News

Beijing Scraps Fees for Nine-Year Compulsory Educations

Students at Beijing's public schools will no longer have to pay miscellaneous charges starting with the fall semester of 2007, according to a new policy issued by the local education authority.

This will save each urban family with school-age children an average of 80 yuan (US$10) per semester or 160 yuan (US$20) a year.

The move was designed as a step forward in China's overall policy to let all school-age children enjoy nine years of compulsory education at no cost to their families.

Nine-year compulsory educations, including six years of elementary school and three years of junior high school, became the rule in China in 1986.

The central government exempted students in rural areas of western China from tuition and miscellaneous fees for nine-year compulsory educations in 2006. The same took place in the more developed central and eastern regions in 2007.

 

Olympic Drug Testing Improved

To ensure a drug-free Olympic Games next year, unprecedented numbers of athletes will be tested and the illegal Internet trade of performance-enhancing substances will be targeted.

China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) is striving to stop the illegal trade of performance-enhancing drugs and is strengthening its support to stop doping. 

Since the State Counci published a set of anti-doping regulations in 2004, SFDA has been active in the war against drug cheats.

There will be at least 4,500 doping tests at the Beijing Games, compared with 3,700 in Athens.

A new laboratory has been built to conduct the tests. Located in the Olympic Sports Centre, the lab will test between 230 and 280 samples each day during the Games from July 27–August 24, 2008.

Forty-one doping control stations will be set up, serving all venues, including the Olympic Village, and cars transporting samples will be accompanied by armed guards.

 

Local Dishes Get Official English Names

Foreigners will find it easier to order a meal in Beijing during the Olympics as most dishes and drinks will have proper English translations.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau has solicited public opinion about its list of translations for 2,753 dishes and drinks.

The list, once finally fixed, will be used in restaurants across the country, to replace confusing, even ridiculous translations, according to the bureau.

In preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games, the city has also moved to standardize English translations of public facilities, including road signs and hotel services.

A team set up by the Beijing Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and Beijing Tourism Bureau has been working on the problem of bad translations of Chinese dishes since March 2006, backed by a committee of 20 language experts and catering service managers.

The committee also plans to launch a training programme to equip waiters and waitresses with the knowledge they may need to explain the dishes to customers.

 

Survey: More Use Transliterations of Western Names

More Chinese are given names in western style or just direct transliterations of western names, according to a survey on the use of Chinese language.

Such western names as Lina, Lucy or Jenny are widely used in Chinese names with characters following English tones, according to the “Language Situation in China: 2006” survey conducted by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

It found that there were names putting first names after given names, contrary to the Chinese style with an opposite sequence. Some people even have English letters such as A, B and C in their names.

The survey also found that more than 60 million Chinese names carried rarely used characters, probably to avoid repetition or to show peculiarity.

“Only 20,000 to 30,000 characters can be identified by computers, far from satisfying the public demand for given names,” said Li Yuming, an MOE official in charge of language administration, citing an increase in the use of rare names.

“Name repetitions in China are common because of a large population,” Li said, adding there were more than 300,000 “Zhang Weis” across the country.

He suggested that police departments should set up a name reference system for the public to choose characters for names so they can avoid rarities or repetitions.

Legislation on the use of characters in names is being prepared, according to police sources.

 

A Church for the Olympic Village

According to China Daily, a temporary church will be set up in the Olympic Village during the 2008 Games for Catholic athletes, and all churches in Beijing will be open to Catholic tourists.

The Beijing diocese is training priests fluent in foreign languages to celebrate Mass during the upcoming Games, said Liu Bainian, vice-president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

“All will be arranged in accordance with the practices adopted by other Olympics host cities,” Liu said.

According to Games organizers, a religious service centre will be set up in the Olympic Village with professional religious personnel providing services to meet the needs of athletes from various religious convictions.

Religious services and information will be available in Beijing as well as the six co-host cities.

Sixty volunteers from the five major religions in China, including Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity and Catholicism, recently attended a three-day training session organized by the Beijing Municipal Administration of Religious Affairs for providing religious services during the Games.

 

Squirrels’ Food Stores Stolen

Squirrels in Jingshan Park in Beijing are busy storing chestnuts for the winter. But some of their stores have been stolen by visitors to the park.

The squirrels pick chestnuts from trees in the north part of the park. After peeling off the chestnuts’ green shells, the squirrels will bury the nuts in the ground.

Some visitors found the squirrels’ food storage by chance, and dug up all the nuts. A small number even followed the squirrels to locate the squirrels’ food caches.

Park keepers have tried to stop the pilferage, but have failed to keep up. Fortunately, most park visitors also object to the squirrels’ food being stolen.

 

Trial Run for New Subway Trains

Beijing on September 5 began 5,000-kilometre tests of new subway train cars that will be used on the existing Beijing Subway Lines No. 1 and 2.

The new equipment will travel without passengers during the test period and will help prepare the city’s new subway trains for formal operations before the Beijing Olympic Games.

