green-groups-slam-task-force-chief?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2119197/hong-kong-green-groups-slam-task-force-chief?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Nov 2017 11:08:18 +0000 Hong Kong’s future depends on reclamation, a government-appointed committee declared on Tuesday as it endorsed a plan to create a 1,000-hectare artificial island to the east of Lantau. The Task Force on Land Supply gave its approval for six sites recommended by the government to undergo reclamation, to meet the city’s need for at least 1,200 hectares of new space before 2030 and beyond. The body, charged with selecting the best solutions for Hong Kong’s dire land shortage, also discussed the... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2118820/hong-kongs-future-depends-reclamation-committee-says-it-backs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2118820/hong-kongs-future-depends-reclamation-committee-says-it-backs?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Nov 2017 14:34:13 +0000