Google have released their year-end Zeitgeist showing what the world has been searching for. Shangzilla casts his eye over what Chinese netizens have been looking for - that is when they weren't hunting down wrongdoers.

1. 陈冠希 (Chén Guànxī, Edison Chen)
The contents of Edison Chen's hard-drive were the most popular search term. Shangzilla editor Dan Wasburnt refused to cash in on Edison-mania.


2. 奥运会开幕式 (Àoyùnhuì kāimùshì, Olympic opening ceremony)
Shangzilla thought that nothing of importance happened today, but we guess people were looking for this.

3. 四川地震 (Sìchuān dìzhèn, Sichuan earthquake)
A tragic day for the country. After several weeks of bad news, Shangzilla was hoping something funny would happen.


4. 不合格奶粉名单 (bù hégé nǎifěn míngdān, powdered milk scandal)
Now here was something genuinely to get upset about (unlike Edison Chen, where we just pretended to be outraged and forwarded each other sex pictures). Shangzilla concluded that breast was best


5. 艳照门 (yànzhàomén, "Sexy Photo-Gate")
Yes, its that enormous tool again. Shangzilla likes the Watergate-esque use of "门". At heart, he's a very cultured monster.


6. 画皮 (huàpí, Painted Skin)
The film didn't contain as much skin as promised, much to the disappointment of Dan Wasburnt.


7. 赤裸特工f.b.i (chìluǒ tègōng FBI, Naked Weapon FBI)
This female MySpace.cn blogger combined computer games and sex appeal to wow fans - but we think she's not as cute as JingJing carrying a gun.


8. 国足欢迎你 (guózú huānyíng nǐ, China football welcomes you)
This song and video spoofed the Olympic Song "Beijing Welcomes You" while making fun of the perennially useless Chinese football team. Chinese lyrics are here, sample "场上梦游是惯例,　场下才牛B" "on the field we are sleepwalking, off the field we are (unpleasant individuals)"


9. 刘翔退赛 (Liú Xiáng tuì sài, Liu Xiang withraws from competition)
Despite many shouts of JIAYOU!, local golden boy Liu Xiang dropped out of the Olympics.


10. 神七 (shénqī, Shenzhou 7)
One small step for China, one giant leap for mankind.


We hope you've enjoyed reading Shangzilla this year. We'll be back!

Editor Dan Wasburnt pulled off a clever double-bluff in a recent article for the popular Shangzilla.com blog on Friday afternoon. Dan explains "I headlined an article 'Dan Wasburnt loves pussy', knowing that world-weary websurfers would spot the double entendre, and expect to see a get an article about my cat Fluffykins. Instead, they got a big picture of a woman's vagina. LOL!!! NSFW!!!"

Wasburnt has been known to court controversy in the past, and will generally stop at nothing to put tits on the home page.

Scientists at the Shanghai Giant Panda Research Facility claim to have made a breakthrough in understanding why giant pandas are so reticent about mating. "We had tried everything to get our pandas in captivity to breed with each other" explained Liu Ye, chief panda scientist. "Aphrodisiac bamboo, videos of other pandas having sex, Viagra. They just seemed to be really bad at having babies". Without sufficient levels of breeding, the giant panda population will collapse, moving them closer to extinction.

The scientists now believe the lack of breeding was caused by a poorly worded memo relating to the one-child policy. "We believe the pandas misunderstood one of the characters in the memo for a similar hanzi, and thought the one-child policy applied to them too. All this time we've been thinking pandas are dumb and actually they've been trying to work for the good of the country."

The scientists hope to next investigate whether the panda's strict diet of bamboo is actually due to them mistakenly following a celebrity diet they read about in Cosmopolitan.

Glum editors of Shanghai website ShangYeti expressed hopes something funny would happen Monday.

"With all the recent tragedies lately like the Sichuan earthquake, it's not easy to find something to write about," moaned editor Matt Minor, swigging from a cup of what he claimed was "tea," but what freelancers suspected was actually bourbon. "I mean, how can you joke about that, or about the flooding in Guangxi province? This'll be the end of us."

Twiddling his thumbs at his rickety desk, co-editor Dan Bendan agreed, saying, "We've been racking our brains trying to figure out what to do. Sharon Stone jokes are too obvious. Plus any stupid thing we have her say will sound too real to be funny."

"We've been hoping for a new sex scandal, because those are always fun. There's that one about the conductor on the Qinghai-Tibet railway, but come on, he's not even famous. Who cares?" added freelancer Bustis Hayes.

"Where is Edison Chen when you need him?" moaned Minor, before collapsing into what co-workers suggested was a drunken stupor.