Each cabin of the new stainless steel subway cars is 19 metres long and 2.8 metres wide; a six-carriage train would likely carry about 1,820 people per run. Trains plying Line No. 1 will have dark red floors and bright yellow seats. Line No. 2 trains will have light blue floors and blue seats.

All the cars are equipped with Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD monitors) which will carry live on-board news broadcasts and subway information. Passengers will be able to watch sports competitions via these LCDs during the Olympic Games.

 

108 Cities Shun Cars…for a Day

September 22, 2007 was the first “Car-free Day” in China, and 108 cities took part in the campaign, during which citizens in those cities were encouraged to travel by public transport, via bicycle or on foot.

In Beijing, a major backer of the plan, private cars were not allowed on roads from Tianqiao to Zhushikou and those from Wangfujing to Bamiancao. The situation in other participating cities was similar.

According to the Ministry of Construction, private car ownership is increasing by 20 percent per year. Transportation accounts for 20 percent of the country’s energy consumption.

A ‘Car-free Day’ will save 33 million litres of petrol and cut the emission of 3,000 tons of waste gas, not to mention that hundreds of lives will be saved from traffic accidents. "Personally, I wish that more than 50 percent of our people would choose public transportation in the future, instead of the current 20 percent,” said Construction Vice-Minister Qiu Baoxing.

 

Museum Honouring Women and Children to Open before 2008

The China Women and Children Museum, the first of its kind in China, will be opened before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Construction of the museum is going smoothly.

The 35,000-square-metre (sq.m) museum will be located on the north side of Dong Chang’an Jie (East Chang’an Avenue); it will have 6,000 sq.m of exhibition space. By August 17, 2006, about 5,662 cultural relics had been donated to the museum, including 638 rare items.

Just as its name implies, the museum will be divided into two divisions: one for women and one for children. There will be six exhibition halls in the women’s division, portraying the past and present conditions of women in China. There will be five exhibition halls in the children division, telling the stories of famous Chinese children in history. There will also be many computer games available in the children division for youngsters to learn history and citizenship. All the items in the museum will be arranged in a chronological order.

 

Ten Movies sent to Hollywood China Film Festival

Ten Chinese movies will be shown at the Hollywood China Film Festival November 1–29, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

The “made in China” movies include: My Dream, The Knot, The Tokyo Trial and The Longest Night in Shanghai, SARFT said in a September 5 press release.

My Dream, a documentary about the dancers with a disability of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007, winning a favourable response.

The third Hollywood China Film Festival is being hosted by EDI Media Incorporated, the Ruddy Morgan Organization, Shenhart Entertainment and the Sun Media Investment Group of Companies, the press release said.

The first Hollywood China Film Festival was held in September 2005 in Los Angeles with the goal of promoting exchanges between film-makers of the two countries and of introducing more Chinese films to US audiences.

 

Director Ang Lee Wins Second Golden Lion

On September 8, Chinese director Ang Lee picked up the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for Best Picture for his spy thriller Lust, Caution, just two years after taking the same award for Brokeback Mountain.

This is the third consecutive year that a Chinese director has won the Golden Lion. Last year's best picture award went to Jia Zhangke for Still Life.

Lee's movie, called Se, Jie in Chinese, centres on a group of revolutionary students bent on killing a powerful political figure who collaborates with occupying forces during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. First-time actress Tang Wei portrays a young woman who agrees to ensnare the sinister figure, played by one of Asia's biggest screen stars, Tony Leung. The sometimes violent sex scenes between them were a major talking point in Venice.

Jury president Zhang Yimou said Lee’s movie has won applause from each member of the seven-member jury. Lee successfully used international resources while filming Lust, Caution, which played an important role in winning him the award, Zhang said.

 

Mr. Right, 30; Mrs. Right, Much Younger

Many Chinese women seek to marry a mature husband, while many men hanker after a young wife, a recent survey indicated.

More than 80 percent of Chinese women believe an ideal other half is aged 30 or 31 and 65 percent of Chinese men wanted to find a wife aged 25, according to a survey by the Psychology Department of Beijing Normal University and a research company, in which more than two million people were interviewed during the past year.

The survey showed 25.5 percent of male respondents were willing to marry a 30-year-old woman and only 12.5 percent would marry a 35-year-old.

But 35-year-old men were acceptable to nearly 35 percent of female respondents and even 40-year-olds still won 15.2 percent of the votes.

Although China's average sex ratio reached 119 boys to 100 girls in 2005, while the normal ratio set by the United Nations should be kept below 107:100, it's actually more difficult for women to get married in China as they have fewer choices than men, survey commentators said.

A similar survey in 2006 said that more than 90 percent women wanted to find a husband between the ages of 23 and 26.

The latest survey said the main reason for the “getting old” of ideal husbands was the rapid increase of the cost for living in recent years.

Disorder in marriage will be inevitable as the expectation gap for marriage between men and women has been enlarged, commentators said.