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Jason Lee / Reuters
Girls wearing Peking opera masks look out from behind a screen while waiting to perform during celebrations for the upcoming International Women's Day at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 7, 2012.
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David Gray / Reuters
An instructor from the Tianjiao Special Guard/Security Consultant Ltd. Co, smashes a bottle over a female recruit's head during a training session for China's first female bodyguards in Beijing on Jan. 13. According to the company, the training session consists of 20 women, mostly college graduates, who will undergo 8-10 months of training to develop sufficient skills to become security guards. The company will then offer the best trainee a chance to attend the International Security Academy in Israel.
Eugene Hoshiko / AP
Scorpion skewers are displayed as a vender waits for customers at a street stall in in Beijing, China on Jan. 6, 2012.
Scorpion on a stick, anyone?
Scorpion skewers may be a tasty Chinese street snack, but it's a different kind of meat that is drawing the attention of economists. Reuters reported on Thursday that the price of pork in China could soon rival U.S. payrolls as the world's most watched economic indicator.
Young people blow off steam with a pillow fight in Beijing
How Hwee Young / EPA
Participants take part in a pillow fight party in the One Club in Beijing.
How Hwee Young / EPA
Participants hold up pillows as they watch a rock band performing at a pillow fight party in the One Club in Beijing, China on Friday. Revelers consisting mainly of young Chinese white collar workers and students enjoy a good pillow bash to blow of steam at the capital city's first pillow fight party ahead of the new year celebrations on 30 December. Pillow fight parties are gaining popularity among young office workers and students in China as an outlet for stress release as they face increasing pressure at work and school.
How Hwee Young / EPA
Participants throw up their pillows in the air at a pillow fight party in the One Club in Beijing.
Denied access to official data, Chinese citizens take their own pollution readings
Andy Wong / AP
Tan Liang, a resident of Beijing, prepares to take readings on a PM2.5 detector outside his residential compound in Beijing, China, on Dec. 3, 2011.
The Associated Press reports from BEIJING:
Armed with a device that looks like an old transistor radio, some Beijing residents are recording pollution levels and posting them online. It's an act that borders on subversion.
The government keeps secret all data on the fine particles that shroud China's capital in a health-threatening smog most days. But as they grow more prosperous, Chinese are demanding the right to know what the government does not tell them: just how polluted their city is.
"If people know what their air is like, they are more likely to take action," said Wang Qiuxia, a researcher at local environment group Green Beagle, who shows interested residents how to test pollution on a locally made monitoring machine. Continue reading.
Andy Wong / AP
Tan Liang carries a PM2.5 detector towards a garbage-burning facility located near his residential compound in Beijing on Dec. 3, 2011.
Andy Wong / AP
Wang Qiuxia, right, a volunteer from an environmental group, teaches Cheng Jing, left, how to operate the PM2.5 detector in Beijing on Dec. 7, 2011.
Related content:
Chinese are growing more outspoken about the "fog," now accurately calling it "smog," covering cities like Beijing.
'Vanishing artist' makes another (dis)appearance
China Daily via Reuters
Artist Liu Bolin demonstrates an art installation by blending in with vegetables displayed on the shelves at a supermarket in Beijing, China, on November 10. Liu, also known as the 'Vanishing Artist', started practising being "invisible" by means of optical illusions more than six years ago.
China Daily via Reuters
Artist Liu Bolin smiles as he prepares to blend in with the vegetables.
China Daily via Reuters
An assistant shows a photo on a mobile phone to artist Liu Bolin.
Camouflage artist Liu Bolin has been on PhotoBlog before -- blending into a wall of soft drinks in August and into the steps of Paris's Grand Palais in April -- but it's interesting to see these making-of photographs from his most recent stunt.
Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images
A man walks through heavy pollution on a street in Beijing, China, on November 1. Air pollution in Beijing reached "hazardous" levels, the US embassy said, as thick smog blanketed the city for the fourth day running, forcing the closure of highways and cancellation of flights.
Smog in Beijing: U.S. Embassy air quality data undercut China's own assessments
KTUU-TV reported on Beijing's extreme air pollution problem on October 29:
Perched atop the U.S. Embassy in Beijing is a device about the size of a microwave oven that spits out hourly rebukes to the Chinese government.
It is a machine that monitors fine particulate matter, one of the most dangerous components of air pollution, and instantly posts the results to Twitter and a dedicated iPhone application, where it is frequently picked up by Chinese bloggers.
One day this month, the reading was so high compared with the standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it was listed as "beyond index." In other words, it had soared right off the chart. Continue reading.
Jason Lee / Reuters
A man stands at the Beijing Yintai Centre building near the new China Central Television (CCTV) building seen at left, on October 28, 2011.
Rem Koolhaas' CCTV building in Beijing at night
The much-delayed, but striking steel, concrete and glass headquarters for Chinese state television is expected to finally open in the new year, according to architect Rem Koolhaas, whose firm designed the building. More from Reuters.
How Hwee Young / EPA
Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers usher visitors out of Tiananmen Square on Sept. 30 as they tale pictures of the giant red lantern on display for the coming National Day at in Beijing, China. China will observe the start of the National Day holiday on Oct. 1 marking the 62nd anniversary of their independence.
Locke makes first public appearance as U.S. ambassador to China
David Gray / Reuters
Gary Locke, right, the new U.S. ambassador to China, walks out the front door of his residence with his wife Mona before speaking to the media in Beijing, Aug. 14. Locke, the first Chinese-American to fill the post, in his previous job as U.S. commerce secretary, often chided China over its trade policies, but in his first media appearance since taking up his new job in Beijing he gave a more benign message of potential cooperation.
Reuters reports:
"The United States and China have a profoundly important and complex diplomatic and economic relationship, one with challenges, to be sure, but which also holds great promise for expanded cooperation and collaboration," Locke told reporters.
Since Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating for long-term U.S. debt in early August, Chinese state media have accused Washington of reckless fiscal policies that have created uncertainty about Beijing's big holdings of dollar assets.
Analysts estimate Beijing has put about two-thirds of its $3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, in dollars and is the United States' biggest foreign creditor.
Read more here.
AFP - Getty Images
Hundreds of parents spend the night outdoors in order to see a doctor in the morning, outside a children's hospital in Beijing, China, on August 11. The BRICS group of emerging countries recently vowed to improve access to low-cost and high-quality medicine, and called on developed nations to shoulder responsibility in helping the poor.
Hundreds of Chinese parents camp out overnight so that their children can see a doctor
Read more about access to healthcare in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the so-called BRICS countries - in this AP report.
AP
Chinese artist Liu Bolin waits for his colleagues to put a finishing touch on him to blend into rows of soft drinks in his artwork entitled "Plasticizer" to express his speechlessness at use of plasticizer in food additives, in his studio at the 798 Art District in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011.