Harbin, in Heilongjiang’s capital, is the home of China’s International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

Here, visitors and competitors are greeted to life-seize ice sculptures of international landmarks. The Athens Acropolis, the Forbidden City? They’re all here.

You can even take a ride down an ice slide representing the Songhua River.

The scenery gets even more magical when the sun goes down. That’s when beams of crimson, sapphire, lime green and more shine through translucent ice sculptures illuminating the park.

“It’s quite surreal, due to both the scale and all the lighting—like being in a fantasy movie,” says Christian Stanley of the China Travel Company, in an interview with National Geographic. “You  feel very small and can’t help wondering how they manage to build all of this so quickly. It’s also hard to believe that within a matter of weeks it is all gone—melted away.”

The adventure continues at The Siberian Tiger Park a few miles northwest of Harbin.

This 355-acre reserve is home to Siberian Tigers, black pumas, leopards and lynx.

Visitors board buses surrounded by barbed-wire mesh to get close to these great creatures..

Some even call him the face of modern China: KFC’s Colonel Sanders.

That’s right.

The Colonel even competes for wall space with historic Communist leader Mao Zedong.

In fact, a giant, gold statue of Mao which overlooked the countryside recently has been demolished days after being erected. An official says the statue was never registered or approved.

But, don’t expect the nation’s KFCs to come down anytime soon.

The country is seasoned with about 4,900 stores. The first opened its doors in 1987. Since then, the communist country has been welcoming some of the perks of capitalism – the system Mao sought to keep at bay when he ruled China with an iron fist.

Today, Beijing is engulfed by an air of commercialism. It’s flooded with more than just fast-food chains and the blessing of the Colonel. It’s also surrounded by shiny cars and fancy hotels where the ultra-rich come to play.

Still, it’s not to say the country’s capitalists haven’t embraced the ruling Communist Party. According to the Hurun Research Institute, a third of the nation’s wealthiest people are party members. The same research suggests many people in the National People’s Congress are billionaires.

China seems to be enjoying a Communist-Capitalist hybrid system.

However, Beijing is learning it can’t just enjoy all the benefits of capitalism without enduring some of its challenges and risks. Among them is the recent stock market crash. Last week, the CSI 300, an index of China’s biggest stocks, fell by 7 percent – the worst opening of a year for Chinese markets in history.

 .

Those are the words that renowned humanitarian Elsie Tu lived by up until her death on Dec. 8, 2015 at the age of 102.

This Englishwoman arrived in the colony of Hong Kong in 1951 as Elsie Elliot to support her husband, a missionary named Bill Elliot.

But she soon wanted to do more than just spread the word of God.

At the time, Honk Kong was administered solely by British officials and businessmen for the purpose of exploitation. Elsie came to see the Chinese as victims and grew to view colonialism as something that brought out the worst in the British.

She became dismayed at the sight of Chinese refugees escaping newly-communist China into the cramped, dilapidated huts in the slums of Kai Tak in Kowloon.

She was heartbroken by the children walking into her church on fungus-encrusted feet and with boils from malnutrition.

So, Elsie set up a hospital clinic to treat them.

She saw children with an eagerness to learn holding cheap comics on the street.

So, Elsie founded Mu Kwang Middle school in 1954.

But, she didn’t stop advocating for the needy’s rights through philanthropy. She was also very vocal at criticizing the top.

Soon, Elsie was catching the attention of the Legislative Council, the police, and top British officials.

She got her first taste of Honk Kong’s corrupted underbelly when she began buying land for buildings and exploring the Education Department. She saw triads extorting protection money from hut-dwellers across the land.

She even noticed police involvement in the narcotics trade. Elsie exposed this corruption in her reports and letters to the South China Morning.

Police eventually accused her of inciting violence among demonstrators protesting against a fare hike on the Star Ferry linking Hong Kong island and Kowloon. After she proved the, wrong, she became widely popular.

Those at the top didn’t really know what to make of her. But, Elsie eventually climbed to the ranks of the Legislative Council where she sat from 1988 to 1995.

Through protecting the needy Chinese in Hong Kong, she also found love after having left her demanding, first husband.

In 1985, she married a Chinese patriot from Inner Mongolia named Tu Hsueh-kwei. She came to call him “Andrew” after the apostle who cared for the needy. Elsie adopted “Tu” as her last name.

Together, they founded Elsie’s school and worked toward humanitarianism. Today, that school stands as a seven-storey block with 1,300 students. It started as a 30-desk army tent.

Andrew also boosted her interest in Chinese culture. Through him, she learned the philosophy and poetry of China as well as the Chinese habit of patience.

