ChinaHush

How a school designed for 1500 pupils ends up with 5315

Annie Lee — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:53:19 +0000

“Live in famous house, study in prestige school” is the real estate advert that attracted Li Lin to buy an apartment in this “famous” Zhongbo Community 4 years ago. After the spring festival, he planned to transfer his son to the promised prestige school but almost got rejected because the school is severely overcrowded.

Located at the busiest area of the county with a view of the Long River, Zhongxian Experimental Primary School was designed to enroll 1500 students, yet it had a total of 5315 pupils on board now, exceeding the standard by 254%.

Li Lin stumbled upon this advert during the spring festival of 2006, which said when you buy an apartment in Zhongbo Community, you can get your children into the experimental primary school of the county. He soon consulted the sales staffs of that community, who reassured him that the deal was discussed and passed by the county government, and the school was so elite that one may not make it even through guanxi (relation). So Li Lin took out his savings and placed his order.

Besides Li Lin, there are 86 more families that hit the same snag. Though the school agreed to accept their children under the pressure that it was promised by the developers and recorded in the government document, parents now began to worry about their children’s safety and study environment in such overcrowded school.

The reporter visited the school on March 11th. Above is what he saw in Class 3 Grade 4, where 87 students filled up the 50 m² classroom with 10 rows and 9 columns. Pupils in the first row sit right next to the teaching stand, with the blackboard 1.5 meter away. Children in the back even jammed the broom corner of the classroom. With about 30 cm space between rows, some children find it difficult to move about.

10-year-old boy Lie Yunchuan sits at the very first seat by the door, his 65 kg body couldn’t fit into the 30 cm space, but if he pushes the desk forward he will block up the front door. Moreover, he cannot see the notes on the other side of the blackboard since he seats at an angle less than 30 degree against the blackboard.

Overcrowded classroom also troubles teachers. With so many students to lecture at a time, speakers help a lot but obviously not enough — 30% of the teachers suffer from pharyngitis because they have to raise their voice so that they are heard by the whole class, according to vice-principal Chen Shixiang.

“Can’t take no more, truly no more.” Mr. Fang, principal of the school explained, “The school was designed for 1500 students, but now we have 5315 already with 10 classes each grade and 66-87 each class. The standard number of a pupil class is 45, we break it all.”

Mr. Fang became principal of the school 14 years ago when the schoolyard covered less than 7,000 m². Today the land was tripled but the area per capita is only 3 m², far below the 20 m² per capita standard. The scale of the school is no match with the bulge of the students.

The staggering situation place certain threats to Mr. Lei, another vice-principal in charge of student safety. He had considered an early retirement since he couldn’t sleep most of the time worrying about the safety of the students especially after the stampede happened in a Hunan school. To avoid tragedy, he implemented 3-period-to-dismiss policy for both noon and afternoon off, in addition, he also assigned 169 teachers to different points in corridors and stairways to help diverge the flow during “rush hour”.

As for morning exercise, some classes have to do it every other day, since playground and corridors can’t take all of them. At gym class, multiple programs will take up the same sport field.

Real estate package, guanxi note and investment bait are the 3 prime mountains that corner the school into the status quo, according to principal Mr. Fang, who complained that a whole closet would not be able to contain all the guanxi notes he received since 2007 as he grabbed out a handful of notes on which wrote recommendation for enrollment from different known or unknown persons.

School as part of real estate package
Eagle Valley of Zhongxian county used to be rural and quiet 5 year ago, but since the arrival of a Guangdong real estate company it became one of the busiest area in the county.

To fuel up the trend, the government held a meeting and came to agreement that the community should set up a branch of the elite Experimental Primary School, so as to push the property sales of the Zhongbo Community. The minutes of the government promised the community that property owners’ children can study in the branch school, and the community conveyed the promise to their potential buyers. Adverts saying “buy fine apartment, study in elite school” were seen everywhere in the city.

However, construction of the promised branch school never finished, and other commodity buildings started to grow on some of the planned school land. Developers explained that the construction was hampered by the new national private education policy enacted in 2007, but getting admitted to the Experimental Primary School was guaranteed by government minutes.

At the absent of the branch school, property owners of the community pushed their kids into the mother school. Owner Ms. Wang said: “(we don’t have choice) if we don’t buy the house in Zhongbo Community, our children wouldn’t be able to study in town, let alone being admitted to the experimental school.”

In the school office, reporter found a pile of “School Register Form” stamped with Chongqing Zhongbo Real Estate Development Ltd.

Vice-principal Mr. Lei said the school had to admit all those children registered on the form just because their parents bought an apartment from the company. They had admitted over 80 children from the community in the spring, and expected to get more in autumn.

Guanxi, relation pressure
The reporter counted the notes, roughly there were 38 guanxi notes in 2007, 15 for the January of 2009 and 119 guanxi calls that occupied 20 pages of record. The notes came in different forms, envelope, cigarette pack, notepad, sticker, name card and even menu. Some were hand wrote, others printed. As for the content of the note, mostly it didn’t recommend the writer’s own relatives rather it ran favor for friend’s friend, or relative’s relative. Mr. Fang kept all those notes in record for fear of neglecting or displeasing any big cats.

Principal said the beginning of school year was the most tiresome period, because people with some kinds of guanxi will jammed his office requesting for enrollment. There was a time when Mr. Fang was receiving some visitors and a cadre of the county called to recommend his relative’s child to the school, Mr. Fang explained the situation of the school to the cadre, who cut off the phone saying “forget it if you can’t do it”. Simple like that, Mr. Fang displeased the county cadre.

Handling the balance also adds up to Mr. Fang’s headache. Students’ performance is important, so is the relation behind them. To admit one and turn down another, he has to discuss with the board. Simply put, to those recommend multiple students at a time, the school admits only one of students; to those present gifts and dinners, reject directly; and for more complicated cases, let examinations draw the line.

School as investment bait
Among those guanxi notes, some are printed out into the form of recommendation letters or confirmation letters. The school has to admit the recommended students as the recommendation letters request, because they are from important corporations in the county.

In Zhongxian, education is a business card of the county, and as the elite school, the Experimental Primary School is regarded as a valuable asset to attract investments and in the end boost the economy. Therefore, the school is obligated to admit the children whose parents work for those important corporations invited by the county.

As a deputy of the county, Principal Fang urged for more school construction in the city for years, and he proposed building 2 more schools that can take up 1500 students each this year.

In fact, Experimental Primary School is not the only overcrowded primary school in Zhongxian county. The second and fourth primary school also suffer the same problem. The fourth primary school can only take 300 students 10 years ago, according to its principal Du Yulian, now there are 2,700 students studying on the approximately 13,000 m² school land, and the number will exceed 3,600 in three years.

Comment of the Evening Paper, by Yang Guangzhi
What happened in Zhongxian is a lesson for us. When real estate decides regional finance, it has a say on the region’s GDP; so regional government returns developers’ favor by offering elite educational resources as added value to property sales and investment. It is ok if it is all for development’s sake, but when elite educational resources have to compromise for money, influence and relation (guanxi), how far can fair education goes? Education should not be the maid of development.

Sexual repression of the stay at home women in China’s rural areas

Key — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:58:43 +0000

From dbw:

留守妇女 [liúshǒufùnǚ]: noun. wives who stay at home in rural areas while their husbands are away in urban areas for long periods of time

Not long ago, Dr. Zhang Hongyan encountered an embarrassing moment at the hospital emergency room: a woman dressed in rags was sent to the hospital with her lower body attached to her pet dog’s genital. When the medical staff pushed the bed into the operating room, the female patient’s face was colorless. No need to explain, Zhang Hongyan has already guessed what had happened. Zhang Hongyan picked up a suction syringe filled with anesthetic and injected into the panic pet dog.

Without much of struggle, a few minutes later, the sleeping dog was successfully taken out of the room. Drops of sweat rolled down from Dr, Zhang’s forehead. The patient gradually calmed down, however Dr, Zhang felt uneasy: in this imbalanced society, how many women are doing the same thing in order to relief their sufferings?

What Dr. Zhang encountered is actually an extreme case of sexual repression among the China’s rural women.

The female patient lived in Xiaolan town, a farmer who just started working in the fields. Five years ago, her husband had an affair while working in Fuoshan, the couple was separated since then. Their young son lived with the mother. Same day in the afternoon, when she was “trapped” by her pet “lover”, she panicked and was not able to pick up the phone. Luckily her son came home early for lunch from school. He went in and saw everything when he heard her mother’s scream in the bedroom.

What does a 9 year old know, he just stood there and stared until his mother called for help, then he dialed 120.

After the awkward moment, the hospital agreed to keep a tight-lip. However, a few days later the news spread like wildfire and public opinion raged.

“Was that necessary?”

“So sick, I thought they were shooting a movie!”

“She looked decent normally, never would have thought…”

“…”

Most people criticized her behavior, calling her shameless; only a small number of people were sympathetic, and showed sympathy and understanding.

A week later, the female patient did not come back to the hospital for the follow up, mother and son already moved away. But this story never stopped in the society.

As a medical staff, Zhang has seen all kinds of strange situations. Divorced women being lonely are more understandable, but married woman is a different matter. Especially in the mountain villages, such behavior strikes more nerves.

Zhang Hongyan’s colleague, Dr. Li currently a skin disease specialist, encountered many similar cases in recent years. “Some female patients even use eggplant, cucumber, make-up bottles etc, to stuff into their lower bodies, to fulfill their sexual needs. Because these items are not sanitized, often resulting bacterial infection on their lower body, and even become inflamed.

These cases show that in the ordinary people’s eyes, these rebellious actions in the mountain village are no longer news about “Men biting dogs”. An elder doctor in Meizhou hospital also ran into a case of glass tube breaking inside of a woman. “Similar cases happen all the time in recent years.” This elder doctor who did not wish to disclose his name said. Female patients have different behaviors, but their motivations are the same: using tools other than men to seek pleasure and satisfaction. Most people think rural women are more conservative than the city women, why are there such outrage behaviors?

“In fact, this is the venting behavior caused by long-term suppression.” This elder doctor said, different from the Zhongshan case, the relationship between these patients and their husbands are not bad. “The man is working outside, asking their wives to stay in the village, to take care of the elders and the children”. Using their own words to describe, being far apart all year long, having a husband is the same as not having one.

These women in the current China rural areas formed a huge group in the society.

Since the early 90s of last century, China’s reform policy opened up domestic markets, greatly improved China’s economic and social development. Farmers going into the city in a large-scale, fully broke the traditional way of life, “men farming, women weaving”.

