We've selected the shortlist for our China NBA Game Competition and now it's up to you to vote for your favorite image. The person who sent us the photo that manages to garner the most votes as of 2pm tomorrow afternoon (Friday, Oct 17), will win 4 tickets to Saturday's NBA game at the Wukesong Indoor Stadium.

You can choose to either select the one image that you like the best or rank some or all of the images. Please be sure to make sure that you don't give the same ranking to more than one image, this will invalidate your vote.

To vote, click here.

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Update: Voting is now open. To rank your favorite of the 8 images we've chosen, click here.

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Riviera Pool Party

After what appears to be a long history of organizing pool parties down south, the Rivera people have woken up to the fact that Beijing is in need of some cooling off this summer and have organized their first pool party in Beijing. Originally scheduled to take place last Saturday, due to the capital's unpredictable weather, the first of what will become a regular Saturday event, was postponed to this coming Saturday, Jul 26. They promise tunes, sunshine and Mumm Champagne and advise people to come dressed in "glam swimwear". More details available here. RMB 100 (includes one glass of Champagne).
1pm-midnight. Sunstyle (6431 0020)

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Want to see how your Chinese measures up to that of other foreigners learning the language? You might want to catch an episode of Haier's Foreign Students in China Chinese Competition which is being screened all week from 10-11pm on CCTV 4. The show concludes with a grand final this Friday evening. We read about the contest over at Truth from Facts, where you can also find more details about the show and a translation of one Chinese blogger's reaction to hearing laowai mangling his mother tongue. Read more...

The great showdown between 2006 Chili Eating King, Gabe "Dr Pepper" Monroe and reigning Chili Eating Queen Yulin Zhao ended in a controversial* draw on Sunday with the two pepper-eating machines swallowing an astounding 75 peppers in 5 minutes. Six other brave contestants nobly tried to keep up, with Spike in second place as he methodically ate his way through a fiery 33 peppers and Josh in third as he consumed 20 peppers.

But it was really just a battle between the two favorites, who went chili for chili down to the final count, with spectators holding their breath as they battled to eat just one more chili.

A large crowd of Canada Day attendees cheered on the contestants as they pushed their bodies to the limit for the chance to win vouchers from Asian Star and Elisa’s Italian. Each contestant also received a limited-edition t-shirt from Gobi Gear.

Witness the chili carnage for yourself below.

You can take a look at a gallery of photos from the event here.

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Fancy a bit of Mala Xiangguo? Order your chicken wings biantai la? Put your Sichuan friends to shame by ordering the extra spicy broth at the local hot pot joint? Then we invite you to step up and take part in the Fourth Annual Beijinger Chili Pepper Eating Contest being held as part of the Canada Day celebrations at the Canadian International School this Sunday.

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We failed to get two of them into last week's issue of 7 Days, but there are three great events taking place this evening and a thin thread connects all three of them.

At 5pm, New York artist Patty Chang will give a talk over at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in 798. Chang, a 2008 finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize, was also recently featured in the MOMA New Directors series for her work Flotsam Jetsam. According to the Ullen's website, the artist will

give an overview of her work but will primarily introduce A Chinoiserie out of the Old West, the project she is currently working on here in China. Based on a 1928 text written by Walter Benjamin about the Asian American film starlet Anna May Wong, this work will take the form of several short film pieces that deal with representation, translation, mistranslation, and crossed meanings. Chang is in Beijing to film the first segment, which will be shown in late July at the Arrow Factory, Beijing.

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Celine Dion may have broken many a heart in the capital by canceling her Beijing performance (to add salt on the wound she's still keeping her date with Shanghai!), but us Beijingers can wipe away those tears and look ahead, as we still have another show from a best-selling megastar to look forward to as James Blunt, all going to plan, will perform at The Star Live later this month. If the name doesn't ring a bell, then perhaps the lyrics to his hit from 2005 will:

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do.
‘Cause I’ll never be with you.

The Beijinger is giving readers the chance to win two VIP tickets to see Mr Blunt perform on April 18 – all we require is that you engage in a bit of public humiliation. In order to enter our contest, you need to record your best impersonation of the chorus (listed above) to You're Beautiful. Please note, the recording must be submitted in MP3 format, cannot exceed 30 seconds and should be emailed to blog@thebeijinger.com no later than April 14.

At that point, we'll compile all our submitted recordings into one blog post and allow our readers to comment on their favorite James Blunt wannabe. The person with the most votes (or comments) will then be awarded two VIP tickets to James Blunt's show in Beijing. For some inspiration and a bit of an idea of the talent that exists out there, take a look at a similar competition that is being hosted over at Shanghai's Urbanatomy.

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Winner of the Second Prize in the Sports News category by Ke Hao

In the wake of a flurry of fake photo scandals (South China Tiger, The Tibetan Antelope and even the pictures of the moon caught by the Chang'e moon probe), this year's International Press Photo Contest has come under considerable scrutiny. Mainstream media have picked up on blogs that accuse a winner of the award in 2005 (a picture of pigeons in a square being inoculated against bird flu) of being digitally modified - something that goes against the rules of the competition. Two other winners from the 2005 awards were also stripped of their titles. Keep reading below for a selection of some of the winning images from the competition.

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Ahead of tonight's appearance at Vics, we caught up with Matrix from Drum and Bass duo Matrix and Futurebound and asked him about what the audience could expect from this evening's set. Keep reading below for a chance to win two tickets to tonight's show.

tbjblog: What are your first impressions of China/Beijing so far?

Matrix: We just got here four hours ago and have just spent some time hanging around the Forbidden City, which is quite amazing. We are really in a sightseeing mood. We're gonna stay in Beijing until Friday than head off to Shanghai and then some other place before we go back to the UK on Monday, so there is a lot of sightseeing to do.

tbjblog: Why did you decide to come to perform in China in the first place?

Matrix: Futurebound was here a couple years ago and for me it is the first time. It is quite unusual to go to new places and play there, something out of the ordinary.

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