After experiencing its driest season on record last year, Poyang Lake in China's eastern Jiangxi province — the country's largest freshwater lake — is seeing a notable increase in size due to added inflow from the Yangtze River. This expansion is expected to provide a welcoming environment for migratory birds, with ample resources for the season ahead. On Saturday, the Jiangxi Meteorological Bureau reported that as of Oct. 5, Poyang Lake and its surrounding waters have expanded to cover 2,098 square kilometers.

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Editor's Note: This is the second article in a three-part series exploring the impact of the Laos-China Railway, a major project under China's Belt and Road Initiative that connects cities across Laos and southwest China. Read Part 1 .   LUANG PRABANG, Laos — Winding mountain roads, sudden landslides, and unexpected halts on desolate stretches of highway. That was the daunting eight-hour bus journey from Laos' capital, Vientiane, to Luang Prabang, the country's UNESCO-listed tourist epicenter.  In April, however, the travel dynamics in this part of Southeast Asia subtly began to shift.

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When the initial iteration of the FIRST International Film Festival was held in the northwestern Chinese city of Xining in 2006, there was little to suggest it would one day become one of the most influential and important events on China's film calendar.  Sometimes referred to as 'China's Sundance,' part of the festival's appeal lies in its do-it-yourself aesthetic. FIRST is well-known for its tight budget — directors invited to attend the festival share standard rooms — and its volunteer spirit.

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MC HotDog, a famous rapper in China, has admitted plagiarizing a popular graphic novelist's work about depression in his new song, 'The Tenants Downstairs.'   The Taiwanese rapper, 45, apologized on microblogging platform Weibo on Tuesday for using the storyline of 'Jumping Off a Building,' a comic created by Taiwanese cartoonist Zhu Deyong.   The comic, which depicts a woman witnessing her neighbors' everyday struggles after she leaps off her building, was a hit when it was published in 2004 and even made into an animation .

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The history of Chinese characters is also a history of technological advances, design innovations, as well as nation building and globalization. Since the 19th century, generations of Chinese printers, typographers, and computer experts have painstakingly pushed Chinese typefaces forward. But how did they do it? Following on from our exhibition on the modern history of Chinese fonts, Sixth Tone will hold a panel event on September 9, Modernizing China's 'Kingdom of Characters,' featuring hanzi stories from three different eras.

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Historic rain in Beijing and surrounding areas has killed at least 11 people and left 13 missing, while tens of thousands in the outer parts of the city have been cut off. The capital has been hit by extreme rain since Saturday, breaking historical records for rainfall in several regions on Monday. Towns and villages in the outer districts of the city are dealing with landslides and flash flooding, with more than 100,000 evacuated from their homes. Meteorological authorities reported an average rainfall of over 250 mm as of Tuesday, reaching a maximum of 700 mm in the western district of Mentougou.

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For the first time, a city in central China has handed a personal safety protection order to a male victim of domestic violence, shedding light on the underacknowledged group amid growing public awareness about the issue.A district court in Jingmen, Hubei province, granted the protective order to a local businessman after claiming his wife 'threatened, harassed, and even stalked him multiple times before and after filing a divorce lawsuit,' according to an October ruling, renewing public discussion on the issue.

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Despite the continuing national debate over the falling birth rate, and pressure from parents and the government to start families, young Chinese don't plan to have children until they can afford to do so, a new survey has revealed.Citing the survey, The Paper, Sixth Tone's sister publication, reported Tuesday that young Chinese also believe that a stable marriage and a secure career are the most important prerequisites for having children. Respondents also stated that 'pain in childbirth' was the top reason why women fear having children.

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A new TV show is prompting conversation about mental health in China, putting a clinical psychologist in the spotlight as people become more comfortable with talking about the once-taboo topic.The drama, simply called 'Psychologist' and which first aired on Nov. 23 on streaming site Youku, revolves around the fictional work and life of a female psychologist. The show follows her as she offers counseling to people with mental health issues ranging from depression to bulimia as well as touching on social issues such as parenthood, intergenerational conflicts, and dilemmas faced by women in the workplace.

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SHANGHAI – Millions got up early on a holiday Monday, filing downstairs in pajamas to take part in what is likely the world's largest-ever single-day COVID-19 surveillance effort. Shanghai is seeking to test its 25 million residents on Monday, following an announcement on Sunday.While most of China is enjoying a three-day vacation for the Qingming festival, Shanghai is trying to halt the country's largest-ever COVID-19 outbreak, which has infected over 40,000 people in the past 10 days. Chen Erzhen, a vice president at the city's renowned Ruijin Hospital, said Saturday 'the scale of the cluster this time is bigger than Wuhan.