Nevertheless under the household registration, education and housing restrictions, it is not easy for a grass-root farmer bring his entire family into the city. Many farmers are forced to leave their family behind in the rural areas and go solo into the cities. Thus this huge group of “Women, Children and elders” formed commonly known as the “38 61 99 troop”. (Comes from China’s holiday, 3/8 is women’s day, 6/1 is children’s day …)

The husband of a rural woman named Zhang in Guangdong Province went to Guangzhou in 1998 and became a taxi driver. After that, only during Ching Ming Festival and the Spring Festival he is able to return home for couple of days. 10 years of separation, Zhang was tired of being alone. 2009, she went to surrounding cities to look for doctors, asking for prescription to help her reduce her sexual needs, and her inner pain.

Zhang’s abnormal behavior actually reflects the common sexual repressions of tens of millions rural women.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture statistics, in 2009 China has 130 million migrant workers. Accordingly, sociologist estimates about 50 million are married men and at least 20 million women’s married life are severely affected. Some analysts believe the actual number is far more than this. Thirty years of reform and opening up, China’s economy has made remarkable achievements. “To exaggerate a little, this result is exchanged with the sexual repression of the tens of millions wives who stay at home in rural areas.”

January 26, 2009, in Xinfeng County, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province an old woman dressed scandalously showed up in front of clothing store owner Wang Daxiong’s car.

“How come you come by yourself?” Wang Daxiong rolled down his window half way and whispered.

“She is here. Over there under the tree.” The old woman pointed to the sidewalk not far away. A slender girl is standing in the tree shadows.

“So far away, who can see?” Wang Daxiong pretended to be impatient.

“Guaranteed, you will be satisfied, boss.” The old women laughed and said “this girl is not out for sale. Her husband is a driver in Shenzhen, not coming home for long time, if she wasn’t bored, she would not have come out with me!” Then she waved to her, “Xiaohong, come here.”

Lingered for a long time, the girl finally walked over in front of the car, her face was always facing away and did not look at the car. She looked a little over thirty with long hair and a slender waist.

“Is she really a local young wife?” Wang Daxiong asked.

The old woman seemed unhappy. “I am in Xinfeng for so any years, when have I ever fooled people. I would not have introduced her to you if you are not a regular customer.”

“Get in first.” Wang Daoxing coughed.

They casually chatted for a few with local dialect, Wang confirmed that the girl lives in Meikeng town, her surname is Li. She met “mommy” at her classmate’s house playing mahjong. She knew the old woman is very popular, but still hesitated for half a year before she finally asked her to be introduced to someone.

According to Li, her husband is actually very good to her; he comes home every holiday, and always brings her things when he comes home. However, the material things could not compensate the trauma caused by many years of separation. “Men can go outside to find pleasure, but I can only stay home and be alone, this society is not fair. There are so many poor girls around me having the same problem, sometimes we all feel sad. We can not live like this for the rest of our lives! Not getting a divorce is already good enough.”

This “mommy” said, she travels through Xinfeng, Wengyuan, Lianpeng and Longmeng etc. places during the years, there are quite a few sisters like Li who come looking for her. Because of their husbands not coming home over years, they had to face the elders and the kids at home and were bored out of their mind. These sisters come out not for money but to have fun.

However the public security departments reported that only a small number of women like Li would provide sexual services for men for money in order to satisfy their needs. Because the risk is too high, not only it is easy to get diseases, but also often encounter public security’s crackdowns, it is too easy to expose their identities.

In the current market which filled with female sex services, some people fantasize: as the economic status of women improves, will the women left at home become like men, purchasing male sex services in order to satisfy their physical needs?

But, this thinking seems to be ahead of its time.

On one hand, in Chinese people’s gender rules women freely expressing their physical needs are to be seen as lacking in virtue, and purchasing sex services from men will be seen as departing from the classics and rebelling against orthodoxy. The ordinary country side women are not liberal to that extend yet.

On the other hand, even ignoring all moral risks, there is still lack of channels for rural women to purchase sex services.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Li Yinhe said, according to social statistics, in all of the sex trade activities, male sex workers only account for 1/10 of the market.

The vast majority of the women who stay home, even if they had the courage to try would not have the finical capabilities. In Wang Daxiong’s words to Li, 1,000 yuan a night, might as well get a ride to Shenzhen to find her husband.

One night stand and extra-marital affairs thus became the most realistic ways for the stay at home women.

Chen Chunxia, 28 years old, a village farmer in Linjiang town, Zijin County, Guangdong Province, her husband went to Jiangxi for furniture business three years ago with his fellow villagers. He only returns home twice a year and the couple never had a child yet. A year ago, Chen persuaded her in-laws to allow her to wait tables at a restaurant in town. Then she started to get to know some of the dinners in town, and frequently went to entertainment places with them. One night some male friends while being drunk pulled her to open hotel room. She was reluctant in the beginning, but later she actually offers to spend the night with them.

A karaoke manager in Heyuan City found that some women in the rural areas often sing with one man tonight and dance with another the next night, then they sleep with them at the hotel after.

Wives who stay at home in the rural areas are seriously damaging the moral values of the conservative rural society in a very unusual way. “For an ordinary rural family, this is a invisible crisis, also is a crisis that can pop out at any time and destroy a family. But today, these crisis are everywhere in the rural areas in Guangdong even in the entire country.” A young judge told the South Rural News reporter, before working at this place, he really could not believe the divorce rate in the rural areas is such high, more than half of the cases in court are divorce cases. Among these, many are resulted from unspeakable scandals. He also said, “Extra-marital relationship is no longer alarming news, but has become a real threat to the stability of the families in rural areas. Some extra-marital relations even result in vicious criminal acts.”

Another way out?

January 28, 2010, there was a unique speaker in the Guangdong Province CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) thirteen’s session group discussion. His name is Zhang Feng, the current President of the Sex Institute in Guangdong, the Provincial Family Planning Commission director. He said that there are 30 million migrant workers in Guangdong who left their partners for very long time. Their physical needs were never recognized by the community or by the government. If not given more attention, this is bound to jeopardize the social stability.

That day, Zhang Feng’s speech set off the hot topic across the country. After many media’s rebroadcast, a number of portal sites also hyped up this topic.

However, Dr. Zhang Hongyan felt particularly disturbing towards this kind of hype. “People who really need more attention are the women left at home, because male migrant workers’ sexual needs are already fulfilled by the overflowing sexual services.”

Zhang Hongyan’s worries are not without proves. In the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and some other developed cities, where large number of migrant workers gather are often the areas with the most active sex industries. They can find the “cheapest and most convenient” services everywhere, fulfilling the physical needs for the transient population, at the same time, intensifying the suffering of their spouses – “the horse that has weeds to feed on would never return home”

Some experts believe the sexual repression of women staying at rural areas is no less than the 50 million people’s with disabilities. Who is going to solve their problems?

February 1, 2010, at night fall, a dim lamp in front of a sex shop in Qingyuan, Guangdong had already been lit up.

Owner Zhang Zhiming lit a cigarette and began to make tea. He looked worry free .

“Ten years ago, people still looked at me with ‘colored glasses’, now they are used to it. My customers are also expanded from middle aged men into female population. Business is getting better and better.” Zhang Zhiming said in recent years, some of his customers are women in the rural areas.

In fact, adult sex products market was started a few years ago inspired by a number of officials and scholars who were concerned about the migrant workers. Last year, Zhang Feng suggested to the migrant workers to use science to solve sexual repression issue, try masturbation and use of sex toys instead of prostitution. He said no matter it is for men or women, masturbation is not shameful; masturbation can improve physical and mental health.

To tens of thousands of women staying at home, this is maybe an equally applicable approach. Experts believe many women-specific products, such as “female companion”, “sex helper” etc. can be effective in helping resolving sexual repression.

“If my patient knew about the sex shop then, maybe that embarrassing incident would not have happened a few months ago.” Dr. Zhang Hongyan said.

Chinese Sex Institution Expert Committee and executive deputy director, sexual health care products professional committee chairman Professor Zhu Qi also believes that, for various reasons if a couple is separated, the use of sexual health care products, can reduce extra-marital affair and help to keep a harmonious and stable family.

In China, sex toy market is not only an expanding market, but also a market of huge profits.

In 1993, a businessman named Wen Jingfeng opened China’s first adult sex shop in Beijing. Since then, sex shops have been opened across the country, as the foreign media interpreted as the major symbol of China’s reform.

The adult sex products wholesale market at Station Road in Guangzhou is known as the country’s largest sex toy trading market. Since it started operation in 1997, the annual turnover was more than 100 million yuan. Market Leader Li Jihong said, currently the market’s demand is still at an annual growth rate of 30%. Industry insiders estimate that, as the popularity of e-commerce technology grows, in the next two decades China’s sex products market will more than quadruple.

It is understood that 90% of the sex products in circulation are made in China. However when compared with foreign similar products, the national products in texture, variety and design, etc. are still at a low level. The health sector had the following statistics, there are more than 3,000 health-care products manufacturers, ranking first in the world, the output can be accounted for 85% of world production, accounting for 70% of the global market share, annual sales of more than 100 billion yuan.

"Any kind of business is not as easy as my business." Previously a pharmacy owner, Zhang Zhiming now a sex shop owner said “Don’t under estimate my little shop, it makes over 200,000 a year.”

What Zhang Zhiming said is true. Sex shops across the country are mostly small in size and opened in alleys where no one pays attentions to. Store owners took advantage of customers being discrete, often selling fake and harmful products. Therefore adult sex products in the market are mixtures of good and bad products.

There are a large number of adult items in circulation which have no production licenses, no manufactory, no date of producing; some don’t even have a brand. However there has not been any complaint about sex products. Nor there are any lawsuits” An industrial and commercial department staff revealed.

In March 2009, Guangzhou authorities conducted surprise checks to more than 130 stalls at the sex products wholesale market in Guangzhou. They found a serious number of fake and harmful products being disturbed through this market across the country.

Chaotic regulations and a market full of fake products, these are the reasons why stay at home women in the rural areas would not likely to get their hands on these adult sex toys.

Therefore some NPC deputies and CPPCC members in Guangdong and Shanghai have petitioned to request the State cracking down hard on fake and harmful adult products and to regulate the adult products markets to promote social harmony.

In the Second Session of the Eleventh National People’s Congress, chairman of the member committee Wu Bangguo requested State Department to formulate relevant regulations, standardizing production activities, to straighten sales market and to strengthen supervision and management in order boost consumer confidence.

However, the currently market situation shows that it will still be some time until the stay at home women in the rural areas can get their hands on some safe and reliable sex products.

White Day, write a three line love letter

Key — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:50:17 +0000

March 14 is White Day (White Valentine’s Day), originated in Japan and now is also observed in South Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China. It is an extension of the February 14 Valentine’s day. In Japan, February 14 Valentine’s Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts, usually to a male as an expression of love, courtesy or social obligation. On White Day, the converse happens: male who received a honmei-choco (chocolate of love) on Valentine’s day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts back to the girl they love, usually more expensive. However, this tradition seems to be reversed in China, on February 14 boys suppose to give girls presents, usually roses or chocolate, and on White Valentine’s day, it is the girls’ turn to give the boys of their choosing presents.

