WeChat parent-company Tencent recently purchased the ‘Didi Dache’ taxi-hailing app, and have quickly added the app’s functionality to their omnipresent WeChat messaging program. Welcome to the future, where you can hail a cab and pay the driver all via your smartphone.

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A man surnamed Shen has been hospitalized after a waitress mistakenly filled his water glass with cleaning fluid in a Beijing Italian restaurant on December 30th.

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With the constant focus on PM 2.5 as the main culprit behind Beijing’s air pollution woes, it was inevitable that differing opinions would arise about the source of all this filth; the real surprise in the matter…

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Morton’s wine dinner: Wine pairing dinners featuring mind-bending chefs’ creations are great and all, but sometimes you just want a simple steak or chop with your tipple. Especially when that tipple is as scene-stealing as Hall and Walt wines. This Thursday, January 9th, join Ms. Kathryn Walt Hall, the proprietor of Hall Wines and Walt Wines, for a mouth-watering marriage of top-of-the-line California wines and Morton’s signature oysters, lamb…

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A ‘Camel Culture’ festival was held last week in West Ujimqin Qi, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Many herdsmen participated in camel racing, songs, and dances while dressed in traditional holiday attire and generally being bad-ass herdsmen.

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China has an ugly history with the illegal ivory trade, but has recently been taking it more seriously (they’ve carted out Yao Ming, which means this is a big deal). Earlier this week, the government reigned in the New Year with its first-ever massive public destruction of illegal ivory.

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When a truck overflowing with oranges tipped and spilled its cargo, one zealous cop made goddamn sure that no elderly passersby would walk away with any of the forbidden fruit. The photo above, of a cheetah-face-masked senior citizen held at gunpoint for daring to snag a few oranges, has gone viral on the Chinese side of the internet.

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Last week’s bizarre arson attack at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco was committed by Chinese national and U.S. permanent resident Yan Feng who was hearing voices in his head. Yan turned himself in to the police two days after the incident.

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A 26 year old woman from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province has gained immense popularity among netizens with her marathon running, devotion to exercise, and rampant selfies. Nicknamed ‘Mao Dou”, she has finished seven marathons and has over 10,000 followers on her microblog, because people are totally only interested in running.

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The author is Byron R. Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners This is the 29th year that I have given my views on a number of economic, financial market and political surprises for the coming year. I define a “surprise” as an event which the average investor would only assign a one out of

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