Beijing News You Might Have Missed this Week, Nov 21

Joey Knotts, Contributing Editor | Nov 21, 2020 11:30 am | Add a comment | 549 reads

Beijing is a happening city! Don't miss a thing with our weekend roundup of the latest news.

Small COVID outbreak amongst our coastal neighbors: Tianjin reported four new locally transmitted coronavirus cases on Friday, Nov 20 in what amounts to a small outbreak that is nonetheless a little too close to home for Beijingers. According to China Daily, the patients were all residents or staff at a single residential community where an asymptomatic carrier had been discovered earlier in the month.

What a WaterWorld!: Universal Studios Beijing has been on a kick lately, revealing new artwork of the park every couple of weeks. This time, we got a glimpse into WaterWorld, the area of the park that will resemble an old-timey port town and will also feature a live-action stunt show that aims to reveal some of the secrets about how movie magic is achieved. By all accounts, the park is still on track to open in May, 2021.

Cat-ch them all at BLCU: We previously reported on an app developed by students at Peking University that catalogs all the known cats living on the campus. Ostensibly, the app’s aim was to encourage the adoption of the cats, but it could also be used simply to identify which cat one is laying eyes on at any given moment. Now, Beijing Language and Culture University has their own version of the app, and by the looks of it, the developers have done an even better job creating a stylish interface, complete with the cats’ names and personality traits in both English and Chinese.

Contained Meditation: In Beijing’s Xinzhuang arts village, Japanese architect Jun Marata has turned a series of humble shipping containers into a new art gallery and “meditative space” for artists, the latter of which is in the longest, 12-meter white container. Behind it, grey and yellow containers have been converted into exhibition spaces as well as artist dormitories, which will be used for an as of yet unannounced residency program.

That’s no gas company worker!: Beijing recently warned residents of scammers posing as natural gas company employees coming to knock on doors with ill motives. According to the municipal government, actual employees of the company will not show up at your door unannounced.

Best of the Blog this week

Who got the stars?: The Michelin Guide for Beijing was released this week. Find out who made the cut.
Bridging the generation gap: Take a look at how the Chinese view generations by decade going back to the 1970s.
Socialism with Mandarin Characteristics: Brush up on your modern Marxist Mandarin, as seen on Weibo.
A New Moth Attraction: After losing its old location with the demolition of Workers' Stadium, Lantern has found a new three-room home near Dongdaqiao.
A Legend at Dada: One man helped reshape music in China over the past 50 years, and he's come out the other side with quite the story.