Recently, this video about “three line love letter” became red hot on the Chinese internet. Only 5 minutes long, but with lovely background music, 16 “three line love letters” written by people in Japan has touched everyone. It then inspired the “White Day, Write Three Line Love Letter” event on Netease, encouraging Chinese netizens to submit their “three line love letters”.

In the video:

From all over the country
“Expressing love to the most important person”
Write into three line love letter

Male 15
All your practical jokes
I fell for them on purpose
because I want to see your smile

Tokyo, Female 25
The one pushes me and telling me to make an extra effort
the one holds me and telling me not to force myself
are both you

Male 21
Follow me
don’t like it?
If you don’t like it, then I follow you

Tokyo, Male 53
If you met me in heaven
please pretend that you don’t know me
because next time around I still I want to ask you to marry me

Osaka, Female 15
I, being nervous facing an exam
You said “Jiayou” (literally, add gas, refuel, means making more effort, Go!”)
made my heart jumped one more point

Aitomo, Male 31
My cell phone still has
“like you”
the message that never sent out

Tokyo, Female 18
Fought on the phone
even so still want to see you
that’s why I want to see you

Hiroshima, Male 37
Looking at the short life line in my palm
talking to myself if there is really destiny
wife silently extended the line to my writes with a pen

Kannagawa, Male 79
Wife!
even though I lose my tongue to say love
you are not allowed to die before me

Nara, Male 18
Text message, you asked me what I was doing
“I am dazing” I replied
because I can’t reply “I am waiting for your text message”

Hokkaido, Male 17
The only dish dad makes
salty egg pan cake
tastes better than anything

Chiba, Female 34
The truth I never even told you
clumsy you unexpectedly cried for me
that is the reason I married you

Osaka, Male 16
Received your message
asking how I am…
at this moment, I came alive!

Male 60
Grandma, Happy birthday
Women’s beauty is directly proportional with the number of the candles
It really is

Osaka, Female 30
Want to raise the son that looks extremely like you
with the same personality as you
this way one more person will be as lucky as me…

Hyogo, Female 24
When I complained about “Tokyo to Kobe, long distance relationship”
grandma smiled and said “20 years ago I already started a long distance relationship”
grandpa in heaven, did you hear that?

Selected Chinese netizens’ three line love letters on netease:

“Those days the crumpled notes in your hands, do you still remember?”
“How can I still remember?”
Stupid, how can I forget.
- SK, 21

Giggling,
looking at you giggling,
looking at you makes me giggle
- 小小安， 24

You leave,
I also leave,
but I must hold your hand.
- Netease anonymous netizen from Shanghai

I must turn off my cell phone,
I can’t chat with you anymore,
or else I would miss you more.
- Tianjin, xuefengzhou, 34

I miss you again, do you miss me?
Yes
Let us continue to face each other and miss each other…
- Guangzhou 小丫， 19

Stupid don’t wait for me anymore, or else you will wait till we go to retirement house
even though it’s a joke,
ok, see you at the retirement house…
- Shangdong 吴浩晨， 27

Told myself ten thousand times,
I cannot love you,
but starting to love you from ten thousand and one times.
- Inner Mongolia, Wuhai, 吗啡， 26

One gentle sentence,
go home with me,
it is the reason I married you.
- Changsha, Hunan, 千寻， 27

It was always me bringing you happiness before,
now it’s your turn,
Just leave it all to me.
- Qinghai University, 樱， 19

Tell you a little secret,
every night when you kiss me,
I was always awake.
- Dalian 小陌， 25

If, I say let’s break up,
Pig, please don’t be sad,
it is must because I don’t have the heart to let you love me so much.
- guai, 23

When you are near, I feel you are so annoying,
when you are far, I feel so annoyed,
please come annoy me.
- 给我一杯忘情水， 25

I said, what present are you giving me?
you said, it’s raining today, bring an umbrella,
you are always this way, condense love in life.
- Shenzhen, 棉花糖， 28

You are my first love 17 years ago,
now I am still a stupid girl,
marring you is the accomplishment I feel most proud of in my life.
- Qingdao 南山圆月， 39

It is really good to have you,
you let me divide the days into two –
the days seeing you and the days missing you
- Hebei 敏子， 26

Happy White Day! What would you write in your three line love letter for your lover?

Proposal of issuing RMB 500 yuan bills

Key — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:37:59 +0000

From Netease:

China Net March 11 reports, the largest denomination of RMB is too small, 100 yuan notes can no longer meet the rapid growth of economy. CPPCC national Committee member, Chairman of the Board at Hong Kong Yu Zhen Holding Group Co. Ltd. Chen Zhendong (陈振东) submitted a proposal at the CPPCC National Committee yesterday that the time for issuing 500 yuan RMB notes has come.

The rumor of 500 yuan design which has been on the Internet since 2007

Currently, the largest denomination of China’s yuan is too small; one hundred yuan has been issued for 23 years which is difficult to adapt to the economic development needs.

“Cash denominations are too small for the significant increasing cash transactions in the society, which is a waste of time for the financial institution and the people.” Chen Zhendong used bank Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) as an example. “The machine cash box normally holds hundreds of the largest denomination of the notes, during a normal business day on average there are 50 to 60 withdrawals, and an ATM can only supply money for half of a day. If the bank ATM needs to be refilled twice a day, it potentially increases human and material resources.”

He said issuing 500 yuan large note not only can save time on the socioeconomic operation, but also can reduce the production costs on printing currency.

Chen Zhendong made clear that the size of the denomination in currency is not necessarily connected with inflation. According to China’s economic growth, residences’ income, cost of living and to compare with developed counties’ large denomination bank notes, China can first issue RMB 500 yuan face value notes, then issue 1,000 yuan face value notes accordingly.

“When launching the 500 yuan large denomination notes, the volume can be properly controlled, first start with the southeast coastal areas then circulate into the whole country.” Chen Zhendong said.

The current largest bill: 100 Yuan

Netizen’s comments on Netease:

网易广西玉林网友 ip：218.21.*.*： 2010-03-12 18:39:14 发表

Wa, one month only getting two pieces of paper, getting one counterfeit means working a month for nothing, the other one is for living cost.

网易河南郑州网友 ip：202.196.*.*： 2010-03-12 18:14:17 发表

Really stupid, anybody can be a member of the national Committee?

网易中国网友 ip：218.207.*.*： 2010-03-12 18:38:19 发表

The beginning of the inflation, no matter how you say it, it won’t do any good.

网易湖北十堰网友 ip：119.101.*.*： 2010-03-12 16:00:48 发表

I think we should issue 250 yuan face value notes. If I take couple of 500 yuan bills to go out, I would be robbed! How can he think of such thing? If human lives are not guaranteed, then there are no environmental issues. It reminded me of T. V. Soong era driving a car with a bag of money in order to buy a box of matches, if we go with what he proposed, later we need a truck of money to buy an ox. This pig is really awesome…

网易火星网友 ip：unknown： 2010-03-12 18:57:42 发表

Inflation starts exactly like this, when large bills are issued, smaller face valued bills will slowly become worthless ~ absolutely oppose the issuing!

网易河南郑州网友 ip：123.15.*.*： 2010-03-12 18:41:09 发表

This guy said saving cost, it is really saving labor costs, but China has so many people, do not need to save, more saving means unemployment! Typical capitalists proposal.
Members always propose these stupid suggestions, but the real issues no one dares to mention, no one is willing to mention.

网易美国网友 ip：192.9.*.*： 2010-03-12 18:52:32 发表

Really there is no need, people use credit cards more now days.

网易北京网友 [haoke]： 2010-03-12 21:18:53 发表

Firmly opposed the 500 yuan large note for the following reasons: first, fear of robbery, with large valued bills it is easier to lead to life-threatening situations; second is not convenient for people getting their wages, many people can only receive two 500 yuan bills a month; third is putting large valued money at home is unsafe, once it is stolen, lost is too much; fourth is inconvenient for the public servants at all levels when consuming them, it is too much trouble for the ladies (Xiao Jie) to give them changes.

Chinese wanna-be artists fight for their dreams as platoon of the NCEE army

Annie Lee — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:46:35 +0000

From gzdaily

People often describe the annually national college entrance examination (NCEE) as thousands of militants crossing a single-log bridge, from which one can almost imagine how many students fall off just because of the path being too difficult. While the whole army is marching, a little platoon consist of music students, art students, performance students etc takes a byroad to get to the same destination – university.

As artistic talented students, they enjoy discounts in examinations of liberal arts and sciences subjects , by keeping scores above the bottom line, they can just sing, paint, or dance their way into universities with outstanding talents. However, the platoon become overstaffed

these years perhaps because Chinese families are placing more emphasis on talent nurturing, or simply just because it is easier to get admitted. Anyway artistic talented students are getting more competitors every year, and prestige artistic colleges only offer slit for the sea of knockers: Beijing Film Academy (北京电影学院) has 98% culling rate for acting major applicants. It released the list for third tryout of acting department on March 8th, leaving only 532 out of 13668 applicants further chances for the next round. The next day, Xinghai Conservatory of Music (星海音乐学院) kicked off its 3-day preliminary tryouts for its pop music department, 800 students show up for only 90 places. Communication University of China (中国传媒大学) increased its enrollment for broadcasting majors to 686 this year and received 18,000 applications. Dancing Department of Minzu University of China (中央民族大学) will reject 92% applicants. And Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (广州美术学院) is in grading phase on March 10th with 4% acceptance rate.

To take a closer look, reporters of Guangzhou Daily visit some of the popular artistic universities.

Beijing Film Academy：

The acting department of Beijing Film Academy is well- known for its high reject rate – 4234 students vie for 75 places this year. According to the list released on March 8th, its first two tryouts have sent 3702 applicants home, leaving 532 for the third tryout from 9th to 14th.

A pair of girl twins was disappointed not seeing their names on the list, they said they came a long way from Chongqing City out of longing for the stage in Beijing. But they remain positive: “we’ll be here next year. There is a saying, ‘heart will not die until it hits the south wall’, our south wall is set at 30 years old, we will try something else if we still aren’t actresses at 30.”

Xiao Zhou from Jiangxi Province has the same persistence for becoming a star: “I want to be a star like Sun Li (孙俪), she start as a dancing student, so do I. My parents spare no pains to support me, they spent tens of thousands yuan for my classes, as well as my train ticket and hotel expenses. I know we are not rich, though they never mention anything to me.” She also said the interviewers are quite pleased with her ballet, and that she stood a better chance in figure.

However, netizen “Junjie” as an old hand warned those candidates from obsessing with pretty face and perfect body shape. He said: “you have to distinguish yourself in front of the interviewers, who can tell whether you have acting potential by minutes. Creativity, imagination and feeling for acting are what they most concern about rather than pretty face or body figure. Don’t try too hard or too harsh, just show them your acting potential and uniqueness.”

