China

BEIJING—“Of course, nobody wants to be Samantha,” Eva Shen said. It was a warm Saturday night on Houhai, the lakeside bar strip, and Ms. Shen, 40, had stepped outside the club she co-owns. Over the door, in glowing characters, was the Chinese name of the club, Yuwang Chengshi; above that, in larger letters, was its other name: SEX AND DA CITY.

Ms. Shen spoke English and wore yoga pants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops. (“I do yoga a lot,” she said.) Her hair was reddish and pulled back. Around her, the night was full of women in short-shorts, teetering heels, sparkly things; among the women were all the men looking for women.

Sex and da City opened in 2003, Ms. Shen said. She and about a dozen friends had been out at the World of Suzy Wong Club, and everyone agreed they might as well open a bar of their own. When they convened to discuss the idea again in the daytime, the group had dwindled to five. When it came time to talk about investing money, Ms. Shen said, it was down to four women.  read more »

The new issue of World Affairs ("A Journal of Ideas and Debate") features a short travelogue by P. J. O'Rourke called The Cleveland of Asia: A Journey Through China’s Rust Belt. In 2006, Mr. O'Rourke, a Cato Institute fellow and Atlantic correspondent, spent a month in China, visiting factories, Xi'an's famous Terra Cotta Warriors, the Three Gorges Dam and other charming locales to see how the place had changed since he was last there, in 1997, producing insights like the following: "The enormous dam was enormous. The scenic Three Gorges were scenic. And the mucky-looking reservoir that's filling the gorges looked mucky."

Mostly, it seems that Mr. O'Rourke was driven around in sleek black cars, invited to a lot of boozy meals by various factory owners and businesspeople (as well as someone who may have been Chinese secret police) and had a good time coming up with observational humor bits about Chinese people and Westerners that run along the lines of, "A white person eats like this. ... But a Chinese person eats like this!"  read more »

BEIJING—March 15 was what people conventionally call a great day for a ball game. A right-handed pull hitter might have disagreed, feeling the strong breeze coming in from the northwest. It was certainly a kind day for red flags, at least in Beijing. Along Chang'an Boulevard, by Tian'anmen Square and the Great Hall of the People, the national flags and accompanying plain red ones stood rippling off their flagpoles, aglow in clear sunlight against the blue sky.

From the other side of the country, in Lhasa, there were reports of flag burnings—and other things burning. It was unclear. The Internet was clogged. YouTube was blocked, and its Chinese counterpart, Tudou, had suddenly announced it was shutting down to work on its servers.  read more »

We all know how powerful China is becoming, but powerful enough to deflate the ego of one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men? This morning brought the news that China has yet to green-light Will Smith’s latest blockbusting effort, I Am Legend, which opens here on December 14. The apparent snub comes loosely attached to a report that the nation of 1,321,851,888 citizens plans to block all American movies, hoping to boost its own budding film industry. (Let’s also not forget that I Am Legend basically equates populous areas with violence and death; the only haven of solace is found in pastoral Vermont.) “We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in,” Mr. Smith told reporters in Hong Kong today.

Poor guy can’t get a break. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Smith, 39, admits to being insecure. When he was 15, his first girlfriend broke his heart. “[I]t destroyed my concept of myself,” he told the Wenner music book, adding: “I [thought I] wasn’t good enough.” He then recalls a certain look his grandmother once gave him, the look of someone who’s proud. It affected him to such a degree that he now needs to find it in the faces of all the women in his life—namely, in that of his lovely wife, Jada Pinkett. “Every singe day Jada must have the look. I can’t function if she doesn’t have that look in her eyes.” Ms. Pinkett’s proud-look is probably awesome, but we’d most like to see the look on his first girlfriend’s face when she saw The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for the first time.  read more »

• Gather 'round, kids! Did you know Chelsea used to be uncool? And it was genuine. And the rich real estate was rooming houses "for Merchant Mariners on the beach for a few weeks," and there were longshoremen. And they "deserve your respect for the work they did." Damn, kids today! They don't have any respect for old Chelsea longshoremen. [BlogChelsea]
• The United States of America, surely the greenest country in the world, lectures China on building enviornmentally-sound real estate. "This is not a 'nice to do,'--It's an absolute must," we told them. Patriarchy always works! [Multi-Housing News]
• Andrew "Dice" Clay represents everything that was good about old-school Brooklyn: leather jackets, cigarettes, and yelling "I don't care if you are pregnant, I'm not marrying you" at women in elevators. [Brooklyn Paper] - Max Abelson
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Yuet-fung Ho made Hong Kong’s first television soap opera.  read more »

If North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test was indeed a dud, we will hear another round of jokes  read more »

If North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test was indeed a dud, we will hear another round of jo  read more »

Young leaders take the City Year pledge and the AmeriCorps pledge at their opening day ceremonies at Trinity Church.

Corporate Women Directors International hosts a forum at The Harvard Club on how to increase the number of women in the board room.

Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Victoria Espinel speaks on "China and the U.S.' Intellectual Property Agenda" at 55 Fifth Avenue.

A press conference will be held announcing the establishment of the African Burial Ground National Monument foundation at 290 Broadway.

Tony Avella criticizes the delays and underfunding of the Parks Department's "Trees and Sidewalks" program in Douglaston.

Alan Greenspan speaks to the press prior to his appearance at the Long Island Association September Luncheon at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.

Nassau County Comptroller Howard Wietzman celebrates the 2nd anniversary of the NassauRx prescription discount card program at Central Nassau Guidance and Counseling Services in Hicksville.

Thomas Morahan announces legislation that would exclude school property tax rebates from taxation in West Nyack.

