I am in the process of packing and moving so not many comments right now, a few interesting stories.  By the way, if you do plan to live in China for any length of time, 58.com is pretty useful for buying/selling directly from others (like Craig’s List).

• You may never eat street food in China again after watching this video from The Washington Post (very common unfortunately)
• Pollution Halves Visitors to Beijing from The Wall Street Journal (my friends there typically dont wander too far from their homes if it the index is even moderate… order-in lots of food)
• Chinese Cars: More Reliable Than You Think from The Wall Street Journal
• China’s Answer to Craigslist: 58.com from The Wall Street Journal (sold many appliances and older gadgets on it, it’s pretty useful)
• U.S., China to bid for overseas nuclear projects: U.S. energy secretary from Reuters
• David Faber Says Alibaba IPO to “Blow the Socks Off” Twitter from Alizila (probably true but not an apples to apples comparison)
• Alibaba IPO in New York? Not So Fast from The Wall Street Journal (apparently they were just jawboning their way to a better deal)
• US and Britain using Hong Kong to infiltrate China, PLA-backed film says from South China Morning Post (based on conversations with people in the know, this is true, though not a surprise to anyone in the know)
• Closer Look: Why Patients in China Kill Their Doctors from Caixin
• Chinese cities victim of US spying scheme from China Daily (everyone is unfortunately.  now the question is do Alcatel-Lucent or Huawei do the same thing too?)
• Shanghai Can Tolerate Slower Growth, Party Boss Says from Caixin (Shanghai actually does have pretty good air quality compared to nearly all tier 1 and tier 2 cities)
• To Save or Not to Save: Why Are Chinese Holding on to Hard-earned Cash? from Tea Leaf Nation (real disservice to not explain that capital controls prevent savers from investing abroad or that CPI rises faster than wage increases creating an incentive to save “just in case.”  they should have also shown the real estate costs and automobile costs for tier 1 & 2 cities.)
• Yuan Currency Use Remains Low Despite China’s Growth from The Wall Street Journal
• Aging Population Could Trim 3% Off China GDP Growth from The Wall Street Journal (a very conservative estimate, probably higher especially if it gets stuck in the “middle income trap.”)
• Mobile Video Gives China Unicom More 3G Users from China Tech News
• Study shows PM1 air pollution is most harmful from China Daily (yet another reason i would not want to live north of the huaihe)
• Guangzhou Evergrande Ties FC Seoul, 2-2, in League Final from The Wall Street Journal
• Soviets conducted nuclear blasts at oilfield to be tapped with China from Reuters
• Why ‘2 Broke Girls’ is All the Rage in China from Foreign Policy (know lots of people who watch it, hard to believe they understand all of the innuendos)
• How China’s Perfect World plans to be a player in mobile games — and the West from Venture Beat
• 13 hottest set-top boxes and smart TVs in China from Tech In Asia
• Robert De Niro invests in Shanghai property complex from BBC
• This Seemingly Bullish Chart Is Becoming A Big Headache For Chinese Policymakers from Business Insider (many distortions caused by a sundry of policies)
• Chinese FDI in the United States: Q3 2013 Update from Rhodium Group ($12.2 billion invested in the first 9 months)
• Foreign Supermarkets Hand over Register Keys to Domestic Rivals from Caixin (relatively low margin industry, wonder if repatriating profits were another reason?)
• China relaxes company registration requirements from Xinhua