The marriage served as a contrast to her previous one, where her most important roles including serving refreshments at meetings. With Andrew, it was he who greeted her with tea after she spent a busy day at the Legislative Council.

As Hong Kong moved closer to Communist China’s control, she attacked what she called “disgraceful” reforms belatedly introduced by the British.

In 1995, she lost her seat to a “pro-Democracy” candidate.

She refused to shake his hand..

The policy was put into effect earlier this year to prevent tourists from shaming the country’s reputation abroad.

Three of the new additions were involved in an airplane scuffle over leg room on a flight from Cambodia to Chengdu. One passenger angered another when she reclined her seat. Once relatives jumped in, the argument became violent. The pilot deemed the three passengers from Sichaun a threat to the flight’s safety and had them booted off the plane before it took off.

In another incident, Rong Jiaxin, of Shanghai, punched a Family Mart clerk in the nose while in Japan, because the clerk had asked Jiaxin’s wife to pay for an item before opening it.

In the most recent incident, Huang Jiankui, of Hunan Province, hit a travel guide with a teacup after the guide refused to offer Jiankui’s son a free ticket during their one-day tour of a mountainous resort in Sichuan province. The boy was reportedly too tall for a free ticket.

All three occurrences span dates between August and October.

According to China’s National Tourism Administration, 16 people have been added to the blacklist so far this year. Among these is a couple who made bomb threats and poured steaming noodles on a flight attendant.

People on the black list are barred from air travel for a period of one-to-three years, and their credit scores are downgraded..

When the court took jurisdiction over the case filed by the Philippines, which has its own territorial claims in the region, China brushed it off as a “futile” attack on its sovereignty which would “lead to nothing.”

Legal experts now say Manila has a good chance of success based on the court’s rejection of China’s arguments during the hearing on jurisdiction. Such a scenario would mark the first time an international court has intervened in the matter – something Beijing has been trying to avoid for years.

International energy lawyers and officials from other countries in the region are keeping their eyes on the case. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea, which serves as a waterway through which $5 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes through each year.

“Other countries will use it as a stick to beat Beijing with,” said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s Institute of South East Asian Studies, in an interview with Reuters. “That’s why China is so freaked by this whole issue.”

Manilla filed the case in hopes of earning a court’s ruling on its right to exploit waters in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone as allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

This treaty defines territorial and economic zones based on factors such as islands, rocks and reefs.

China, which claims most of the South China Sea, has been expanding its efforts in building artificial islands in the region. Even though it ratified UNCLOS, Beijing dismisses the court’s authority and claims it will deny any ruling- a claim reiterated by China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

Such a response is likely as no entity would enforce a legally-binding ruling in support of the Philippines.

Still, China would face pressure on the world stage, especially at regional meetings.

One expert told Reuters he would expect to see Western nations place pressure on China in bilateral meetings and at international forums if the ruling went against Beijing on specific key points.

“That’s the dirty little secret here … the Chinese have pretended that it’s going to be easy to ignore and reject,” said Bonnie Glaser, a security expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an interview with Reuters. “I think in reality they will have to pay an international price for it.”

 .

The 24-hour shopping spree was launched in 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba’s TMall platform. Since then, Singles Day has marked the biggest annual battle among e-commerce companies in China.

By the end of Singles Day 2015, Alibaba’s total gross merchandise revenue (GMR) reached $14.3 billion or a 53.7 percent increase from last year. In 2009, it didn’t even reach the $1 billion mark.

This year, Alibaba took it up a notch by hosting a star-studded Singles Day Eve TV show.

The event brought together China’s top pop stars as well as foreign celebrities including “007”’s Daniel Craig and Kevin Spacey who appeared as President Underwood from the hit series “House of Cards.”

The move seemed to get people engaged. Within the first hour and a half of Singles Day 2015, Alibaba’s GMV reached $5 billion – a feat that took the company 13 hours to reach last year.

A key priority for Alibaba in 2015 was bringing more international brands to Chinese consumers.

The Alibaba Group claims that its platforms attract more than 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands such as Macy’s and Apple from 25 countries.

Its biggest competitor JD.com also pushed to bring more products overseas.

“We’re seeing great demand from Chinese customers for global products,” said JD Worldwide Director Tony Qiu during an interview with Forbes. He also noted he “expects a lot of traction” from its recently launched cross-border service, which has seen more growth that any other unit in its business.

He added Chinese consumers are interested in products from the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

 .

“The Freedom on the Net 2015” report published by Freedom House explored ways in which China regulates use of the Internet from strengthening its website censorship capabilities to jailing citizens for making certain kinds of Internet speech.

“The aim of establishing control was particularly evident in the government’s attitude toward foreign Internet companies, its undermining of digital security protocols, and its ongoing erosion of user rights, including through extralegal detentions and the imposition of prison sentences for online speech,” reads the report released this week.