Child stars Yang Zi (left) and Zhang Yishan (right) from the famous sit-com “Don’t miss Home With Kids(家有儿女)” both made it to the third tryout for acting major of Beijing Film Academy. Yang Zi quitted all her acting works in order to focus on training of dancing, figure, acting, lines etc. She said: “I won’t regret as long as I try.”

There are 3 conditions for candidates, according to Long Jun Jie, instructor of Shanghai Theatre Academy. First, man must look like a man, and woman must look like a woman; second, candidate must present healthy impression; and third, their air must match Chinese mainstream cultural value, which means boy with piercings, girl with heavy makeup, tattoo, fluffy hair or odd dressing are not welcomed in tryouts.

Among these dreams chasers, some have years of experiences for tryouts, some decide to try once for all. Xiao Xue’s from An Hui Province who said she won’t try again if fail this year: “I always have a star dream in mind, so I sign up as everybody does. My mother and I started our tryout rush since January. I never thought it would be so tired and difficult. Apart from tryout fees, my training, cosmetics, and costumes are costing us a fortune. We have spent too much on this dream.”

Mr. Zhang of Beijing Film Academy suggests that art is expensive, candidates must be reasonable if they are not economically sufficient; and natural gift is very important in acting industry, parents should not view it as a shortcut for university.

Xinghai Conservatory of Music:

Xinghai Conservatory of Music attracts 800 applicants for its 90 places in pop music department, which doesn’t exist in Central Conservatory of Music (中央音乐学院) or Shanghai Conservatory of Music (上海音乐学院).

“This is the second year I apply for Xinghai.” Said Y, a Zhejiang boy who also signed up for tryouts of Music colleges in Xi’an and Shenyang, he failed Xinghai last year by 2.5 points. Y spent over 90,000 yuan last year for training stuffs, hiring tutors, renting apartment etc, and 60-70 thousand yuan by far this year. He is under great pressure since he has quite full an examination schedule: on March 6th he finished exam in Shenyang and went back to Guangzhou for another exam on 9th, then on 10th morning he flew to Zhejiang for another one, which would release the names for next round on 12th, if his name’s on it, he will be there on 16th again.

Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts:

The university planned to enroll 1,225 students, but received 30,000 applications, approximately 1 out of 25 students will be admitted.

How does the college grade such a huge amount of paintings? One easy and visual way is to place them sheet by sheet on the floor of gymnasium, while teachers go over them, discussing and grading.

According Professor Wu, majors like Chinese painting, oil painting, engraving and sculpture are cooling down as students and parents turn to more practical majors like animation and design for they are easier to learn and land a job in the future. However, there are only 30 places available for animation major, 15 less than Chinese painting and sculpture, and 10 less than oil painting major.

Professor Wu suggests that art demand gift just as music and acting do, learning method, artistic potential and sensitivity are far more significant than pure interest. Some parents switch target to art college just as soon as they realize that their kids are doing too bad in normal subjects. They stand little chance unless the kids are so talented that they acquire art soon enough to pass all the examinations and tryouts.

11 Siberian tigers die of malnutrition at Shenyang Wild Animal Park

Key — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:31:21 +0000

So much for the year of the tiger, when this news broke out netizens were full of grief…

From Netease:

Shenyang, China news agency reports on March 11, 11 Siberian tigers died within three month period in Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Park, allegedly the cause of death was lack of food, starvation. At the same period of time 30 other animals also died there.

According to the local “Liaoning Daily”, some insider revealed that the zoo only gave each tiger two chickens a day, this is all the food for the day for one tiger, thus leading to the death of these tigers.

This has also been confirmed by the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Protection Station. The station vice manager Liu Xiaoqiang told the reporter on March 11 that the tigers in the zoo live in the small cages, lack of activity causes decrease of immunity, plus inadequate intake of nutrients, which could cause the death of these tigers.

In accordance with the relevant provisions, death of tigers at the zoo should be reported to the relevant government departments. At the Wildlife Conservation Station in Shenyang reporter saw a report written by the zoo: January 23, one Siberian tiger died, cause of death is hemorrhagic enteritis; January 30, one death caused by congestive heart failure; January 31, one death caused by nephritis, renal failure; February 8, one death caused by myocarditis.

It was reported that 11 Siberian tigers died during this period starting from December of last year. In November last year this zoo had an incident of park staff member being bitten and injured by two tigers. These two tigers were wounded by the rescuers and soon died after. This accident has been identified as a result of lack of capital investment on the security system at the zoo; the hidden dangers were detected but however not fixed in time and also the staff member was operating while violating regulations.

After the incident, the zoo was ordered to close for reorganization, however during this period, 11 tigers died one after another.

The zoo has always had the problem of animals including tigers not getting enough food, the zoo therefore was many times subjected to criticisms. For this reason the local government has been giving support and funding to the zoo, however the animals’ living condition has not been fundamentally improved.

It is reported that Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Park was established in 2000 by a private enterprise in Dalian. In the first couple of years the business was good, and later for various reasons profit has declined. When the zoo was first established, there were 1024 animals of 61 species, and as for February 8 this year, there were only 518 animals of 49 species left.

Siberian tiger lanterns near the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Park

Only in China: I wonder if Peter Hessler drove on this road

CC — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:09:04 +0000

Peter Hessler’s new book "Country Driving" talks about driving through China. He says, "It’s hard to imagine another place where people take such joy in driving so badly." And then I saw this picture (from Tianya):

The text in the image says:

Only Chinese army people dare to drive on a road like this!

The Sichuan-Tibet line is extremely dangerous. On the roadside are the graves of many soldiers who died over the decades, including the skeletal remains of cars in the brooks and valleys. Actually, shortly after this photo was taken, there was an accident and a car fell over the edge, and two brave drivers died valiantly…

Communication University professor’s casting couch affair

Key — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:54:22 +0000

From Bandao.cn and everywhere else:

Beijing Times March 10 reports, recently a post titled “Communication University female student, victim of casting couch, exposes professor’s sex photos” stirred up netizens heated discussions. A woman claimed to be graduated from Communication University of China published blog posts, said that she was victimized by Film and Television Art teacher Song Nannan’s (宋南男) “casting couch”. Yesterday afternoon, school has been informed of the matter, but whether if there will be investigation or not shall be decided by the leaders of the school.

This female’s name on the internet is “Siwuxie” (思无邪), claimed to be a graduate of Communication University of China, majored in show hosting, posted blog post to expose the “casting couch” because of her affair with Song Nannan has ended. She also posted a number of records of the extra-marital affairs with Song Nannan. In her blog, she also claimed when applied for the Beijing Broadcasting Institute (the predecessor of Communication University of China), in order to pass the exam which only admit 17 people out of 6,000, she had no choice but to sacrifice her body to Song Nannan willingly. Then she was admitted to the university. After she graduated and in order to enter the media work force, she once again found Song Nannan and gave her body away for the second time, therefore she got her job in the media smoothly. Siwuxie exposed the lover letters between Song Nannan and her, “affair dairy” and their photos in bed. Recently this blog was reposted everywhere by the netizens, some netizens even suggested to human flesh search Siwuxie.

Yesterday afternoon, Communication University of China, School of Film and Television Art Education Office confirmed that Song Nannan indeed is a teacher at the school, but his other information was not revealed. Reporter went to the school and the director of the office told the reporter that they could not meet up with Song Nannan and his contact information was also not provided, for any inquiries must contact the Propaganda Department of the University.

When Song Nannan was interviewed yesterday, he said that the matter was purely fabricated. The photos were Photo-shopped, and the blog post had so many holes. In addition Song said he might have offended some people in the past, and now being framed. He said in his 10 years of being the chief examiner, he has never heard of any “casting couch” incidents.

***

Song Nannan

You can find the reposted content of the blog at KDnet and Sohu,

The blog posts are very long and jumbled, here is the beginning.

That year, they met…

She was 18

He was 40,

She was just fresh out of high school

He was the chief examiner of the Broadcasting University

The first time they met was at the first round examination room

They did not know each other

She only remembered a deep baritone

He only remembered a little girl that spoke like she was from Hong Kong or Taiwan

…

A young teacher became a bridge between their acquaintances

Just because she and this teach was from the same home town

So, him, Song Nanan, this old man she could not forget for the rest of her life became her tutor

The goal was to helper her to win in the competition that chooses 17 out of 6000

She accidentally became his student

Then it changed her life goal of applying for broadcasting school

…

One day

During the tutoring session she cried

Because the pressure was too much

Because when facing this special teacher

He said: is it really difficult? Actually it is very easy to be my student…

Then, a man’s hands, placed on her shoulder, only wearing a tank top

Her being 18

Understood his eyes

What this man was talking about

For her dreams and career

She closed her eyes bravely

Undertook the reality which was too corrupted for her young blooming age

…

Re-examination began

She was not good

But he did not break a promise

And did a lot for her

For example in the exam room he asked her how she prepared in front of other students

For example he stood behind her when she took the test

Even more outrageous is that he graded her paper in front of her…

Then, one night in a hotel

With him

This stranger man was sweating hard

But the girl’s heart was crying time after time again

…

Wish granted

She was admitted

But

Once an innocent girl

Even in her dreams

Was never innocent anymore…

Liu Qian stuns Japanese audience with street magic

CC — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:14:22 +0000

Liu Qian is a magician from Taiwan who is now famous all over China, and increasingly, the rest of East Asia. He performed at the annual Spring Festival Gala this year and last year and has become a national phenomenon. Below are two videos of him performing street magic in Japan – I really hope East Asia becomes more regionalized and it seems that Liu Qian is furthering Sino-Japanese relations in his own way – there has been ping pong diplomacy…now magic diplomacy?

Street Magic 1

Street Magic 2

Street Magic 3

More pictures of him:

Must thank the country before your parents

Key — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:56:30 +0000

From Xinmin:

On February 20, 2010, in Vancouver Winter Olympics, Zhou Yang (周洋) won the gold medal in women’s 1,500 meters short-track speed race. This was the Chinese team’s third gold medal of this Olympics, but also was the first time in the history Chinese team won three gold medals in the Winter Olympics.

However Zhou Yang was criticized by the State Sports General Administration deputy director Yu Zaiqing (于再清) on the CPPCC session.

Thanking your parents is not a problem, but should thank the country first. Must put the country first, don’t just thank your parents and that’s it.