—Nicole Brydson

As part of our continuing, exhaustive (exhausting?) series on Mark Warner in New York, here's a write-up from Observer contributor Niall Stanage on an event that was covered by him and one Japanese reporter and, as far as Niall could tell, no one else:

Addressing the annual dinner of the Japan Society at the Hilton Hotel, Mark Warner delivered a speech that borrowed much of its lexicon and its worldview from Sen. Clinton's husband, emphatically underlining his centrist credentials.

At times, it could almost have been the former president at the lectern. Warner spoke frequently of an "interconnected" and interdependent world.

In a supremely Clintonian formulation, he asserted that the current moment held "tremendous" opportunities, "but only if we see the key questions of our day . . .are no longer based on the ideological fault lines of the past: left versus right, liberal versus conservative, or even open versus closed markets. Issues must be looked at through the prism of the future versus the past."

A lack of foreign policy experience could clearly be a weakness if Warner presses ahead with a presidential bid. He seemed intent on dispelling any impression of ignorance or naiveté last night.

More after the jump.  read more »

My father had a very good war—he spent 1942-46 on carriers in the South Pacific, making him part o  read more »

My father had a very good war—he spent 1942-46 on carriers in the South Pacific, making him pa  read more »

CNN said yesterday that when President Hu got heckled on the White House lawn, the Chinese censored its international edition so no one in China saw the incident. And of course Islam is in the stone age because they don't print Muhammed cartoons.

There are so many things to worry about or get indignant over that the United States’ agreemen  read more »

There are so many things to worry about or get indignant over that the United States’ agreement to  read more »

In June 2004, Larry Silverstein was invited to drop by the downtown headquarters of the A.I.G.  read more »

Marco Bellocchio’s Good Morning, Night ( Buongiorno Notte) happens to be the 24th film that the 66  read more »

Although Katrina's aftermath and William Rehnquist's death rightfully dominated the news cycle this long weekend, there's still interesting real estate news out there.

The New York Times provides an update (2nd item) on a deal that The Real Estate reported in July, involving China's most famous woman, Yue-Sai Kan. The wealthy businesswoman and TV star plans on combining a recent townhouse purchase with her current home. The result will be a 20,000-square-foot spread with a whopping $42 million pricetag. If the size alone doesn't sway you, consider summer cookouts with Kofi Annan, who shares the private community garden.

Although record-breaking sales grab headlines during Manhattan's housing boom, the majority of people still dwell at the lower end of the buying spectrum. So how does the person not in the market for a palatial Sutton Square townhouse jump into the fray?

While your average New Yorker pinches pennies in hopes of buying that first apartment, television personality and Jeopardy contestant Bob Costas happily drops $100,000 on a new closet in the Time Warner Center, according to the New York Post. Also, are there any celebrities left that have not yet moved to One Beacon Court?  read more »

This summer, mega-developer Gary Barnett's two 30-plus story condos garnered the most attention at 99th and Broadway, including community protests and the collapse of a Gristedes that was being demolished. But in the midst of all this drama, a small neighborhood theater might close. Umm...again.

-Michael Calderone

Harvard president Lawrence H.  read more »

The actress Bai Ling was in town for three days to do a fashion shoot for Saks Fifth Avenue.  read more »

No rubber gloves are manufactured in the United States any more.  read more »

More than any architect in recent memory, Rem Koolhaas bet his career on New York City.  read more »

Recent news reports should give a small measure of satisfaction to the hundreds of thousands, or pos  read more »

The McSweeney's tribe thinks that the book-reviewing trade has become a little too toxic.  read more »

Chop, Chop! Shanghai ChefRevives Lost Art of Cutting  read more »

Unanimously clairvoyant, 11 brokerage houses and investment banks last year predicted that China's G  read more »

Besides love, what the world needs now is a second superpower.  read more »

This much is not disputed: Wang Ruowang, a dissident Chinesewriter and onetime Columbia professor wh  read more »

Yue-Sai Kan, the most famous woman in China, was sitting in her office in her enormous, opulent town  read more »

Ever since the inauguration of George W.  read more »

Sometimes shock therapy is good for us.  read more »

The usual community board meeting in Manhattan attracts a predictable cast of speakers: real estate  read more »

Soul Mountain , by Gao Xingjian, translated by Mabel Lee.  read more »

Aside from embarrassing the Justice Department and the F.B.I., the release of Wen Ho Lee marks the c  read more »

When Representative Eliot Engel rose to address his House colleagues during the debate over the Chin  read more »

The dive in the financial markets has some members of Investors Without Borders wondering about the  read more »

Zhang Yimou has been called the "peasant director" because most of his films have been set and cente  read more »

HAVANA–To be in Cuba during the uproar over the plight of Élian González is to understand exactl  read more »

Literary agent Andrew Wylie, he of the highbrow client list, fiercely practices the art of the advan  read more »

The uproar over the 900-page Cox report on Chinese espionage already has started to subside, but Rep  read more »

The first thing you notice is the smell.  read more »

The accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade seals the fate of the Kosovo war.  read more »

The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top-Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow , edited by William Burr.  read more »

I met him at the coffee store.  read more »

The End of the World , edited by Lewis Lapham. Thomas Dunne-St. Martin's Press, 297 pages, $24.95.  read more »

If you read only The New York Times , you might be terribly worried about the harm inflicted on Amer  read more »

Johnny Chung, the shady businessman who insinuated himself into the White House 49 times, seems to h  read more »

Johnny Chung, the shady businessman who insinuated himself into the White House 49 times, seems to h  read more »

Li Lu, a student leader in the Tiananmen Square uprising, has jumped headlong into the bull market.  read more »

Quentin Tarantino closed his eyes and gave himself over to K.C.  read more »