On Wednesday, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported that a new law would allow officials to jail citizens convicted of creating or spreading “false information” online for up to seven years.

The new law goes into effect Sunday and targets people who “fabricate false information about hazards, diseases, disasters or crimes and spread it on information networks or other media, or deliberately spread it on information networks or other media while knowing it is false information, seriously disrupting social orders, will be sentenced to a prison term up to three years, placed under detention or face enforcement measures.”

“In cases where serious consequences are caused, one will be sentenced to a prison term ranging from three to seven years.”

Since 2013, a charge of “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble” has also been particularly used against Internet users.

Last year, civil rights defense lawyer Pu Zhiqiang was given the charge after writing micro blogs criticizing the Chinese government’s policies against the Uihgurs, an ethnic minority.  He’s facing up to 8 years in prison.

This summer, China released a draft law on cyber security. If passed, the law could further legitimize overreaching actions it’s already taken such as shutting down the Internet in large regions as it did in 2009, when riots broke out involving Uighurs in the Xinjijang region.

China is also championing the idea of “Cyber Sovereignty,” a notion which Chinese Cyberspace Administration leader Lu Wei has brought up during meetings with executives of foreign Internet and media companies. Popular American websites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are blocked in the communist nation.

In the Freedom House report, China came behind Iran, Cuba and Myanmar. North Korea was not part of the study.

 .

The free event at the Reynolds Performance Hall brought together several performers in addition to the Chinese orchestra for a day of American folk music; native Chinese tunes played on instruments such as the er-hu, pi-pa and the Chinese flute; and art demonstrations featuring calligraphy, paintings and more.

These art forms came together at several instances including one involving a Tai Chi performance paired with a pipe solo and a calligraphy demonstration paired with a pi-pa solo.

Because Nanjing University doesn’t offer a music degree, its orchestra brings together students from various disciplines including literature, philosophy, law, and business management.

The group has brought their music to audiences around the world including those in Germany, Russia, Japan and Korea.

Toward the end of its performance, the Orchestra incorporated American classics such as “Yankee Doodle” into its symphony.

“‘Yankee Doodle’ was a twist that I did not expect,” said Josh Carlat during an interview with the UCA’s student newspaper The Echo. “The show was very good; I enjoyed it a lot.”

In partnership with East China Normal University, UCA has been housing the 24^th Confucius Institute in the U.S. since 2007.

 .

The Haidian District court came to its highly ridiculed findings after reviewing 151 rape cases involving 162 defendants in the last three years.

“Some victims have bad habits such as smoking and drinking,” the court said. “Defendants easily target these people, based on the habitual perception that victims who smoke and drink, especially victims who are drunk, could easily become targets.”

Internet users expanded further on the court’s findings.

One user warned, “Those with hair are more likely to be sexually assaulted than those with no hair; those with teeth are more likely to be sexually assaulted than those who don’t have teeth.

“But most importantly, women who are alive are way more likely to be sexually assaulted than female corpses. So out of self-love and self-protection, we have to drop dead.”

But what about the male defendants?

The court concluded that most were simply men whose basic sexual needs were not being met, and who didn’t know any better than to go out and rape. It found that 64 percent were aged between 18 and 30 with needs that could not be “normally satisfied” because they were either single or married but not living with their spouses.

The court’s overall conclusion: Women don’t dress provocatively or enjoy common vices. Men, don’t not have your needs met..

The state-run Xinhua news agency broadcasted the announcement made by the party’s Central Committee on Thursday.

“I have looked forward to this for so many years — even had dreams about it! I cried every time when I woke up and realized it wasn’t yet true. I thought it was so unfair,” said 36-year-old Su Weihu in an interview with CBC news.

The committee made its decision “to improve the balanced development of population” and to deal with an aging population.

The one-child policy was implemented in 1979 to solve issues brought on by a rapidly-growing population including the diminishing of essential resources.

Since then, China has gradually eased this policy. For example, rural couples eventually got the right to have a second child if the first born was a girl.

Traditionally, Chinese couples prefer boys over girls sometimes resorting to forced abortions. This has upset the population ratio between men and women making it hard for men to find wives. Some officials link this trend to the increase in human trafficking of women into China.

Amendments to the one-child policy haven’t resulted in a balanced sex ratio. Couples generally still prefer boys and the younger generation typically sees a smaller family size as ideal.

The birthrate dip also spiked the average age of the population raising concerns that the young labor pool, sparked by the one-child policy, won’t be able to support the baby boom generation as it retires.

“The good news is, it is here. The bad news is, it is too little too late,” said Cai Yong, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 .