The first time I walked into Ryan Noreiks’ bar, a friend and I had just finished a larger-than-necessary meal at Sinan Mansions. My friend was really stuffed and, at the time, Ryan was tending bar for The Alchemist, a fantastic place to get cocktails inside Sinan Mansions. Noreiks is a tall, slender, humble SHEXpat from Brisbane, Australia. He also has a shaven h...

An evening of peace and solace is the last thing a foreigner would expect in the hustling and bustling city of Shanghai. So where do you go, and how does one spend an evening of tranquility in this city? Is there really such a place, or is this just a dreamer’s dream?

One of the MANY ads on Taobao grabbed Tiffany's attention: Shenzhen or Shanghai 900RMB for original Labradors – breeder direct sale to you (no shops). 136-5555-2137.

Some expats never get out of the "expat" bubble, frequenting the same Western places in the French Concession, Xintiandi and Pudong over and over again. To them, those Chinese faces – they're just there, to serve you at overpriced bar venues, to gape at you on the subway, and to hassle you on the streets to buy their junk. Those expats never get to see the real si...

Kia X-Games Asia 2012 came to Shanghai for the 6th consecutive time this Labor Day break. In the 3 extreme sports of aggressive in-line, skateboarding and BMX freestyle, money prizes ranged from $500 for 10th place to $8000 for first place. The X-Games were broadcasted live on ESPN across the world, and the four-day event was littered with prize giveaways and performan...

The picture above was taken in my last year of high school. It’s a picture of the classroom where I studied for three years, and you can see there are so many books on every desk. We had tons of homework to do everyday to make sure we could get a high score on China’s college entrance examination (called gaokao高考) and enter a famous university. That yea...