Yesterday morning, deputy director of the State Sports General Administration, the International Olympic Committee Vice-Chairman Yu Zaiqing participated in the National Political Consultative Conference, in subsector sports discussion, when talked about players making speeches after winning, thanking their parents, Yu Zaiqing said “Kids have some words in their minds that could not express out, when players talk after winning, honoring their parents and thanking their parents are correct, but their hearts must have the country, must put the country first, don’t just talk about parents and that’s it, I must raise this point.” He stated that (we) must enhance the moral education of the athletes.

deputy director of the State Sports General Administration Yu Zaiqing (于再清)

Incident background:

Recently, in the Winter Olympic Women’s 1,500 meters short-track speed race finals, the only Chinese racer Zhou Yang broke the Olympic record and won the Olympic gold medal. After the race reporter asked her “What does it mean to be the Olympic champion?” Zhou Yang said “after winning the gold medal, many things might change, I will be more confident, will let my parents live a better life.” These words touched many viewers.

Zhou Yang’s monthly salary is only 500 yuan (about 80 dollars)

Zhou Yang likes to play with plush toys since she was young. When looking at her photo albums, she always holds a baby doll when taking the pictures growing up, specially the Mickey Mouse doll. Zhou Yang knows that when she was young her family could not afford to buy her one, she could only go to the store and touch them “So cute, I really like it!” When she join the national team, because of her outstanding achievements, Zhou Yang won many national and international competitions, and sometimes she wins cash prizes, other than daily spending she gives the money to her parents for savings. National athletes can only receive some subsidize, salary is paid locally. Many people would have never thought, prior to going to Vancouver, the world champion Zhou Yang’s monthly salary was just 500 Yuan.

Xili Bro, the vagabond of mix-and-match, reunited with family after 10 years

Annie Lee — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:11:54 +0000

Xili Bro is with his family finally, after 0ver 10 years of separation. Gone is the days when he has to drift on the streets, feeding from foods in garbage, and more importantly being teased as amusement. This post is a throughout introduction about this seek-after figure on Chinese Internet.

Xili Bro(犀利哥), or Brother Sharp, a name netizens give to a cool looking vagabond appearing on the streets in Ningbo, generates overwhelming discussions for the last few weeks, following a post in tianya on Feb 21st, describing Xili Bro as the ultimate passer-by hunk in the universe. The post got 769,201 clicks and 4415 comments before 12 p.m. Feb 26th. And stories about this Xili Bro spread widely, making to websites like QQ.com, Netease, nownews.com, sohu.com etc.

Xili means sharp in style here. Although people talk about him, nobody knows who he really is, where he comes from, or what gets him there until lately when

ongoing discussion, “admiration”, as well as sympathetic voices spread wide and far, and eventually reach Xili Bro’s family in Jiangxi Province. Cheng Guo Sheng(程国圣)，was 90% positive that the Xili Bro he saw on the Internet is his long-lost elder brother Cheng Guo Rong (程国荣). He soon contacted the website that posted an all-rounded video on Xili Bro and came to Ningbo on March 5th with his mother to meet Xili Bro, who was taken care by the asylum and sent to psychiatry hospital already.

According to Cheng Guo Sheng, Xili Bro is from Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, he was father of two children when he left home for work at the age of 23 and soon lost contact with his family. Now his children were 10 and 11 years old, but unfortunately his wife was killed in a car accident last year. Cheng Guo Sheng also mentioned that Xili Bro was healthy and alright when he left, not clear why he was deliriously living on the street.

Before and after.

Cheng Guo Sheng’s description at least corresponded with the name Xili Bro wrote at the asylum — Cheng Guo Rong. In addition, he also wrote down his father’s name, Cheng Guang Nan. Yesterday afternoon, Cheng Guo Sheng and his mother arrived at the hospital Xili Bro was in. Xili Bro called out “Ma Ma (mum)” and “Di Di (little brother)” at the sight of the two visitors according to Cheng Guo Sheng. And his mother melt into tears too, but she could not tell him about the past decade for fear of touching his nerves.

Xili Bro became nervous as he entered the hotel room, repeating “I wanna go home” he suddenly turned away and intended to go, his mother held him back. The family want Xili Bro back home with them as soon as possible after more than 10 years of separation, however, the doctor suggested Xili Bro should stay in for at least half month of further observation since he slept well at nights but remained cautious in mind. Where Xili Bro should stay is still in negotiation, but one thing is for sure, his vagabond life is over.

The mother finally found her long-lost son, speechless.

As a chain smoker, Xili Bro started smoking soon after he entered the room. Being told not to dust the carpet, he will carefully flick the cigarette ash in the tray on the table. He also listened to his mother and smoked less.

From left to right, Xili Bro Cheng Guo Rong, his mother Peng Cheng Xiu, and his little brother Cheng Guo Sheng. (Photo courtesy of Netease)

Xili Bro’s story could be dated back to January. All the fuss started by 2 photos token by a photography fan who was trying a Sony 70 400G at a Sony store in Ningbo as Xili Bro walked by with his cool air and interesting mix-and-match. He then uploaded these photos to fengniao BBS on Jan 30th to share about the camera.

“Alas, at this point, I can’t help thinking about this — how come there will be such contradict, against-nature existent” Read the post on tianya BBS that actually started to raise attention, “Here is the photo, I can’t say any more compliments on this, because any compliments would pale at this photo; a great snapshot indeed, and this Xili Bro, what more can I say; even when I was sitting in front of my computer I could feel the strong field coming from the photos…”

Some interesting comments on Xili Bro:
“As a matter of fact, he is really iconic, out beat those Japanese cowboy a few blocks already.”

“I’ve seen some handsome beggar before, but this, the body shape and the air… my first thought is “is this some star making movie here?”

“So man!! what are those talent spotters doing everyday? I can’t stand those buzzing around stupid men who think they are handsome on TV any further.”

Besides Xili Bro’s air, his distinguishing appearance and clothing also received “applauses”:

“western rough lines come with Japanese delicacy, absolutely Japan style mix-and-match, almost rival Hiroshi Fujiwara; hair features Japan’s hottest cowboy style; outfits from Japanese second-hand store go with LV paper bag, he is down-to-earth mix-and-match expert; from the perspective of color matching, his belt is surely a highlight – Gucci ×clot global limited- which could only be understood by those who devote themselves to fashion”.

Due to Xili Bro’s startling look and behavior, some people start to question Xili Bro’s identity as a beggar (people tend to call those homeless, rugged drifters beggar), until a post on cnnb BBS unveiled the mysterious mask on Feb 25th.

According to the author Laochanmao(老馋猫), he spent some time with Xili Bro, who he temporarily called Xiao Bai in August 2008.

The first thing he cleared is that Xili Bro is not a beggar at all, because he doesn’t beg, nor does he know how to due to his psychiatric problem.

“They have no identity, no family, they don’t even know what their name is.” Laochanmao explained about people like Xili Bro in Ningbo, “They are abandoned by the society, most of them end up dead without anybody knowing it. They are like in-between human and animal, with a little help they are human, otherwise the other.”

“The first time I contact him, he couldn’t articulate himself, probably because he hasn’t speak for a long time.” Said Laochanmao, “He was picking up cigarette butt. I asked him if he’s hungry, he said yes, and I gave him 10 yuan to buy some food. But he turn to a store for a pack of cigarette instead.”

“I asked him why not spend the money on food, and he pointed to a dustbin. I didn’t understand at first, but then I realized that food could be found there.”

Laochanmao also mentioned that Xili Bro sometimes wears woman clothes that he collects from garbage. “He once told me that he wants to find a woman to love him, I guess dressing like a woman could make him feel that way.”

Before the Laochanmao’s post, netizens are obsessed about Xili Bro: his melancholic eyes, manly mustache, miraculous hair etc. They started to express some care for him. Some asked netizens in Ningbo to send Xili Bro pack of cigarette, some urged for governments’ attention and help to this special group. And now, some say Xili Bro is lucky, some say he is being irresponsible for his children and family, some wish him get well soon and happy ever after.

Still netizens are crazy about Xili Bro’s first two photos, and make him even cooler through photoshop. Here are some pictures from around the web.

Han Han:Han Feng is a good cadre in China, and 97% surveyed agree

Annie Lee — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:01:41 +0000

Over the overwhelming scolds and contempt upon Han Feng, Tobacco Sales Bureau Director of Guangxi province, some critics choose to look at his notorious sex diary at a comparative perspective, and do get different conclusions about him. Han Han, renowned writer, professional car racer and sina.com.cn’s No.1 blogger, wrote on his blog “Han Feng is a good cadre” 10:58 a.m. March 4^th.

The post generated 461,526 clicks and 6,144 comments by 12 p.m March 5^th. He soon attached an 24-hour online survey to the post collecting netizens’ views, which turned out 97% (116,821 people) agreed with him and wished Han Feng keep his job, with only 3%(4,136 people) insisted otherwise.

Here is translation of Han Han’s post, take a look at how he came to the unique conclusion.

These days, Guangxi Province Tobacco Sales Bureau Director Han Feng’s diary is popular (read it here). I think in this hot photos and videos congested web era, this sort of real life pure literature description came all by a sudden is quite refreshing. It could be the most valuable work of 2010 in terms of literature value and societal value. After I read Mr. Director’s diary, I don’t think we should condemn him. On the premise that Mr. Director is being honest with his diary, I dare say he is a good cadre.

1. As cadre he only took 60,000 yuan bribe in total. This is the first time I ever saw 5-digit number coming after the word “bribery” in recent years, where can you find such uncorrupted director nowadays?

2. Among his ex-mistresses, present mistresses steady-played-with mistresses and mistresses-to-be, not of them serve as kept lover to him.

3. This director doesn’t gamble, doesn’t go to prostitutes, doesn’t bribe up. In public places, he stands in queue for two hours to render mobile card things.

4. From his diary, we see a national cadre that pays minimize cost in womanizing, compared with other cadres delivering cars, houses to their lovers, Mr. Director’s most expensive gifts for his women is no more than a mobile phone or a MP4. At this point, it not only proves that this director is not bad, so are his mistresses. With more guys and women frugal as such, our country can save for god-knows-how-many aircraft carriers.

5. He only have 89 drinking engagements, while to my best knowledge lots of village cadres engage in drinking banquets for more than 365 times a year. But he gets drunk a few times, just so-so in drinking, which fails the requirement for national cadre, this is his heaviest sin, badly damage civil servants’ image.

6. Although he played around, he still go shopping with wife for 25 times; he buy mobile for his father; and according to his diary he never uses influence to offer relatives back-door dealing.

7. He can install software on his own, he like digital, photography, sport, and write his diary in micro-blog style, all of which present a relatively in leader.

8. In the diary, there is absolutely no sign of legitimate thirst of national cadre for limo, real estate luxuries, painting and calligraphy antiques, not even a thought, he is just playing with his mobile and computer quietly. He even wrote in his diary “got a headphone for 160 yuan, happy”, how content a cadre he is.

9. As for work, no signs of any kind of work from this cadre so far. But so called Gan Bu (干部，cadre), as long as you fix your subordinates, you literarily fulfill the meaning bestowed by the title.

