Chengdu will soon be home to a 6 million-square-meter furniture shopping mall and the world's largest used-car retail store (at almost 270,000 square meters). The furniture mall will be built in Xindu District in the north and will host about 3,000 companies. The used car store is supposed to open by the end of the year in Longquanyi District.

Last Tuesday, 26-year-old Chengdu native Zheng Jie became the first Chinese tennis player to reach the Australian Open semi-finals by beating Maria Kirilenko of Russia with a score of 6-1, 6-3.

Last Thursday in Le Shan City, eight people were killed and six others injured when a minibus swerved off the road and rolled into a river. Fourteen passengers were riding the minibus when it crashed—six more than the intended capacity.

A newborn baby was stolen from Wuhou District No. 5 People's Hospital in Chengdu last week when hospital staff neglected to double-check the identity of a woman claiming to be the baby's relative. The woman abducted the baby, who was born to a poor family in Yibin and adopted by a couple from Pengzhou, after paying its medical costs and saying that she would take the baby to see its dying grandfather.

"Inspection authorities" discovered pop singers Fang Ziyuan and Ying Youcan to have been lip-syncing at a recent concert in Chengdu. Last October, new regulations were put into effect under which lip-syncers may face fines of up to RMB10,000 and a lifetime ban from performing onstage.

Isaac Myers

Do you believe there are UFOs or aliens living among us? You're not alone! GoKunming interviews Zhang Yifang, founder and former director of the Kunming UFO Research Association and the organizer of the 2009 International Astronomy Year and Extraterrestrial Life Forum about extraterrestrial activity in China.

The dismal state of sex education in China is illustrated by this post on China Hush about the reaction of a small town to a 14-year-old girl who managed to keep her pregnancy secret until she gave birth to the baby in her dorm room.

The disaster movie 2012 has been under the spotlight for its perceived positive, neutral, and negative portrayals of China. But the comments translated by ChinaSMACK hint that people are getting a little bored of nitpicking over anything that might possibly be construed as negative about China's role in big foreign movies.

For all those pondering the potential of tennis in China after the low turnout for the ATP Champions Tour in Chengdu this month, China Sports Today has an interview touching on these matters with rising tennis star Zhang Shuai.

Naturally, much of the China blogosphere is buzzing about U.S. President Obama's three-day visit to China this week. Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap was deeply unimpressed with the phrase "big supporter of non-censorship", while Sam Crane at the Useless Tree notes the negative coverage and rises to Obama's defense (Requires proxy). China Digital Times and China Beat do a good job of summarizing (requires proxy) media coverage, and the New York Times Room for Debate blog invites opinions from scholars on China about whether or not Obama was too soft in approaching China's leaders on the issue of human rights.

And in an amusing piece (yes, there is one this week!), Evan Osnos of the New Yorker writes about the experiences of the press corps that follow the president on trips abroad.

Danwei features the introduction of and an extract from the recently republished memoir by "princess" Der Ling who recounts her two years spent in the Forbidden City serving Empress Cixi. (Requires proxy)

Matt Schiavenza links to a The National article about two Jewish Americans, both called Sidney, who lived in China during and after the civil war. Coincidentally, the New Yorker's Letter From China blog features a short interview with one of the Sidneys about his views on China today.

China Beat interviews Ole Schell, director of a new documentary about the Chinese entrepreneurs who competed on the wildly popular TV game show Win in China.

James Fallows' blog embeds a video from the Atlantic's "Doing Business in China" series in which a handful of Chinese high-flyers are asked a surprisingly tricky question: What is communism?

China Sports Today writes about the medal-fixing scandal afflicting the national games. China Hush also has a full translation of an Sina interview with the informer who has made the accusations.

In what is possibly the saddest and most 'lei' 雷 (shocking) story on ChinaSMACK (and there's a lot of competition), a prostitute shares all about her sexual health, her contraction of AIDS, as well as all the phone numbers of her clients.

And in a short post, ChinaGeeks looks at a fellow who has recently been in the news, Mao's grandson Mao Xinyu, and the content of his popular blog.

The Plateau Music Project uploads three "endangered" love songs (with lyrics) from the Tibetan plateau as part of their efforts to record and preserve local music heritage. It's not just the pandas that are worth saving.

China Digital Times links to a high-quality interactive web video called Journey to the End of Coal, in which you are an investigative reporter, delving into the dirty world of coal in Shanxi province.

China News Wrap translates an article on Sohu that about increasingly unmet demand for migrant workers in China's southern cities--suggesting that factories might have to improve labor conditions in order to attract workers.

China Media Project looks at how state media are dealing with their "shackles" while writing about the 60th anniversary of the PRC.

More scary stuff from Chinahush: namely, 40,000 fake condoms.

And in an update for those of you interested in the "Shanghainese black girl" Lou Jing controversy, Chinahush posts a video of and translates the transcript of a long interview with Lou Jing about her experiences growing up black in China and her feelings on all the attention she's been receiving. And CNReviews chimes in with, All you foreigners are just as racist as the Chinese you're accusing!

One more from CNReviews: A look at the bias implied in the blogosphere fuss over Thomas Friedman's editorial in the New York Times, which points out some advantages of autocracy (China) vs. democracy (U.S.).

Fran likes surfing the China blogosphere, and every Sunday she shares her picks of the week with GoChengdoo readers.