If you found it hard to get hold of some traditionally-cooked turkey this week, think of the lengths you would've had to go to in the '80s. Si Bu Xiang tells of just that: how one enterprising foreign-affairs officer secured a big turkey for Americans living in Chengdu in 1981.

Recent TV series Snail House, otherwise known as Dwelling Narrowness, has been the hottest thing on the telly this year with its tales of mistresses, corrupt cadres and, erm, housing developments. Chinayouren enthuses about the show and tells us why it's so popular.

Danwei interviews Jonathan Watts, former China correspondent for the Guardian, about climate change and Copenhagen, and James Fallows reacts to comments, and then "follows up" on a much-discussed opinion piece in the Guardian about China getting its way in Copenhagen.

You can see how Chinese medicine works and whether it can cure the common cold thanks to an enlightening e-mail exchange on My Health Beijing in which our favorite physician, Dr. Richard, quizzes an American doctor trained in Chinese Medicine about how TCM approaches 'ganmao.'

It turns out that Taobao is more than just a treasure chest of just about anything you could ever want to buy: It can also be a source of humor. Veggie Discourse has a funny post of exchanges between sellers and their disgruntled and rather witless customers. (Requires proxy)

And Shanghaiist has gone list crazy. If you have a penchant for numbered paragraphs, check out the top ten sports stories, the top 'bubble stories' of 2009, China's five most significant stories of the decade ... and many more.

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.

A Chengdu man invokes the wrath of Chinese netizens after he boasts about using donated blood plasma to fertilize his plants, translated by Chinasmack.

Everyone knows that China isn't uniform, and the different areas each have their own stereotypes and reputations. Check out these funny maps depicting how the various provinces view each other, via Shanghaiist.

Ever sat through countless hours of TV dramas about the Red Army? No? Well, for good reason it seems. Uln of Chinayouren plows through 22 hours of "Stab in the Back" and shares his thoughts on its artistic merits and what it tells us about good communist ethics.

Lu Guang is the photographer who took the incredible and frightening pictures of environmental degradation in China that we linked to a few weeks ago. Now, Chinahush translates a Netease interview with him about photographing heavily polluted areas and how the villagers feel about the pollution.

The methods of translating foreign names into Chinese gets examined in a Danwei post about the possibilities of changing Barack Obama's Chinese name. (Requires proxy)

Fran enjoys surfing the China blogosphere and every Sunday she shares her weekly picks with GoChengdoo readers.

Inspired by the question of why China's peasants didn't revolt during the three-year famine of 1959 to 1961, Inside-Out China publishes a transcript of an interview with Chongqing resident Mr. Chen, at the time a local government worker, who describes the shocking conditions he witnessed in Sichuan during the Great Leap Forward. (Requires proxy)

Danwei TV interviews author Wang Gang about his experiences in the Cultural Revolution and why nobody else wants to talk about it.

In a thoughtful post at the Granite Studio, Jeremiah Jenne argues that in order to explain the apparent gap between Chinese and Western attitudes toward state control, we need to consider what we fear the most, not what we value the most.

ChinaSMACK translates a Chinese netizens' sometimes witty, sometimes not responses to the hypothetical question, "What would happen if the aliens in the movie District 9 landed in China?"

Be a hater. It's not just you who despises the squeaky voices and cheesy lines on Chinese TV commercials. ChinaHush provides a lowdown on 2009's top 10 worst offenders, as voted by Chinese netizens. "And my, over the years, constipation is gone, too."

Shanghaiist reports on the latest stupid things Jackie Chan said on CCTV.

Our sister site GoKunming has a fascinating report on Dwarf Empire, the dwarf theme park near Kunming and how the dwarfs there are treated.

Fool's Mountain examines why China hasn't produced (m)any laureates of the Nobel Prize for Literature and the state of writing in China. (Requires proxy)

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

Roger "pirates" his own blog onto Google sites to get around the GFW block and posts a photo essay on the Dacisi area in downtown Chengdu.

Following the disturbing reports of a brutal beating in an
Internet-addiction clinic in Sichuan this week, China Smack translates an at-times infantile blog discussion of 'net addiction.

Fool's Mountain features Chinese expat Ph.D. student and world indie-music podcaster Louis Yu who shares his thoughts about and favorites of China's indie music scene.

Information overload (as usual) in this week's Friday 5 on fifty 5. Impress your mates with knowledge of Chinese Internet memes. Plus check out a post from earlier this week to find out what the intriguingly titled dildo calligraphy is!

Can't get enough of giggling about "grass" and "sun" homophones? Then head over to Sinosplice where John shares some Chinese jokes, explaining the tricky bits.

Finally, China Geeks translates a post by Lin Yihe, well-known activist/sexologist/professor, criticizing the ways in which men and women are differently judged for their sexual behavior.

Video: This is well over a week old, but here's a time-lapse video compiled of photos from Christoph Rehage's stroll across China, via Shanghaiist. For more on Rehage, see the feature in CHENGDOO citylife issue 12 (April 2008).

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