In conclusion, he is absolutely an above average good cadre, which belongs to the self-entertain and easily-satisfied category, no harm nor disturbance to the people, and create minimize cost for the country and his people. From the diary, we see a national cadre who is joyful already over couples of thousand yuan; when he bought a new phone, he kept writing about it for 3 consecutive days, forgetting his mistresses.

There are a lot more wretches at his level, far more dirtier than he is. I strongly suggest netizens letting this cadre go, and his mistresses too, they are no more than minor shrimps in this vicious game, swims or eats couples of plankton at worst. We can let laws to render their penalty, but they are far away from being typical in reflecting the wickedness of our bureaucratic jungle, where corruption is a must, he is of green and harmless. Let this director go on enjoying his digital products on the post, if he comes down, more often than not, his successor will be more harmful to the society, and doesn’t keep diary.

As I search on Lao Han’s (Han Feng) being good cadre, I found several good points came up by others, many of which I didn’t realize, you can try and search, see what’s new. For example, they said that Lao Han goes for simple living; he compare prices before buying digital products; he helps with chores at home; he writes his own working summary and reports etc. If all cadres expose, in today’s China it’s surely difficult to find any less dirty workers than Han Feng.

Sister, your microphone is backwards!

Key — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:22:36 +0000

Chief Director’s sex diary exposed

Key — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:23:31 +0000

From Qingdao News:

Guangxi province Tobacco Sales Bureau Director Han Feng (韩峰) likes to write diary. He writes freely, almost hides nothing in his diary. How the meeting went at work, how he got hotel rooms after work, how much money he collected, how many colleagues or subordinates he slept with, who he drank with and gave gifts to… all of these are concisely recorded with real names in his diary.

Then, this diary somehow was published online and became the internet hot topic. Yesterday when Southern Metropolis reporter interviewed Guangxi Tobacco Bureau, he confirmed the story was true. Han Feng was suspended on February 22, and is currently under criminal investigation. Reporter made phone calls to many officials mentioned in the dairy but no one accepted an interview.

“The content of the diary are not made up rumors” Guangxi Tobacco Board Director of the Office Liao Hongxiu said.

Director General Han Feng’s sex diary about his mistress Tan Shanfang (谭善芳):

Recently a sex diary was exposed. It was about a Director General Han Feng and his lover Tan Shanfang. Diary content was confusing; however the key points were descriptive and understood. The following is the translation of the diary.

Han Feng’s mistress Tan Shanfang

September 14, Friday, 24-31 ℃, rainy, went with Sha (I think Sha is his wife) to the telecommunication center at Rosa Avenue in the morning. She wanted to return her PHS (cell phone), Telecommunication companies are so annoy! Places to open up an account are everywhere, but there is only one place to close an account. Only one worker, 5 people were waiting in line. Took us two hours to finish, I really do not blame the society to reproach them! Went home after eating.

September 15, Saturday, 25 – 30 ℃, sunny, walked around in Wuxiang Square with Sha in the morning, went home after eating.

September 16, Sunday 24 – 31 ℃, sunny, went with Sha to buy food in the morning. At noon, Wang Shucheng called me for dinner at Gui Jing Hotel. Just two of us, he gave me two bottles of Maotai (a famous Chinese liquor or baijiu) and 50,000 yuan, I deposit of 30,000, took back 20,000.

September 17, Monday, 23 – 33 ℃, sunny, Wu came, at noon Qing and his gang came over, we drank a lot of alcohol, they left in the afternoon.

September 18, Tuesday, 21 – 32 ℃, sunny, was in the dormitory in the morning. At noon, first got a room at Guoda (Hotel) then went to the office. Rong Reqian etc. came over, they are going to take the exam tomorrow to become exclusive sales. I drank a lot of wine with them at night. Went to Guoda around 11, Tan was already there, she was on her period, so she did it with me using her mouth.

September 19, Wednesday, 21 – 32 ℃ sunny, was in the dormitory in the morning. At noon, Honghe, Anhui and Li Yuefeng etc. came, had lunch with them and drank a lot of alcohol. Took a long nap in the afternoon and went to Guoda at night, Tan still did it with me using her mouth, I came.

September 20, Thursday, 19 – 32 ℃ sunny, Tan left early in the morning and I went home also, I was tired. Went to the office in the afternoon, Chen Zhang came to the office for a while and gave me 10,000, Li gave me 20,000 yuan.

September 21, Friday, 20 – 30 ℃ sunny, went to the office in the morning to process some documents. Next Tuesday is August 15, will not have any guests till Saturday. went back to Nanning with Wu in the afternoon. Liu Linlin bought a HTCS1 and asked me to install software for him, loaded software for him at night.

September 22, Saturday 23 – 32 ℃, cloudy, waited for Liu Linlin to pick up his cell phone in the morning then went with Sha to buy computer games, went home after eating.

September 23, Sunday, 23 – 31 ℃, cloudy, stayed at home all day. At noon, Tang Renjun took Sha to go out to eat.

September 24, Monday, 23 – 30 ℃, typhoon and rain, because of the rain and cold, I stayed at home all day again. Deng also brought a pile of seafood over. Tomorrow is August 15, and Wednesday we are going to have meeting and reports, will not have guests over.

September 25, Tuesday, 21 – 26 ℃, rainy, Shuang asked to send a Sony T20 Digital Camera (and Changde Tobacco) to him, Went with Sha to Wei Ying Office to get a 1G memory card then sent it over to him, postage was 60. Stayed at home in the afternoon.

September 26, Wednesday, 21 – 30 ℃, cloudy, bought a LGKW820 dual-mode dual-standby handsets cell phone, spent 3720 yuan then went back to the guests. Went back to the office in the afternoon, processed some documents and talked about sales. Tan wanted to have sex at night, she is going to get married on the 29^th and still wants to play with me. This girl is really wild. Went to Guoda and opened up a room, she came at 10 pm, washed up and jumped into bed to do it, great action. Chatted for a while and had sex again in the middle of the night, she was bleeding again. Slept for a bit and did it again in the morning, this time she did not bleed.

September 27, Thursday, 24 – 32 ℃, light drizzle, at 9:30 am went back to the room, booked the room for another day for Tan. All day was in the dormitory.

September 28, Friday, 25 – 34 ℃, cloudy, was in the dormitory in the morning, went to the office in the afternoon to look at files. Duan came at night and I drank a lot of alcohol with him.

September 29, Saturday, 23 – 32 ℃, cloudy, was in the dormitory in the morning, went to the office in the afternoon. At night went with a group of middle management to eat with Political Commissar of the Traffic Police, drank a lot.

September 30, Sunday, 24 – 33 ℃, clear, went back to Nanning with Wu at 9 am.

October 1, Monday, 24 – 32 ℃, cloudy, stayed home all day.

October 2, Tuesday, 23 – 28 ℃, shower, stayed home all day, it was a bit cold because of the typhoon.

October 3, Wednesday, 23 – 27 ℃, shower, went to Dianke Square to get a TF1G card, I gave the old one to Tan. Then ate with Meng, was playing with my cell phone at home these days.

October 4, Thursday, 24 – 30 ℃, rainy, played with my cell phone at home in the morning. Went shopping with Sha in the afternoon. First bought some books at Wuhua market, then walked around at Wanda square and bought some fast food home.

October 5, Friday, 24 – 31 ℃, overcast, stayed at home playing with cell phone.

October 6, Saturday, 24 – 34 ℃, cloudy, stayed at home playing with cell phone.

October 7, Sunday, 22 – 33 ℃, overcast, stayed home reading books and F1.

October 8, Monday, 21 – 32 ℃, cloudy, Guests came with Wu in the morning. Went to the office to process documents in the afternoon. It was Feng Taisheng and Ma’s birthday, we went to dinner together and drank a lot of alcohol. Gang and Man were so drunk.

October 9, Tuesday, 23 – 31 ℃, cloudy, went to the office and talked with integration department personnel about information integration works. Party group meeting in the afternoon.

October 10, Wednesday, 20 – 30 ℃, sunny, was in the dormitory in the morning. Went to the office to process documents in the afternoon, went to Guoda to open a room. In the evening, Honghe Ouyang came, I did not eat with them so I wouldn’t scare them. At 11 pm went to Guoda to XXX with Tan, we did it three times, I came, tired.

October 11, Thursday 20 – 30 ℃, sunny, Honghe Ouyang came over in the morning, I chatted with him about next year. Honghe Ouyang promised to meet our 6,000 boxes of supply. Liao came at night for dinner, Huang Ting also joined us.

October 12, Friday, 21 – 30 ℃, overcast, went to the office in the morning, went back to Nanning with Wu at 3 pm.

October 13, Saturday, 21 – 30 ℃, cloudy, went to Wei-Ying Department with Sha in the morning. Shuang’s computer was broken, so I was looking for a laptop computer for him. Lenovo C460A was quite good, only 6,500 yuan, but it was out of stock. So I had to go with HP DV2621, 7,500 yuan. He just passed the graduate school interview, can be released in three days. More than 600 graduating students only 16 people have passed, and there are A, B and C, three grades, he was grade A. (I think Shuang is his son)

October 14, Sunday, 21 – 28 ℃, cloudy, got a hair cut in the morning, stayed at home in the afternoon, tomorrow flying to Shenzhen with Sha and Lu Jiantao etc.

October 15, Monday, 23 – 29 ℃, Sunny, at 12:30 we went to the airport together, Teng Shana has been sent to the airport already. We arrived to Shenzhen at 3 pm and settled in. Secretary He, Factory director Song and sale leaders all came, we drank a lot of foreign alcohol, too much.

October 16, Tuesday, 23 – 30 ℃, sunny, after breakfast, Manager Li accompanied us to see the aircraft carrier Minsk. I spent 950 on a 1:30 ratio metal model, then went back to the hotel to wait for her friends. We then went to buy (black marketed) imported phones, they were really cheap, the price difference on the high-end product is over 1,000 yuan. I bought a Samsung U608 for Sha. Drank some more at night.

Snapshots of Shanghai

Key — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:11:03 +0000

Hello everyone, as the Lantern Festival also called Yuanxiao Festival on the 15^th lunar day of the first month (2/28/2010) officially marks the last day of the 2010 Spring Festival in China, I am also back from my traveling in China. Just like millions of people in China reluctantly going back to work from their long Spring Festival vacation this Monday, I too made my way to the office feeling a bit jet lagged and resumed my work.

Special thanks to Randy – AlleyCat and Matt Sawtell for submitting guest posts during the month of February, rewards for your work will be sent out shortly as I promised. Also many thanks to ChinaHush contributors: CC, Annie and Nancy for writing blog posts during the Spring Festival Holiday season covering my absence.

The following are some snap shots I took in Shanghai during this trip I would like to share with you all!

Start with food: seafood lovers,you have to try the hairy crab (大闸蟹).