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Shanghai has reported seven new COVID-19 cases a day after the city lifted a two-month lockdown to contain the virus surge, local authorities said during a press conference Thursday afternoon.Three infections were found in the downtown Jing'an District and four in the financial center of Pudong New Area, officials said.The city ended nearly all COVID-19 restrictions Wednesday, allowing shops to reopen and people to move freely without time restrictions. But authorities said about 890,000 people will remain locked down in 'quarantine' and 'control' areas still considered at risk of COVID transmission.

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India will soon become the world's most populous nation, ending the long-held title that China has had since the 1950s, when the United Nations started maintaining population records. By mid-2023, India's population is expected to reach 1.4286 billion, inching past China's 1.4257 billion, according to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report released in April. This significant demographic shift stems from differences in fertility rates, demographic structures, and population distribution.

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Ten Chinese snooker players have received stern punishments including lifetime bans and hefty fines for match-fixing, in another high-profile corruption scandal that has left Chinese sports fans dismayed.   On Tuesday, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association handed lifetime bans to former champions Liang Wenbo, 36, and Li Hang, 32, for a series of rule breaches including fixing matches and encouraging other players to fix matches. Both were also fined £43,000 ($53,442) each.   Eight other Chinese players have been suspended, including 2021 U.

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The lakes on the world's highest plateau showed a trend of delayed freezing and melting that took place earlier than usual over the four decades up until 2017, a new study found, underscoring the impact of climate change on some of the planet's most vulnerable regions.Around four-fifths of the 132 lakes monitored on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau saw the length of time they were covered by ice shortened by a certain period ranging from a few days to over 50 days between 1978 and 2017, according to the study published Friday.

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Locked down and anxious, 17-year-old Fang Suyi found her ideal escape from reality in the form of a cough medicine.The high school senior from Shanghai had learned about dextromethorphan, a cough suppressant, while browsing the microblogging platform Weibo. There, now-deleted accounts that tended to make reference to psychosis in their usernames promoted the medicine, peddling its potential as a way of easing anxiety and depression.Convinced by what she read, the teenager first used the oral medication during the citywide coronavirus lockdown in the spring.

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Update: The Changsha government announced Sunday afternoon that they have set up a team, along with third party assessment agencies and experts, to investigate emissions from BYD factories.Hundreds of parents in the central city of Changsha gathered outside the local unit of new energy vehicle manufacturer BYD on Saturday. Some held photos of their child under the night sky, demanding answers. They claimed the company is flouting environmental rules and harming their children's health.Over 600 children living near the BYD production plant in the city's Yuhua District have experienced repeated nosebleeds since April, according to an online survey conducted by residents to ascertain the situation and shared with Sixth Tone.

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SHANGHAI — Many Shanghai residents lined up outside coffee shops, bars, and restaurants when the city reopened after a two-month lockdown Wednesday. But some of the longest lines were seen outside COVID-19 testing booths.The lines snaked through the streets late into Wednesday night and on Thursday morning, as millions waited to get their throats swabbed. Though such tests were conducted within the residential compounds during the lockdown, residents now need to walk to their nearest testing stations, usually within a 15-minute walking distance.

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Cities across China are resorting to pressuring groups of state-sector workers to buy up unsold housing stock at discounts of up to 30%, as local governments struggle to jump-start flatlining property markets, Sixth Tone's sister publication The Paper reported Thursday.China's real estate sector is mired in its worst debt crisis in decades, with developers across the country defaulting on payments and halting construction on new projects. The turbulence has triggered a wider loss of market confidence: Land and property sales have fallen by double-digit levels in 2022.

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In his small rented apartment in Xiamen, in the southeastern Fujian province, all 31-year-old migrant worker Chen Zhi needed to unwind after a hard day's work was a desk.It only had to be big enough to fit a small potted plant, a Kindle, a second-hand laptop, a few philosophy books, and a collection of printed-out essays by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.For the last few years, Chen's routine at an electronics factory rarely varied. He finished his long day on the assembly line, ate dinner at around 8 p.

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HENAN, Central China — Amid ongoing efforts to salvage wheat crops ravaged by unprecedented rainfall in China's central Henan province, meteorologists are forecasting another bout of heavy rain across the region over the coming weekend. This further compounds the challenges faced by rescue teams, including limited equipment for harvesting and drying wheat.  The Henan Meteorological Service predicted Thursday that moderate or heavy rain over the next two days would affect the province's western and central-southern regions, with several cities and counties reaching a precipitation level of between 50 and 80 millimeters.

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China's historic win at the 2022 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women's Asian Cup final on Sunday has prompted campaigns calling for equal pay in sports at home.Social media users praised the women's team for 'earning back the dignity of Chinese football' after their male counterparts missed out on qualifying for the FIFA World Cup earlier this month. The Chinese women's team beat South Korea 3-2 during the final in India.'This is a typical example: The son who took all resources in the family remains nothing, the daughter who has been wronged becomes successful,' read one comment on microblogging platform Weibo.

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