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The Yangqing Ice Festival, an annual tradition, is the grand finale to the Lunar New Year celebrations in Beijing.
Culture Buzz This is the same Ai Weiwei who was arrested by the Chinese government for his human rights activism, so, yeah…how dare he not be more involved. From an MSNBC live chat with the outspoken artist, who still faces threat of imprisonment for his struggle against the repressive regime. A commenter named Angelina didn't think Ai was sufficiently reverential in his response about OWS. This is infuriating.
Culture Buzz Yikes. The smog in Beijing is so bad right now compared with the standards set by the EPA that it was listed as “beyond index.” Apparently the person running the US embassy's Twitter first reported the smog as “crazy bad,” but the tweet has since been deleted and replaced with “beyond index.”
Apparently it's the season for fighting insubways. This time, passengers in Beijing battle it out when an empty seat becomes available.
Chinese artist Cheng Li was arrested and sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” following his performance piece, “Art Whore,” where he had actual intercourse in front of onlookers at a Beijing museum. Cheng is currently appealing the decision through administrative appeal.
Culture Buzz There is a traffic jam in China that has been going on for 9 days. Food vendors are taking advantage of the situation by gouging food prices and the situation is expected to last a month. Score one for America.
Sports Buzz Lego enthusiasts from Hong Kong have created a miniature Beijing Olympics! Made up of 300,000 Lego bricks and over 4,500 Lego people, the miniature Lego city includes the infamous Bird’s Nest Stadium, Michael Phelps’ Water Cube, and George W. Bush’s favorite Olympic hot spot, Beach Volleyball! All in all, it measures an impressive 10ft by 26ft.
Sports Buzz What’s Phelps listening to? You’ve seen him standing poolside with the white earbuds in, and you’ve surely thought, “Hm, I wonder what he’s listening to.” Hit the link below for a rare glimpse.
Culture Buzz Beijing’s aggressive face-lift for the Olympic games includes shooting silver-iodide filled rockets into clouds to control rainfall and feline extermination. We mentioned Bejing’s air pollution problems, but find out whats going on behind the scenes in preparation for the opening ceremonies.
Here we have Conan O'Brien shamelessly (and adorably) exploiting…