Ganghui, Shanghai

Chenghuangmiao, Shanghai: (A temple for the god who guards a city) on the first day of Spring Festival.

Year of the tiger

Chenghuangmiao, Shanghai: Wow Obama Mart!

The Bund, Shanghai: getting ready for the world expo.

In a cab

Bar. Constellation, Shanghai

Citic Square, Shanghai: Year of the tiger

Jingan temple, Shanghai

Nanjing Road at night

Top view of the Bund, from the VUE bar at Hyatt at the Bund

Taikang Road, Shanghai

The horse that turns back is smart: Google’s staying in China

Annie Lee — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:47:00 +0000

From ifeng:

At 15:00 March 2^nd, the first press conference of the 2010 NPC & CPPCC Annual Sessions (aka. two sessions) was held on the third floor of Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The conference was opened by spokesman Zhao Qizheng, who answered a few questions from reporters and journalists. Here is an excerpt of the press conference.

NPC= National People’s Congress;

CPPCC=Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

Every March, the two sessions will hold whole conference in succession. The mission of the two sessions is to collect requests and requirements from the people, and report them to the Party, whom act to improve the situation by making policy or the like.

[People's Daily]: First I would like to ask you about your comment on the Google affair. At first, it is only a corporation’s business behavior, subsequently it was said to become a diplomatic affair, how do you think of that? Second question is about a movie from last year called The Founding of a Republic (建国大业). The movie brought to us the process in which the Party consulted with peoples from all walks to found the new country. But as we perceive, current political consultative activities present some sort of casualness that goes without restriction or limits from laws or policies. Some regional governments have countered that by listing the consultative right of decision making into government documents. And what CPPCC will do? Thank you.

[Zhao Qizheng]: Political consultation isn’t of no procedure. But our procedure must keep up with the time, and get better. Procedural experiments done by regional government will serve as reference to CPPCC.

As for Google affair, there have been mountains of report and comments form in and out of the country, which did provide some backgrounds we don’t know of at the first place, but I did know about Google’s entry into China back in 2005 when I was working for the news office of the State Council. I know exactly that, in 2005 they came to China to research on the Internet market and its environment, and they dig deep. A big foreign corporation from whichever field will dig down into the investment environment before they enter China, and Google pore over China’s legal environment sentence by sentence, word by word. Then in 2006 Google made serious promises about these legal issues as it launched official entry into China. Now they said they got hacked by Chinese hackers, and alluded to the China government, which is groundless and makes no sense, because Chinese laws prohibit any kinds of hacker attacks and enact legal penalty for them. All of us seat here today use computer everyday, I myself was hacked to black screen, lost important documents, I hate hackers from the bottom of my heart.

During my service in Shanghai, I have plenty of touches with foreign companies, from whom I learned that there was an adaptation phase for new comers. They have to learn to fit in the Chinese economic environment as well as Chinese culture, a process they have to go through. And for IT industry’s operation environment, the existence of hacker is as common as virus like H1N1 in our everyday life, you have to adapt to it. I believe protection against these viruses is not a problem for high-tech company like Google.

We learned from Darwin’s evolution theory that species must adapt to its environment before it achieves evolution, not the other way around.

Some media think that Baidu will take the country at the absent of Google. I believe Baidu may disagree with that. Wang Meng skiing on the track, if there is no rival beside her, she couldn’t have break the record so quickly. Thus a good corporation must have a good rival to drive him forward.

Google’s Cloud Computing is superb, so is Li Yanhong’s (Baidu CEO) Box Computing. I would like to see them competing, of course I haven’t ask Li Yanhong about this, may be he’ll agree too.

In China we have an old idiom, “a good horse will not turn back to eat the grass behind. There is a problem in it, why shouldn’t it turn back if there is good grass. A good horse eats good grass, so I say the horse that turn back could be a smart one. China’s Internet is open, and it will continue to create favorable investment environment for foreign business, as well as protect their legitimate benefits. China welcome business from all over the world to take a part in China, and we hope that foreign investors respect the public benefit, cultural tradition and laws of China, and take on relevant social responsibilities.

Many of the members of CPPCC can’t live without the Internet, their interests are connected to the Internet, and the above is what I conclude from chatting with them.

A glimpse at Chinese New Year paintings

Annie Lee — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:22:52 +0000

From Unicornblog:

There are generally two categories in Chinese ancient paintings methodologically, one is hand-drawn Chinese paintings that are mounted into scrolls, the other is New Year paintings and engraved paintings that adopt block printing.

New Year painting was one of the most prevailing arts among Chinese folks. In old times, people stick New Year paintings（年画）, door god picture（门神） and New Year scrolls (春联) on the walls, as a way to welcome the up-coming spring and exorcize evils. The paintings would stay till the next year. However, few family stick New Year paintings nowadays, because the paintings do not fit the modern interior style any more, or people has changed perhaps. Door god picture, as a kind of New Year paintings, survives, and New Year scrolls is still popular too.

Thanks to New Year painting exhibition hosted by National Art Museum of China, we could have a glimpse at the traditional custom, as well as appreciate the unique Nian Wei（年味）, the atmosphere of Chinese Spring Festival brought by these paintings. Take a look.

The exhibition lasts from Feb 9^th till 27^th.

Pictures from National Art Museum of China.

Featuring a mother tiger and her child

Door god pictures, they are pasted on the front door to guide the family and drive away evils.

Featuring the Empty Fort Strategy, a story from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of Chinese Four Classic Novels.

An Open Letter to President Obama from Li Tusheng

CC — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:44:43 +0000

This letter is a harsh, scathing, sarcastic and incredibly blunt criticism of President Obama. On Blogchina, this post has 6,221 “顶” (people in support) and 2,531 “反对”(people against). It is the most read post in the past 48 hours, with over 40,000 hits.

Li Tusheng, the author of the letter, was born in Zhejiang, and graduated from the People’s Liberation Army, Nanjing Army Command College in 1991 and is now a senior advisor to the Association for Traditional Chinese Culture. He has lectured and written widely on traditional Chinese culture.

From Blogchina:

It is now the Spring Festival in China, the most important traditional festival for Chinese internationally, and the mood was originally peaceful and beautiful. However, Your Excellency the President acts like a specter of evil, imposing trade sanctions, selling weapons to Taiwan, and meeting with the Dalai Lama – but what is his motive? The U.S. has been continuously aggravating China in order to keep a check on China. You can say that the successive presidents of the U.S. have been rather dismal, and you have acted even worse. These sinister intentions and power seeking ways cannot be understood by the peace-loving Chinese people. Mr. President, will you only feel satisfied when you have agitated China into complete unrest?

Let’s first talk about the Dalai Lama issue. His Excellency the President stressed that he was meeting with the Dalai Lama in a “private capacity.” In that case, what kind of “capacity” is “private capacity” ? When President Obama is conversing with the Dalai Lama in the White House, is he no longer the authoritative President of the United States? This seems unlikely, right? Naturally, one would expect that, when the controversy arose over Clinton and Lewinsky, it was purely a private matter of “You are willing, I am willing, as long as we are both willing,” it only came from his own desires, does not represent the will of the President, it’s even more “private” than President Obama meeting with the Dalai Lama, right? However, because it became a “public” issue and a “major” issue that affected the world, Clinton was forced to repeatedly apologize. Now, Mr. President, risking good U.S.-China relations, you have met with the Dalai Lama, who wants to split up China, with an iron heart, with the goal of creating trouble for China, containing China’s rise and recovery. Even if it was a meeting in a “private capacity,” it is hard to say that it is only a “private” matter between two people.

If saying something is in “private capacity” can cover up anything in the United States, isn’t that essentially a license to kill? Therefore, whether it’s in private or in public, Obama is the current U.S. president, even if he was stripped of his clothes in the street, who would say that he was just a regular person, and not the President of the United States? It was reported that when the President met with the Dalai Lama, there was an overall effort to keep it “low profile.” What does keeping it “low-profile” mean? Does that mean having the meeting take place in the White House? This is just a cheap trick, and it won’t fool the Chinese people. Personally, I really cannot respect this style of action. A head of state should just do things openly, and be clear about which things you should not do, only this way can you deal with your issues cleanly. Even if this was “low-profile” to an extreme degree, the President has directly spoken to the Dalai Lama – isn’t this challenging a core interest of the China? Oh Obama, this is a flagrant violation of your commitments! Even if you chose a pigsty or a dog kennel for the meeting place, the political impact will still be significant! The U.S. is always looking for China’s soft spot, without just cause, and everyone feels embarrassed for the U.S.’s crude behavior. How come Uncle Sam never blushes? What the Dalai Lama really is, Your Excellency the President should know the answer. He instigated the riots, and up to today exerting a lifetime of effort trying to split up China, and now looks old and withered. He orchestrated the 3-14 Lhasa riots, owes a blood debt to the Tibetan people, and in the past two years has been speaking everywhere, out of fear that China is not in complete chaos. All this time, the U.S. has called him a “spiritual leader,” a “religious figure.” Does that really fit? At best, he is a smiling terrorist, Mr. President, you have cheerfully met with him, and that shows you have only paid lip-service to your counter-terrorism efforts.

The Chinese people have historically loved peace and have been averse to war and bloodshed. In contrast, U.S. soldiers are just itching to kill, and would be bored if they did not rape Japanese women. When conducting diplomatic relations with China on the Taiwan issue, what the U.S. should have done was clear as night and day, but the result is that the U.S. strongly undermined the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and blocked the possibility for re-unification. Now, Your Excellency the President is pushing for arms sales to succeed, increasing the risk of war in China, allowing U.S. arms dealers to have ill-gotten gains; is this how the U.S. advocates freedom, democracy and equality? The U.S. exports war to the world around the clock.

The day before Lunar New Year’s Eve, U.S. troops in Afghanistan have fought a fierce battle with the Taliban in order to bring lasting peace and stability. I have never believed that the U.S. could bring peace to a country; heavily armed U.S. soldiers can only provoke more intense resistance and inspire more people to become suicide bombers. Wherever the U.S. militarily attacks will turn into a hell, wherever the U.S. stations troops will turn into an endless disaster. In Chonburi Province, Thailand, to engage in field survival training, soldiers have tried to eat scorpions, lizards and drink snake blood. Mr. President, take a look at your soldiers, what is the difference between them and beasts? The Taliban are willing to resolve the problem through negotiations and achieve national integrity and independence, just with the condition that foreign troops cannot be stationed in Afghanistan – is this condition wholly unreasonable? However, the U.S. always has to forcibly poke their nose into everything, and the result is that they have more failures than successes. It is said that after the U.S. destroys the Taliban, they will implement a new local government, provide job opportunities for the people, and supply utilities and other services to demoralize Taliban followers. Mr. President, open your eyes, before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, even though the locals did not push for a new government, they had jobs, food, water and electricity. Now, after the U.S. has invaded, water and electricity have all become problems. Your army is really just boasting, for they have only cared about self-preservation on the battlefield and after they get off the battlefield, they fabricate results, relying solely on high-technology for any sort of advantage. With this kind of performance, wouldn’t it have been better to stay home? Mr. President, what do you say? Reality has already proven that, no matter how powerful the United States is, regardless of arms sales, threats, sanctions, these cannot really solve any problems, they will only make Uncle Sam more and more passive, more bruised and battered. In order to deal with Iran, you have supported Saddam Hussein, in order to achieve ulterior motives, you have supported Bin Laden, in order to pull strings from behind the scenes for China, you have sheltered East Turkistan elements, what good can come of this? This is just shooting yourself in the foot, even to this day you do not know the pain, you really have become quite numb. Will you get it only when the illness is beyond cure?