Beijing Olympic mascot Yingying and Shanghai Expo mascot Haibao are the latest celebrities to be involved in a sex scandal. According to our sources, Yingying has been neglecting her mascot duties with the other four Fuwa in order to get down and dirty with big blue boy Haibao.

An ayi at the Olympic Hotel in Beijing spotted Haibao entering Yingying's room at midnight last Thursday. On pressing her ear to the door, she heard Yingying screaming "Faster! higher! stronger! ... Right there! Harder! Deeper!"

When questioned about what she was doing with Haibao, Yingying giggled behind her hands, before running a 42.195km marathon, grabbing her sabre, and doing some Greco-Roman wrestling.

Haibao, who commentators have described as looking "like some kind of demented blue condom" has been in hiding in Boston since the reported incident. It is rumoured that Yingying's jealous fellow mascot Jingjing, who has mafia connections, has been looking for him.

Shangzilla editor Dan Wasburnt's latest article for popular website Shangzilla.com has nothing to do with naked photos of Edison Chen.

Washburnt noted however, that the article Net awash with naked pictures of Edison Chen and you was currently topping the most popular articles this month. Even shameless ripoffs of Shangzilla.com are filled with stories about Edison Chen.

"Since internet users are searching frequently for "Edison Chen photos" and "Edison Chen taking naked pictures" and "Edison Chen latest sex scandal pictures", commented Wasburnt, "I decided to mention Edison Chen as many times as I could in the article to ensure my article came first in Google, whenever anyone searched for Edison Chen"

"I might also mention other Hong Kong stars like Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan, and Cecilia Cheung, who are also unrelated to my article. But closely related to Edison Chen", Wasburnt continued.

Wasburnt, whose hairstyle has rarely been compared to Edison Chen, once came last in an Edison Chen lookalike contest.

Wasburnt's next article, also about golf, is entitled "Latest pics in Edison Chen sex scandal".

Those naked pictures you let Edison Chen take of you with his webcam were released to several web sites Saturday. They include several nude shots, one where you are giving oral pleasure, those ones with the lacy tights, and the one you forgot about where you were wearing a police uniform.

As the scandal continues to unfold, Chen recently released a statement to YouTube in which he did not apologize for taking naked pictures of you. He did not apologize for storing them on his computer where they could be downloaded by any third party who gained access to the machine. He also did not apologize for taking his computer to a random repair shop to be fixed, thereby giving total strangers access to photos of you and other people. However, he did apologize to anyone whose feelings had been hurt by the photos' exposure.

The photos can now be found on several forums, including those on Tianji.com and Baido.com. They are next to pictures of Edison Chen with Regina Ip, Nina Wang and your mom.

Dan Wasburnt, 108, the playboy owner of popular Shanghai satirical blog Shangzilla awoke on Saturday morning with a terrible hangover after a heavy night at Bar Rouge. After enjoying one too many champagne cocktails, the thought of penning a long, serious article was too much to handle so Wasburnt decided to go with the old standby of tasteful nudity.



"She's, like, famous or something. Maybe she has an aunt from Shanghai" reasoned Wasburnt.

So I'm in the gym changing my clothes and this older Chinese man, maybe 70 years old, asks me "How long have you been in China?"

So I say "a year", as I get ready for the standard stream of questions. He comes back with "Do you have a Chinese girl yet?" to which I reply "No, I'm too busy". He laughs and says "You shouldn't waste your opportunities." I tell him "I keep my eyes open", he returns with "Just your eyes?" I try to sneak one by him with "I keep my heart open too." However he shuts me down with "Yeah, but you've got to use your hands and lips."

Game, Set, Match.

Do 99% of expats need to speak Chinese other than when ordering food and making girls giggle with their hand in front of their mouth? No.

Do most people feel a sense of being unique and clever when they utter a few simple sentences to a taxi driver, or a girl giggling with her hand in front of her mouth? Yes.

This is where Casual Mandarin comes in.

We have spotted a niche gap in the language teaching market - for a reasonable 20,000RMB fee, which includes 6 hours of classes, a CD, and a night of inflexible and squeaky passion with a language teacher, you will learn how to make the necessary Chinese hand-signs from one to ten.

Tired of getting 1 apple given to you instead of 2?

Tired of getting 5 apples instead of, say, 6?

Come to Casual Mandarin - the sex is bad and the price ridiculous - but at least you WILL have sex.

Popular satirical blog Shangzilla will use any old excuse to put women's breasts on the home page, according to editor Dan Wasburnt. "Whether it's Hairong Tiantian (海容天天) getting her assets out for some performance art, a body painting festival in Lhasa, or a a sex expo in Pudong, we've discovered that – to sum it up in three words – sex sells"

Wasburnt added "Of course we'll always have some kind of human interest story to go with it, but we know most of our readers will just head straight for the image slideshow."

This blog would never stoop to such levels.