Perhaps, Mr. President, you have no interest in world peace, you’re just solidifying your enchanting smile, and putting on a long face looking for murder, following the tracks of Bush’s road of war? But this is obviously a dead end. Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be resolved, North Korea and Iran can’t be resolved either, the problem will just continue to get worse, and create even more trouble. Are the dirty sheets that Bush Jr. left behind not enough for you to clean? Why do you have to exacerbate the situation? Mr. President, when you visited China you said so many kind things, why don’t you show some sincerity and learn some traditional Chinese culture? Do not always think of dominating the world and pre-emptively striking, you must also learn to not impose on people! Afghanistan and Iraq have never offended the United States, why must you invade and occupy them? Now, Afghanistan and Iraq have become incredibly complex and difficult, and it’s impossible to pull-out, isn’t this all because of militarily intervening in the first place? A group led by the Dalai Lama engaged in terrorist activities, and yet the President still has met with him, what kind of counter-terrorism is that? Stop the nonsense immediately, don’t be embarrassed, just change when you know you’re wrong, this is always wiser than self-defeat. Also, instead of burning money in the war, why don’t you use some more on your people, or save some for re-election? When you were competing with Hillary and McCain, you expressed every possible hope, so why are you freely violating the American people’s trust now?

Mr. President, you also want to save the U.S. economy and regain the people’s support, and then continue to serve a second term? Of course, it is glorious to be re-elected, but, what is the meaning of continuing on in this fashion? The U.S. should commit to some humanitarian actions, not always bully weaker countries, not scare countries like North Korea and Iran all day, or give deadly weapons to Taiwan, and undermine cross-strait relations. If you give a thief enough rope he will hang himself. Mr. President, because you have received the Nobel Peace Prize, have you thought about how to contribute to world peace? You can’t always neglect your duties, pretend that this person is your enemy, or that person is your opponent, right? Also, saying one thing while you were in China, and doing another after you go back, isn’t that too hypocritical? There is an old Chinese saying: If a man cannot keep his word, what is he good for? Being the head of a large state, why don’t you live up to your promises, rather than going back on your own words? How the people of the United States chose this kind of President is really quite puzzling to me.

Actually, there is really no need for the hypocrisy. If you do not wish to contribute to world peace, you can close your door and live a happy life, why must you inspire aggression and subversion in the name of world peace? Also, what can the U.S. really achieve with their continued development of sophisticated weapons technology? Especially with a large budget deficit, and a staggering amount of foreign debt. How many people in the world today have no clothes or food and struggle with death, if this money was used to help victims and refugees, there would not be war and displacement, and the world would have achieved peace already. Mr. President, you should learn some Confucian lessons of moderation, whether for personal cultivation, or for performing the duties of the president, you need to learn these lessons. Confucian notions of peace, friendship and harmony can be learned for free, Mr. President, you can participate in the Confucian Institutes that China has established in the United States, and you don’t have to worry about spending taxpayer money.

Also, I advise you, Mr. President: Don’t always pretend that the lives of people in the Middle East don’t matter, they are also of flesh and bone, they also have parents, no one is born to be a suicide bomber. No person of any country is less worthy than a U.S. soldier. Even people of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, they are also of flesh and blood, they do not kill for the sake of killing, blow themselves up in order to hurt the innocent, the kind of tragedy is because of U.S. hegemony. If the U.S. can let go of expansion and aggression, these people will naturally stop their terrorist acts. As long as the United States is willing to take the lead in the elimination of nuclear weapons, other countries will follow, and contribute to world peace and stability. Now, the whole world is watching the United States, and Mr. President, you have a role to play, you can’t go against the trend of the times, and continue down the road of war. This way of doing things is too dangerous, step on the brakes, the U.S. looks prosperous on the surface, but it is in fact riddled with problems and has been exposed for what it is, it is more advisable to try for recuperation. Even if U.S. soldiers can’t live a day without killing, you still need to recharge your batteries, regain your spirits before you go overseas to waste lives. Just going by their current poor performance, it would be strange if you are not disgraced! Look at history, Mr. Obama, don’t continue to wash Bush’s dirty sheets, at the same time, don’t dirty yours too much, the next U.S. President does not have the obligation to help you wash them.

Your Excellency the President appear to be concerned with the livelihood of the people of the United States. In order to protect the economic interests of the United States, you have waged an anti-dumping case with China, resulting in losses for both sides, particularly the United States. The United States has always been opposed to protectionism, and has used gunboats to open trade, and today is more explicitly pursuing protectionism than any other country. Is the U.S. really this devastated? Otherwise, how come it has so little confidence? That being the case, why must it instigate aggression everywhere and stretch its hand out so far?

Beijing guys hitch-hike all the way to visit one’s girlfriend in Berlin

Annie Lee — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:20:40 +0000

From xinhuanet:

Two Beijing guys spent 3 and a half months hitch-hiking over 16,000 km across 13 countries to see one of the guy’s girl friend in Berlin, Germany. Altogether they took 88 hitch rides, including tricycle, tractor and carriage. Their journey was dubbed “the most romantic hitch-hike in history” by netizens.

Liu Chang and Gu Yue are both born in 70s, they were first seen standing in the mist of Hou Hai thumbing for rides on June 8^th last year. Carrying super heavy packs, they convinced the visa officers of 12 countries by the purpose of “backpacking travel”. Getting all visas done, they hit the road with cashes, credit cards, sleeping bags, laptop, camera and a few clothes.

The most difficult ride is actually in China from Beijing to Hebei, according to Liu Chang who recalled that they waited in vain for over an hour in Hou Hai, nobody would stop to take them. Finally they got help from one driver who took them to the entrance of the highway leading to Hebei, where they continued to wait despite the rain storm. They were asked to leave by some road maintenance workers, one of whom thoughtfully said: “not many cars go to Berlin from here.”

Hitch-hiking is far more difficult than they imagine. From Beijing to Berlin, these two swarthy, ragged Chinese guys with half long hair were turned down by 1000-some drivers. It happened a lot of times when they had to wait hours before getting a hitch, the longest one they waited for 2 days at road side.

“Countries like Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan don’t have the custom of hitch-hiking, and we don’t speak their language.” Said Gu Yue, who settled this by having someone written a few cards in Russian, saying “we need to hitch ride to Germany from China” “Could you give us a ride?” “Excuse us, we don’t have money for you but we’ve got cigarette and smiles” …

The more they hitch, the more they love it, according to Liu Chang, and meeting so many different people is the biggest reward: a Mr. Qiao, who is delivering goods from Hebei to Shanxi, decided to keep driving for 20 years in order to build houses for his two sons; a petrol truck driver in Xinjiang liked to take every hitch-hiker to kill the loneliness of the long journey; a financial officer who got fired in the financial crisis took them to Czech the day after he landed a new job; a easy-going CEO who drove a limo; a drunk driver in Georgia who played “Speed” live…

The funniest experience happened in northern Iraq, where they got on a tractor and rode for 2 or 3 km before the driver switched into a smoky village. They realized that the tractor was rushing all the way to help put out the fire, and they were brought there along. When the fire was under control the two become the scene, and treated with dinner at an Iraqi home.

Three and a half month later, they finally reached Berlin, where lived Gu Yue’s girl friend Ika (dubbed).

“I traveled in the direction of sunset for the last 3 months, because I know Berlin is where the sun sets, and that is where my Ika lives.” Said Gu Yue.

Ika, on the other hand said: “next time you want to see me, take the plane.”

Their journey was tagged “Most romantic hitch-hiking in history” “Best Valentine gift” by netizens. At the moment, Gu Yuan and Ika are on vacation in Thailand, celebrating their Spring Festival.

For more, watch the “Xing Zhe” program aired 22:30 in Travel Channel.

pictures from Netease:

Gu Yue in Turkey

On the tricycle in Aksu, Xinjing.

Pretty and kind-hearted driver.

It is common to wait for hours before get a ride, the longest one they wait for 2 days on road side.

On a truck that’s delivering Coca-cola In Uzbekistan.

The tractor that took them to the fire scene, and got them a dinner in an Iraq home.

Taking a gypsy carriage in Bulgaria

Finally they reached Berlin. Gu Yue and his girl friend Ika, who said “next time you want to see me, take the plane.”

How come girls from the countryside are more open about sex?

CC — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:21:34 +0000

This short article (from Tianya) was written by a student from the countryside. It has no statistics, nor is it necessarily anthropological, but it is an honest testimony from personal experience, which in my opinion, is sometimes more valuable than quasi-objective statistical conclusions.

It starts out:

I, myself, am a person from the countryside。 I’m not writing this to be discriminatory, I just hope it leads to reflection, and maybe to finding the source of the problem.

Generally, everyone thinks that the countryside stands for conservativism, and so kids that come from the countryside are more simple, better behaved, but if you closely examine the current situation, you will find that it is quite the opposite. On the streets, women from the countryside are more likely to expose their bodies; rural women rely more on sex and dubious relationships to be promoted, or exchange sex for opportunities and money. They are also more likely to prefer vicious forms of competition.

The superficial reason is, because their parents are busy with their own livelihoods, they are left at home for long periods of time, and so it is difficult for them to form positive mentalities. Also, oftentimes, the countryside is far from simplistic, in the past, in order to fight for land, to fight for access to water to flood rice fields, to fight for a modest amount of estate, even brothers would use knives on each other. Neighbors even became enemies. So saying that the countryside is simplistic might just be a bias that everyone holds!

The mid-level reason is, the process of growing up poor makes life itself competitive. If your brother or sister got more, you would naturally get less. Thus, “conflict” become the norm, (of course they think that this is just progress), prematurely, and this is conflict without any rules. This makes them always worrying about access to resources when they are adults in the workplace. Most importantly, they often do not feel guilty when they hurt others in competition.

Now for the deeply-embedded reason. Currently, society lacks a medium for social classes to fluctuate and change. The kids in the cities always use more resources, while these resources are lacking for kids in rural areas. External help is lacking, and their own abilities are lacking, so people can only use their own bodies as a resource, women use sex to get money and opportunities, and men use force to get money and opportunities.